A Cookable Feast

Happy Monday, all! OK, I know Mondays are not the happiest days for those of us who have day jobs that don’t line up with the jobs in our head. In my head, I am an independent boss-lady creative phenom, holed up in my home office donned in jammies and leopard-print slippers, lovingly toiling over this blog and my other one, 100 Places in the D – and perhaps writing a novel or two while I’m at it (because why not?). So I totally get it. We all have our true passions, and being a cubicle rat working for The Man isn’t one of them! But we might as well make the best of where we are now, because gratitude is one of the prime ingredients that will shift us into being our truest, most authentic selves.

Well, gratitude and peanut butter. And chocolate. And some really yum organic yogurt.

Peanut butter and chocolate – two of my obsessions joined together in today’s recipe, this delicious, nutritious, wholly processed-sugar-free yogurt breakfast parfait.

I eat entirely too much peanut butter on a daily basis – mixing it into my breakfast oatmeal, savoring it as part of my apple-and-peanut-butter mid-morning work snack, scooping a spoonful or two out of the jar for a post-workout, pre-dinner hunger-staving. It’s just so scrumptious! When I was younger and had my first taste of natural peanut butter – just peanuts ground up in a jar – I admit, I was not at all impressed. I thought it tasted so bland. Fast-forward years later, and I can’t imagine even thinking that. The popular conventional brand that I grew up on now tastes to me like the processed lab experiment that it is, while my natural peanut butter tastes so complexly delicious – all rich roasted flavors. And it’s just peanuts, ground up, in a jar! Remarkable!

And chocolate! Sweet chocolate, my love for you is a given. Choco-holism runs deep within my maternal bloodline: my grandma rocked a “Hand over the chocolate and no one gets hurt” sweatshirt for years, and her chief concern, at nearly 88, is where in her room her candy is hidden; my mom is about as fond of the stuff. So when I, a third-generation chocolate obsessive, discovered a healthy way to eat it in the form of unsweetened raw cacao – POW! – my mind was blown. A form of chocolate including all of these amazing antioxidants and minerals, yet as sweet as a traditional processed-sugar-laden chocolate bar when mixed with a natural sweetener such as honey or pure maple syrup? And available in powdered form so I could stir it right into my oatmeal with my peanut butter? You bet I was hooked!

With this mutual love for peanut butter and chocolate, it was only natural that I create an awesome, processed-sugar-free yogurt breakfast parfait so I could have another excuse to enjoy them together before 8 a.m. I happily extend that excuse to you!

As with the lovely Chocolate, Raspberry, and Hazelnut Yogurt Breakfast Parfait recipe I posted back on Leap Day (nothing like fresh raspberries!), this recipe can be made ahead and stored in the fridge in a Mason jar. It feels so great to stumble out of bed and have to do nothing to prepare breakfast other than pull a jar out of the fridge and unscrew the cap!

Delightful Monday!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Yogurt Breakfast Parfait

Peanut butter yogurt:

-1/2 cup plain organic yogurt

-2 tbs. natural crunchy peanut butter

-1 tsp. honey

Chocolate yogurt:

-1/2 cup plain organic yogurt

-1 tbs. unsweetened raw cacao

-2 tsp. honey

Additional layers:

-1/3 cup old-fashioned oats

-2 tbs. sliced almonds, plus a few extra for garnish

Worth noting: I used a 16-ounce wide-mouthed Mason jar. You could get away with using one that’s a bit smaller; there was space leftover in the jar.

Mix the noted ingredients together to make the peanut butter yogurt mixture and the chocolate yogurt mixture. Then line the Mason jar with the following layers:

-Half of the peanut butter yogurt

-Half of the chocolate yogurt

-The 1/3 cup old-fashioned oats

-The 2 tbs. sliced almonds

-Remaining half of the peanut butter yogurt

-Remaining half of the chocolate yogurt

And that’s it! Garnish with a few sliced almonds, and you’ve got a healthful, delicious breakfast treat that’ll make even the most dreaded of the work-week mornings bearable!