I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day weekend, and I hope you’re ready for the winner of The Super Breakfast Bowl Challenge #1: Avocado!

First of all, thank you to everyone for all of your submissions. I was amazed with your breakfast creativity, and impressed that so many of you stepped up to take on the challenge – congrats to all of you on your breakfast creations!

Although all of your creations were amazing, unfortunately there can only be one winner. So using the random integer generator, the winner of The Super Breakfast Bowl Challenge #1 is… drum roll please…

Danielle of Coffee Run with her fabulous Rocky Road Oatmeal – congratulations Danielle!

Danielle took on our challenge and created a delicious Chocolate Chai Pudding with avocado, which she incorporated into a whole slew of breakfast creations – including her delicious looking Rocky Road Oatmeal. Congratulations on the win Danielle, send us your address at thesuperbreakfastbowlchallenge@gmail.com, and be on the look-out for your prizes in the mail: The Chef’n Vibe Avocado Slicer, courtesy of Kitchen Stuff Plus, an avocado gift pack, courtesy of Avocados from Mexico, and a ton of Newman’s Own Organic products.

Now, time to share Danielle’s Rockin’ Rocky Road Oatmeal recipe…

Rocky Road Oatmeal

Ingredients:

Chocolate Chai Pudding

• 1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
• 12 oz. (1 block) silken tofu
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp. ginger
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. allspice
• Sweetener, to taste (I used 5 packets of Nu Naturals Stevia. You could also use agave- starting with 1/3 cup and adding more if desired)

Rocky Road Oatmeal

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1/2 cup water
• Slices of banana
• Coconut Cream
• Crushed Walnuts
• Chocolate Chai Pudding

Directions:

Chocolate Chai Pudding

1. Blend ingredients together
2. Serve and enjoy as a pudding! Or incorporate into the oatmeal as follows…

Rocky Road Oatmeal

1. Cook oats with water
2. Top with/mix in rest of ingredients (including Chocolate Chai Pudding)
3. Serve and enjoy!

Thanks again to everyone who submitted a recipe for the avocado challenge, and stay tuned for the winner of the Flax Seed Challenge tomorrow. There’s still time to submit your Flax Seed breakfast recipes today, so challenge yourself today!

Happy Super Breakfast Bowl Snacking!

Lindsey Toth at Healthy Blog Snack

By Lindsey Toth from Healthy Blog Snack

Welcome to the beginning of The Super Breakfast Bowl Challenge everyone! I hope you are all revved up and ready to challenge your early-morning selves with some breakfasty goodness.

Today’s the day we tout the wonderful characteristics of the Avocado. You can review the complete challenge perks and guidelines here, but to recap, send your creative avocado breakfast creations +pictures to thesuperbreakfastbowlchallenge@gmail.com by Sunday, February 14^th. The winner of today’s challenge will get The Chef’n Vibe Avocado Slicer, courtesy of Kitchen Stuff Plus, in addition to boat loads of Newman’s Own Organics products AND an avocado gift pack courtesy of Avocados from Mexico.

Now for the Avocado Fun!

The avocado is actually a fruit, not a vegetable, and is native to the Caribbean, Mexico, South America, and Central America, although you could try growing one in your own home or backyard if you’d like. These pear-shaped fruits pack a mean nutrient-rich punch, weighing in at about 250 calories each, less than 5 grams of fat per serving, 80 micrograms of lutein and 19 micrograms of beta-carotene (which both help to maintain eye health), and over 20 other vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. In short, avocados are nutrient powerhouses!

Fat?! What?!

You heard correctly when I said avocados have fat in them – did you know they had fat? Yep, a fruit with fat. Who’da thunk? This isn’t greasy, fried-food fat though, it’s a heart-healthy fat called monounsaturated fat. Monounsaturated fat is good for your heart because it has actually been shown to reduce bad cholesterol levels – LDL cholesterol – in your blood, lowering your risk for heart disease and stroke.

