My take on enchiladas

The guy’s dinner

Recently my guy moved in with me, so I’m looking for new recipes that we can share, or easily adjust to our own requirements. I found this great recipe for (zero weight watchers flex points) tortillas, and I decided to add some filling and make some kind of ‘open’ enchiladas. I used the exact recipe mentioned above, and added 2 cloves of garlic to the mixture before baking. I made 5 tortillas with it, 3 for the guy, 2 for me. I really thought I would still taste the cauliflower, but I didn’t, they’re really great! It made me decide to use the remaining cauliflower in the white sauce, and it was amazing.

 

My dinner

What I used for the guy’s filling:
– 200 gr low fat minced beef
– 80 gr corn from a can
– 35 gr black beans from a can
– 200 gr diced tomatoes from a can
– 1/2 green bell pepper diced
– 1/2 small onion cut small
– 1/2 crushed garlic clove
– Chili powder, cayenne pepper, oregano, salt and pepper

What I used for my filling:
Exactly the same but used a mixture of minced turkey and minced low fat beef. The whole recipe for me was 11 weight watchers flex points. Quite a lot, but so worth it!

I made a white sauce: (1/4 for me, 1/2 for the guy, refrigerated the rest)
– 10 gr real butter
– 1 table spoon flour
– 100 ml low fat milk
– 1 cup riced cauliflower
– 40 gr grated parmesan cheese
– Salt and pepper

Instructions:
I made the tortillas like the recipe said. I used 2 nonstick pans for the filling, for both I just fried the meat, then added the onion, garlic and bell pepper. After a bit of frying, I added the diced tomatoes and spices. For the white sauce, just melt the butter in a pan until it’s bubbling, then add the flour (it becomes crumbly), slowly add the milk while stirring. Add the cauliflower, a bit of water if it’s too thick. Add the parmesan cheese and keep stirring. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Fill the tortillas, add the white sauce on top and a bit of extra parmesan cheese if you want. Bake in the oven (200 degrees Celsius) for 15 minutes. You can easily make this meal ahead, put it in a oven dish and pop it in the oven when you want to eat!

Protein bars (made with protein powder)

Hi there!

I currently like to eat protein bars as a snack, because they’re easy to take with you, they’re tasty and the ones I’m eating (clean protein bars from http://www.bodyenfitshop.nl) are also quite filling. But also very expensive! So I was looking to see if I could make them myself using protein powder, which is less expensive. I combined some ideas I saw online and came up with these tasty, easy to make and no-bake bars:

Recipe is for 8 bars:  
1 bar is 2 sp for you ww people out there

1 bar contains 106 kcal, 6.4 gr carbs, 2.8 gr fat and 12.6 gr protein.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 100 ml (1/2 cup) of unsweetened almond milk
• A splash of liquid sweetener (to taste)
• A few drops of vanilla and rum essence (or whatever tastes good to you)
• 50 gr coconut flour
• 20 gr unsweetened peanutbutterpowder
• 100 gr of coconut flavour whey protein powder (I use whey perfection)
• 15 gr raw cacao nibs
• 20 gr psyllium fiber

Mix the liquid ingredients with the smashed banana, set aside. Use a sieve for the flour, peanutbutter powder and protein powder, and mix with the cacao nibs and fiber. Throw like a teaspoon of this mix in your pan/mould to ease removal afterwards! Now pour the liquid mix on top of the ‘dry’ mix, and mix until it becomes like a dough. If it’s too dry, add a bit of extra almond milk. It shouldn’t be too wet, because it will not really dry up anymore. Press the dough into a pan, a mould or whatever has a shape that suits you. Put in the fridge for a couple of hours, remove, cut into 8 pieces and use a bit of baking paper to wrap them, because they’re still a bit sticky! Store in the fridge, enjoy!

Veggie lasagna

My mom gave me the Jamie Oliver’s superfood cookbook for Christmas and I’ve been using it to get some new ideas. Of course I’m not going to completely copy somebody else’s recipe, but I like to use it as inspiration to come up with something that fits my lifestyle, so here is the veggie lasagna recipe everybody’s waiting for 🙂

It contains 291 kcal per portion, 26 gr carbs, 11 gr fat and 24 gr of protein. It’s 6 sp on weightwatchers!

