Category Archives: Country Choice Organics

Oatmeal on the Run Giveaway!

I received some coupons from Country Choice Organics, so I thought I would share one of the items with one of my readers!  I have reviewed Country Organics Quick Cook Steel Cut oats in the past, but they also have other products, like organic cookies and these breakfast bars:

Ingredients: Organic whole grain rolled oats, organic brown rice syrup, Organic whole grain oat flour, organic dates, organic plum puree, organic raisins, organic cane syrup, vegetable glycerine, organic oat syrup solids, organic brown rice flour, organic milled flax, organic maple syrup, natural flavors, organic vanilla extract, carrageenan, calcium carbonate, organic sunflower oil, organic malted barley extract, baking soda, sea salt, soy lecithin. CONTAINS SOY INGREDIENTS.

Rules: This giveaway is for one box of 5 Maple Oatmeal on the Run bars.  Giveaway is open to anyone and everyone no matter where you live!  The price for entry?  Just one comment on this post!  How easy is that?

If you want bonus entries, you can earn 1 extra entry for the following:

1.  Tweet about this giveaway and make sure you put @javaqueen01 so that I see it.

2. Post a link on your blog and put a separate comment here telling me about it.

Giveaway closes at noon EST on Thursday 3/25!

Happy posting 😀

Lazy Saturday

Had changes of schedule today, unplanned.  I woke up after 7, which was nice again.  Still can’t seem to sleep too late.  My gym opens at 8, so I had a balance bar to fuel for a planned 5 mile run.  I got to the gym at 8:05 and it wasn’t open yet! 👿   I sat there until 8:15 (there were some other people waiting, too) and then I decided to go home.  No telling how long it would be before someone showed up.  Not sure what was up with that.  I was really annoyed because I had eaten a balance bar already.  I gave 2 thoughts to run outside, but it was 20 degrees and I wasn’t feeling it.  So, I had breakfast instead:

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Country Choice steel cut oats. Those are those little dehydrated marshmallows you get in hot cocoa!  I scored some on the internet, as I thought they would be really good in my chewy granola bars.  Of course, I needed to try them out.  Fun!  Some of them may have ended up in my coffee cup as an experiment.  It might have been a mistake to get these…..

John and I got some errands done including grocery shopping, then he started making some things to send to his family including my very favorite candy in the whole world!

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Pralines!  I could seriously put these in a feed bag and just hook it to my face.  They are so easy to make, too.  I told John these need to be up really high to keep me out of them, like up to the moon!  Good thing they are leaving the house on Monday.

We decided to head on to a free concert down in Saratoga.  I caught Pixie looking decidedly suspicious near the tree before we left:

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But, she was good and didn’t bother it.   The concert was good.  It was a string quartet.  I was bothered a bit by the audience behavior, though.  First off, some people brought children under the age of 5.  It really isn’t fair to bring them to a concert like this and expect them to be able to sit still.  There are so many family orchestra concerts to go to, why choose this one?  It really spoils it for people trying to listen, not to mention the performers themselves.  Then there was the gentleman that decided he wanted a picture of the quartet and just walked up the aisle until he was about 30 feet away from them (it was a smaller room), his digital camera beeped *and* it was a flash photo while they were playing.  He did this twice.  Unbelievable…..  Having been on the receiving end of stuff like this as a performer, too, so I know how they felt.

Cold day today, so it was a nice comforting dinner:

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Chicken and dumplings!  I’ll talk more about these on Monday for the giveaway post (big tease…)

We went for a walk tonight, and I am really glad we did.  It was cold, but still 10 degrees warmer than this morning.  I was feeling out of sorts because my exercise routine got bumped.  I definitely let calories get a little out of control today.

Ornament of the day:

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My sister made this for me, probably 15 years ago or so?  It’s been a long time.  She was really into cross stitch at one point and made this for me.  She used to do wildlife rehab and would do fawns, so it was a theme for her.

This ornament showcase has been really interesting for me, because I am really and truly looking at them this year and remembering.  🙂

Country Choice Organics review

A few weeks ago I had posted about my love of steel cut oats (or any type of oats….) and the overnight soaking method for them.  Country Choice Organic read my post and kindly sent me some of their quick cooking steel cut oats to try!

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Normally when things have been processed to make them quick cooking, the nutritionals suffer.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the stats are almost exactly the same:

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The only difference is 1 less gram of protein, but all the fiber is there – yay!

You can either do these in the microwave or the stovetop.  John decided to make a bowl in the microwave and that took 6 minutes of cooking.  I did mine stovetop, like I do with all my oats (I am too afraid of boil over).  It took 5-6 minutes to cook.  I did find that I needed to use 1 cup of water instead of the recommended 3/4 cup, as it was starting to get dry in the pot.  I just added more water towards the end.

Mixed in some pumpkin pie spice, fresh pumpkin, brown sugar and topped with cranberry sauce and toasted pecans.

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The result?  Thumbs up!  The oats were creamy and slightly chewy, like good steel cut oats.  Big plus is that they are organic, too.  You should be able to find these in your regular grocery store, possibly in the natural foods aisle as well.  They retail for $3.79.  That comes out to about 18 cents a serving.  I think the 5 pecans on top cost more than that LOL!  Yet another reason to love oats!!  Wouldn’t that be a boring tagline?  “Oats – the affordable breakfast.”

In perusing Country Choice’s website, I see they also have organic cookies, hot cereals and breakfast bars.

Have you tried or seen this brand in your store? Is organic important to you or a bonus?