Shopping for Avocados

So how do you know if an avocado is ripe for the pickin’ at your local supermarket? First off, try to avoid ones with dark blemishes on the skin, or ones that are overly soft. The best way to tell if an avocado is ready for immediate consumption is to gently squeeze the fruit in the palm of your hand. Ripe, ready-to-eat fruit will be firm, but it will wield slightly to the pressure. If you plan to use the fruit in a few days, pick avocados that are extra-firm, so they will be ripe by the time you want to use them. Only hard, and unripened avocados at your stores? When you get home, place the unripened fruit in a brown paper bag and store it at room temperature until it’s ready to eat – you can even throw in an apple or a banana to accelerate the process, as these fruits give off a ripening agent called ethylene. Soft fruit can be placed in the refrigerator until it is ready to eat, but not more than a few days because it can become too ripe.

How Do I Eat an Avocado?

One of the trickiest things about avocados, I think, is figuring out how to eat them. They are an awkward shape, with an awkward pit, and an awkward skin. Awwwkwaaaaaaaard. So, what’s the trick to digging into this delicious fruit?

1) Start with a ripe avocado, and run your knife lengthwise around it to split the avocado in half.

2) Now the tricky part: removing the pit. If you’re up to the challenge, use a knife to strike the pit, making it stick. Once the knife is stuck in the pit, rotate it, and pull the knife and pit out of the avocado. If that seems a little too Evel Knievel for you, you can use a spoon to scoop it out.

3) If you’re looking for pretty slices, gently use a butter knife to slice strips of avocado (careful not to slice through the skin), and then turn the skin inside out to release the meat. If you’re making a spread or a dip, and don’t care what it looks like, just use a spoon to scoop the avocado out.

Avocado Breakfast Toast

There are a zillion ways to eat an avocado: topped on a salad, mixed as guacamole, rolled into sushi – the list is endless! My all-time favorite way to eat avocado though, is in Avocado Toast. I found this recipe in the cookbook Muscle Chow, from the fabulous folks at Men’s Health magazine, and made a few tiny recipe tweaks to fit my personal fancy. The foreword of the book was written by David Grotto, RD, LDN, who is a leader in the field of nutrition and dietetics. I figured if he was on board, the book must be worth checking out. Use your shopping and eating skills from above to take this toast for morning test drive!

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of whole wheat bread, toasted
• 2 teaspoons of Dijon-honey mustard
• ½ avocado, peeled and sliced
• ½ tomato, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon of extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of dried basil
• ½ tablespoon of ground flaxseed
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1) Spread 1 teaspoon of the Dijon-honey mustard on each piece of toast.

2) Add half of the avocado and half of the tomato to each slice.

3) Drizzle each slice of toast with the olive oil.

4) Sprinkle both slices with the basil, ground flaxseed, and the salt and pepper

5) Eat with caution – this can get messy but it’s totally worth it!!

We Challenge YOU!

Now that you’re in-the-know on the awesomeness of avocados, don’t forget to send us YOUR crazy avocado breakfast creations. If your creation is chosen, you’ll be the lucky winner of The Chef’n Vibe Avocado Slicer, a ton of Newman’s Own Organics products, an avocado gift pack courtesy of Avocados from Mexico, AND your recipe will be featured on all four of our blogs!

Stay tuned for Elizabeth’s flax seed post tomorrow!

Happy Super Breakfast Bowl Snacking!

Lindsey Toth at Healthy Blog Snack

P.S. Speaking of Challenges … don’t forget to VOTE for the winner of GGB’s January Challenge HERE!

So—what’s the dealio with this so called “challenge?”

Okay—here’s the 411.