Ingredients for 2 portions:

• 1 squash/pumpkin (the long type)
• 1 zucchini
• 1 onion
• 2 tomatoes
• 2 hands of fresh spinach
• 20 gr sunflowerseeds
• 200 gr cottage cheese
• 20 gr parmesan grated
• salt, pepper and italian herbs

Preheat your oven to 340 degrees F or 170 degrees C. I use a silicone cake-shape baking mold to get it in the shape I want. Use a cheese slicer or any other tool to make very thin slices of zucchini and squash. When you reach the middle of the vegetable, it won’t give you nice slices, so cut those piece up and use it in the sauce. Lay the nice slices out on some plates (you’ll also get some bad slices, use them in the sauce!) Sprinkle some salt on the slices. It’ll draw out some of the water which you can remove with some kitchen towell. Repeat once. In the mean time, cut the onion, tomatoes, zucchini and pumpkin pieces and fry it in a nonstick pan. Add the spinach and let it shrink. Make sure it get’s thick and most of the moisture is gone! Add the salt, pepper and herbs.

Start layering your ingredients, start with pumpkin slices and use your imagination to make the rest of the layers. Be aware that normally the pasta plates absorb a lot of moisture. Making lasagna without the pasta will create a lot of moisture, so make sure you drain the cottage cheese before you use is and make the sauce as thick as possible. End with the pumpkin slices again and sprinkle with the parmesan cheese.

Put it in the oven and bake it for about 30-45 minutes, check it regularly for getting too brown. After this, remove from the oven, cut it in half and remove. Let it drain a bit on a plate to remove some of the excess moisture and enjoy!

Mealprep week 6 breakdown

I always start with the fact that I don’t think everybody should mealprep, I’m writing this because I want to show people a way that most think is impossible or very hard. It can be done and it’s not even that hard! For more tips go and check out this mealprep 101 post. I kept it relatively easy during this weeks mealprep. So what did I make:

Breakfast: superseed oats with pb and a banana (and I add blueberries and goji berries): With pb:7 pp, 275 kcal, 23 gr carbs, 13 gr fat, 16 gr protein. Without pb: 5pp, 224 kcal, 22 gr carbs, 9 gr fat, 14 gr protein. Check out this post for the exact recipe.

Snack 1: carrots and 1/2 bell pepper. 0pp, 64 kcal, 1 gr fat, 12 gr carbs and 2 gr protein.

Snack 2: banana-protein bread, The whole bread contains 1441 kcal, 30 gr fat, 179 gr carbs and 101 gr protein. A 1/6 slice (which is BIG) contains 5pp, 240 kcal, 5 gr fat, 30 gr carbs and 17 gr protein. Check out this post for the exact recipe.

Lunch: sweet potato, chicken, tomatoes and sugar snaps. My serving is 8pp, 408 kcal, 6 gr fat, 37 gr carbs and 47 gr protein.

Snack 3: 2 clementines. 0pp, 54 kcal, 0.4 gr fat, 11.2 gr carbs and 0.8 gr protein.

Dinner: yellow brown rice, cauliflower and a pork sausage (100% clean). 7pp, 348 kcal, 11 gr fat, 30 gr carbs, 28 gr protein.

Nutritional information of 1 day: 27pp, 1389 kcal, 36 gr fat, 143 gr carbs, 110 gr protein.

IMPORTANT: this is a VERY basic mealprep. I will add at least 1 questbar to get to my daily allowance, but will add more food on the days I workout. This is meant for an average women to lose weight when already close to goal. This will NOT be enough for an average male or female who doesn’t need to lose weight or for a very obese person! Calculate your specific needs on www.iifym.com.

Instructions:

I’m not going to write a complete shoppinglist anymore, because the chance somebody wants to do this exact prep is very small and it’s a huge time investment on my part. So generally, I do my preps like this:

I wake up Monday morning and start with the breakfast prep (recipe over here). Sometimes I already put everything in the pan on Sunday evening for easy and fast cooking. I eat 1 of the breakfast, then I’ll go shopping for the rest of the ingredients. When I come home, I pop the chicken (4 200gr pieces of boneless chicken) in the steam cooker, while I peel and cut the sweet potato (4×125 gr). I add those in the top layer of the steam cooker. Total steam cooker time is 60 minutes. Meanwhile, I preheat the oven and make the dough for the banana-protein bread (recipe over here). When the bread is in the oven, I wash the brown rice (4×30 gr) and boil it with tumeric, salt and hot curry spices for about 30 minutes. I also throw the sausages in a pan and fry them slowly for about 30 minutes (turning them from time to time). Usually around this time I have some waiting to do, I’ll use this for cutting/cleaning my veggies and put them in the tubs. Now some of the things are finished, I’ll let it cool down before I put them in the tub. I let the bread cool down partially and slice it into 6 pieces (eat 1 right away, nom nom). Let everything cool down properly before you put the lids on! Divide your portions using the weighing method I describe in my mealprep 101 post!

