sweet and pea

For some January is a dour month full of self-righteous privation. For others it is a time of optimism and renewal. For me, it’s a time of reflection and recommitment to the goal I’ve been pursuing all year: mindful consumption.

After the excess of Christmas it feels natural to focus on consuming less, and the best way I’ve found is to own less. Letting go of items lurking in cupboards and drawers makes me much more mindful of what I bring into our home. There’s nothing quite like discovering you had over twenty-five bags of unneeded and unwanted clothing jammed into closets and chests around the house to make you think twice about buying a new pair of jeans. Jeans? I just dropped fifteen pairs into the donation bin, I don’t need a new pair no matter how good the sale is!

But the clothes were the easy part. Now I’m minimalizing the kitchen. Anyone who cooks knows how quickly items can accumulate in those drawers, and how necessary they all feel, even when you never use them, even when you’re not even sure how to use them. Citrus zester? Melon baller? Potato ricer? Can I really say goodbye to you?

To put off these agonizing decisions I dig deep into the most unused cupboard of all and find an empty cutlery box and a package of expired lady fingers, these I can throw out, no problem. But wait, what’s in this bag? My daughters forgotten Halloween candy? Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! Salty-sweet melt in the mouth chocolate and peanut butter! I am tempted to eat them all.

But one look at the ingredients list turns me off; polyglycerol pilyricinoleat, soy lecithin, tertiary butylhydroquinone? No thanks, if I can’t pronounce it then I probably shouldn’t eat it.

But once you start thinking of peanut butter and chocolate it’s just about impossible to stop. So I made something with ingredients I can pronounce. These breakfast bombs each contain a quarter cup of oats and a quarter of a banana, but most importantly they are filled with peanut butter and chocolate!

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats
2 large bananas
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup natural peanut butter
1/8 cup chocolate chips
1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 350C
2. Pulse oats in a food processor until they resemble coarse crumbs
3. Mash bananas and vanilla extract
4. Combine banana mixture with oats and chia seeds
5. Allow banana oat mixture to rest for 5-10 minutes
6. Divide mixture into 8 balls and shape each into a small bowl, place on a parchment lines baking sheet (just like making a pinch pot!)
7. Bake for 12 minutes
8. When oat cups have cooked fill with peanut butter and sprinkle with chocolate and a pinch of salt