Overnight Steel Cut Oats

I made breakfast last night in the form of overnight oats. Usually overnight oats are made with uncooked oats but I wanted some chewy oats this morning and used cooked steel cut oats instead. It worked.

I put in 1/2 cup cooked steel cut oats and 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt.

I used Fage brand that I picked up from Costco. It’s so creamy.

Then I mixed in 1/2 cup almond milk, sliced bananas, 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder and stevia sweetener (or any sweetener of choice).

I mixed it all in the bowl. I also mashed the banana with a fork to help blend in the mix.

Since I had an early appt this morning, I put my overnight oats in a container for easy breakfast to go.

After sitting in the fridge overnight, my thick, chewy oatmeal breakfast was ready this morning.

Chocolate creaminess & banana chunks in every bite. Delicious.

Travel Memories

(This is part of my “30 Days of Reflection” before I turn 30. You can read more about it -> here)

One of my favorite “girls only” trip was Chicago in the late summer of 2007.  We had the perfect weather in Chicago. We walked everywhere, we ate everything, we partied at night and we packed as much touristy excursions as we can.

Looking back, it is even more special because in the recent years, it has been a challenge to have everyone to travel together. I’m at the age where my friends are getting married, planning to have babies, are currently pregnant or have newborn at home.

If I could describe this trip in a few words, I would choose carefree, colorful and memorable.

We all flew in from different airports in SoCal and met each other at O’Hare airport. We stayed in the heart of downtown, at Embassy Suites and it was the perfect hotel for us.

I was still working in the hotel  industry then,  so we got a very big discount for our suite. $39 per night that included breakfast, happy hour and a welcome champagne surprise. We love to travel on a budget and this was definitely one of our best deals yet. Maybe our best deal ever.

We had a friend who lived in Chicago and she took us on a food tour.

We definitely indulged. It didn’t help that the weekend we were in town was during “Taste of Chicago” food festival.

We posed with our food babies like it was cool.

Even though we ate a lot, we also walked even more. We always had room for more food, especially chocolate.

Home chocolate home 🙂

We don’t do a lot of walking where we live,  so we enjoyed it a lot when we walked everywhere during the trip. We discovered that Chicago is one of those big cities where you can walk everywhere.

There were plenty of parks whenever we wanted to stop and rest our feet.

Part II is coming soon.  More on nightlife, tours and shopping.

We only stayed 4 full days but we packed as much as we can.

Have you ever been to Chicago? What did you enjoy the most during your trip?

I really loved that we could walk everywhere. I always believe that the best way to explore a new city is to walk as much as possible.