Enjoy!

Recipe for stuffed pepper with mashed sweet potato

This dish had me in heavenly bliss. It is so incredibly delicious! Especially the combination of these two dishes is very tasty, the strong flavor from the cheese mixed with the sweetness from the potato mash…. Yum! Make sure you calculate your macro’s and pp with your own ingredients, as they may differ from the ones I used! (especially the coconutmilk, there are so many different types, ranging from 60 kcal per 100 ml to 200 kcal per 100 ml)

 

Sweet potato mash: (5pp per serving, makes 4 servings)

1 serving: 249 kcal, fat: 7 gr, carb: 35 gr, protein: 4.5 gr

500 grams of peeled and diced sweet potatoes

1 teaspoon of olive oil

2 onions, cut finely

1 clove of garlic, squeezed/finely cut

2 teaspoons ginger powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

100 ml of coconutmilk (or 200 ml skimmed one)

1 cup dry white wine

4 heaped cups of cut kale

Salt and pepper

 

Instructions:

Boil or steam the sweet potato until very soft. In the meantime, heat a non stick pan very slowly, with the olive oil. Add the onions and caramelize in about 15-20 minutes. Add the garlic and after 2 minutes the wine. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Then add the coconut milk, the spices, salt and pepper and the kale. Stir and add the potato. Mash with a fork or a mashing spoon, but make sure it is not completely smooth. Finished!

 

Stuffed bell pepper: (6pp per serving, makes 4 servings)

1 serving: 279 kcal, fat: 20 gr, carb: 5.5 gr, protein: 20.5 gr

4 bell peppers

300 grams of lean minced beef

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic, squeezed/finely cut

1 teaspoon of olive oil

100 grams of Roquefort cheese (or any other strong blue cheese)

1 tomato

1 teaspoon Italian herbs

Salt and pepper

 

Instructions:

Heat your oven to 190C or 275F. Take a non stick pan and glaze your onions in the olive oil. Add the minced beef and garlic and stir until loose and fried (5-10 minutes). Add the Italian herbs and salt/pepper to taste and take the pan from your heating source. Cut the top from your bell peppers and clear the insides. Now, divide the cheese by 4, and divide the beef mixture by 4. Now fill your peppers with some beef and put some cheese in between. Put a slice of tomato in the middle. Now put in your oven for about 30 minutes, make sure to check once in a while to make sure the peppers are not becoming too brown. Put the ‘pepper lids’ in the oven after 15 minutes to bake along.

 

Enjoy!

The Factory

So let’s say you are a factory owner/manager. Your factory has a couple of machines and you have some employees, you produce goods. Your buildings heating/lighting and the machines run on fuel, so one of your biggest priorities is to make sure you have a daily fuel delivery. Times are good, you usually use 6 barrels of fuel daily, but your delivery sells you 20 barrels a day. You like it that way, better have some storage for when bad days are coming.

At one point you have more than 500 barrels in storage, you had to extend your storage facilities, which also needs more maintenance, lighting and heating, so your daily fuel usage grows to 8 barrels a day, so you’re storing 12 barrels a day! Your factory is thriving; your storage is still growing and it’s even 1000 barrels now.

One day, disaster strikes. The economy crashes and your daily fuel delivery falls to 2 barrels a day. You’re not worried. Your storage is so big, you can withstand a little hitch like this. You go through 8 barrels a day for some time (6 from your storage and 2 from the daily supply), and after 2 months, you see that your storage has declined significantly. But, you’re not too worried, the economy will become better, so you continue like you always do. After another month you become a bit worried. You have 460 barrels left in storage and if you continue like this, you’ll be out of fuel in less than 3 months. So you decide to change some things. First of all, your big storage is not really necessary anymore, so you shut down part of it, which will decline your fuel usage to 6 barrels a day. But, still a bit worried, you also shut down some machines and fire some of your employees, so your daily usage has come down to 4 barrels a day. 2 from your storage and 2 from the daily supply.

You’re a bit relieved, with this rate, you can maintain your factory and have some output, and can continue for almost 8 months if nothing changes. After 5 months, you have 180 barrels in store, and guess what, the economy is in a rise and your daily delivery has come back to 20 barrels a day! So what do you do… you hire new employees, you go back to your old capacity and you start storing those excessive barrels again. But you don’t need the big storage yet, you’re still at a low point, so you can store up to 14 barrels a day!