Five of us nutrition ladies—Jessica at A Fete For Food, Janel at Eat Well with Janel, Elizabeth at Don’t White Sugar Coat It, Lindsey at Healthy Blog Snack, and Corinne at Green Grapes Blog (yours truly), invite YOU to take the Super Breakfast Bowl Challenge! If you accept, you’ll incorporate a food that typically doesn’t make it onto your breakfast plate or into your usual b-fast bowl—or hey, if you’re really in a jam … your hand or napkin. Simply put, as long as ya eat breakfast within an hour of your rise-n-shine time, incorporate the chosen breakfast item, and send us a pic of your b-fast duds along with its recipe within six days of the highlighted item’s post—you’re good to go and eligible for prizes!!!!!!!!!!

Woo-hoo! Yes, we said prizes.

The Deal

But, before we get on to prizes, let’s talk a lot more nitty-gritty, shall we??? I know—details, details, details…

Starting next week—on February 8^th—we’ll each have a day where we’ll post why our ingredient is AWESOME and invite you to use the ingredient in your breakfast within the upcoming week.

The Five Super Breakfast Bowl Challenge Ingredients, Revealed

1. Avocado – Monday, February 8^th

• Pics and recipes needed Sunday, February 14^th

2. Flax Seed – Tuesday, February 9^th

• Pics and recipes needed Monday, February 15^th

3. Lentils – Wednesday, February 10^th

• Pics and recipes needed Tuesday, February 16^th

4. Quinoa – Thursday, February 11^th

• Pics and recipes needed Wednesday, February 17^th

5. Walnuts – Friday, February 12^th

• Pics and recipes needed Thursday, February 18^th

Now, to get clout and be eligible to receive a FAB prize—you’ll need to send a pic of your breakfast item along with its recipe to thesuperbreakfastbowlchallenge@gmail.com within six days of the ingredient’s post date (noted above).

For example, if Lindsey writes about avocado’s awesomeness next Monday, then you’ll have until Sunday to send in a pic of your avocado breakfast goodness! AND—if you win, on Monday, the picture of your breakfast along with its recipe will be posted on ALL of our blogs!

So … Basically …

Each “ingredient post” will appear on each of our 5 blogs and each person who sends in a breakfast pic with the chosen ingredient AND recipe will be eligible for a prize! But … wait, there’s more! The winner—chosen by a random number generator—will be featured on ALL of our blogs along with your name and blog/website name, if ya got one.

Don’t ya love it?!? Cooking experience, health, creativity, great prizes, and free publicity all in one!

So, if ya use all five ingredients and submit a pic each time, you’ll have FIVE opportunities to win some pretty fabulous items—if I don’t say so myself! Plus, get publicity across the blogosphere!

PRIZE TIME!

Now, what you’ve all been waiting for!

Below are the items you could nab if you enter each Super Breakfast Bowl Challenge!

1. Avocado: The Chef’n Vibe Avocado Slicer courtesy of Kitchen Stuff Plus, lots of Newman’s Own Organics fun, and an avocado gift pack courtesy of Avocados from Mexico!
2. Flax Seed: Fantastic Vega Products and Purely Elizabeth’s Perfect Pancake Mix and A wonderful Mighty Leaf Tea Top Brew Mug!
3. Lentils: A truly terrific text, Thrive—The Vegan Nutrition Guide. You can ALSO win the book 101 Optimal Life Foods by Registered Dietitian (aka Gu-a-titian) Dave Grotto.
4. Quinoa: Newman’s Own Organics loot—everything from delicious, decadent, dark chocolate to dried fruit!
5. Walnuts: Mollie Katzen’s get cooking. cookbook and a jar of walnut butter and a jar of chocolate walnut butter courtesy of Futters Nut Butters

GO ON—Challenge yourself to a Super Breakfast Bowl!

There’s never a time like the present! Send us your Super Breakfast Bowl Challenge pics with their recipe—come on now, you must share the health—and you could win some good loot in addition to some good ol’ blogger fun!

Looking forward to your breakfast creations!!!

Jessica at A Fete For Food

Janel at Eat Well with Janel

Elizabeth at Don’t White Sugar Coat It

Lindsey at Healthy Blog Snack

Corinne at Green Grapes Blog

PS there will be no GGB Challenge during February