The factory = your body (simplified)

So now let’s translate this to our body. The factory is the body, the fuel is the energy that comes in through food. You can see that when more food comes in than you need, the body will store the energy (fat). You can also see that when your storage grows, your body will need more energy, a bigger body needs more fuel to maintain than a smaller body.

When the fuel delivery declines, so when you eat less energy than your body needs, it will take energy from the storage, from the fat. But…. your body becomes smaller with less storage, so it will need less energy to maintain it. You’ll see at that point, the amount of energy you’ll take from the storage will decrease. If we translate this to weight loss: if you lose weight very fast with a diet of 1800 kcal, you’ll lose weight slower once you lost a significant amount of weight, because your body needs less energy to maintain it and will take less fat. BUT the body always wants to preserve as much as possible, so in order to maintain for some time, it will shut down a bit, a bit less energy is needed and losing weight will even go slower, because it takes less fat from your storage.

Ok, so what if you were the factory manager, and instead of getting 2 daily barrels, you got 4 daily barrels. What would you have done? Would you have made the decision to lower the factory ouput? I wouldn’t, I would’ve kept going, kept the same output and kept taking 2 barrels from the storage. Your body also works like that. If you keep that energy coming, it won’t shut down that much and will go in ‘preservation mode’ less fast. Lesson number one: Don’t forget to fuel your body with good energy. Less is not more! Eating not enough can lead to your body shutting down (hairloss, feeling tired, feeling cold all the time, dry skin and a lot more, sometimes subtle symptoms).

So, you can see when the economy was rising again, (or in other words, you stop eating less and go back to your old ways), the body starts storing the energy again, so you start gaining fat. But your body is less big than it was when you started your diet, so you’ll even store your fat faster, because your smaller body needs less energy!

More output = more fuel needed

So now you’re the factory owner and 3 times a week you want a bit more output during an hour. So you stimulate your employees to work very hard during that hour, your machines work on maximum speed, your output is big and you use more fuel in this hour to make everything run. After this hour, your employees go back to their normal speed and the machines run as they normally do. But you know, if you do this too much and don’t take time to rest, build and maintain your machines, they can eventually break down or run less well then they used to do. Your output will decline and your fuel usage will also decrease.

What if you would start building some new machines, it takes some time and energy to build them, but when they’re finished and running, you’ll have a bigger output throughout the day (and a bigger fuel usage) without your employees even having to work harder! And if you would push your employees to work harder for an hour in this situation, your output would even be bigger!

Maybe you already guessed, but this is a simplified version of cardio and weightlifting. What you see is that your body will burn more energy during cardio, but after cardio it will go back to it’s usual state. If you do a lot of cardio, and don’t properly take rest, build and fuel the body, it can breakdown some muscle, which will make your daily energy usage decline. Good for preserving energy, not good for losing weight. So with the weightlifting, you build extra muscle, which will burn more energy throughout the day without doing anything special. If you do a mix of both, you’ll even burn more. Lesson number two: it’s important to do a mix of both weightlifting and cardio to burn energy and to build your body, but equally important is to have enough rest and fuel your body right.

 

IMPORTANT: this is a simplified way of looking at your body. There are more facets to how the body works. If you have any specific questions, just ask!

Mealprep breakdown (+ shoppinglist)

So, I’m going to do a try-out: I’m writing a breakdown of this weeks mealprep, including calorie and macro breakdown, pp amounts, a shoppinglist and a guide on how to make it without wasting time. Let me know what you think!

This mealprep is for 4 days (except for the breakfast which is for 5 days, because I eat it too on the morning I mealprep). I mealprep for 4 days, because I work 4 days a week (basically more, but those on calls are usually all over the place). You can adjust it to your likings. I don’t freeze my preps, they stay good in the fridge until the last day! Really, just try it yourself, I’ve been doing it for months and never had any problem with food getting spoiled. My tips are: use good and clean airtight containers (you can see in my picture that I don’t always use them, I misplaced some during my move), set your fridge to a low temperature and make sure you don’t leave it open too much. That’s it, easy right? With my cooking, I use a normal stove, an oven and a steam cooker. You can also just boil or use a steam basket in a normal pan if you don’t have a steam cooker.

Ok, so there’s one thing I didn’t prep: my questbars. I’m in love with them and really wish I wasn’t because they are so damn expensive. Anyway… I’ll post a recipe for a nice protein cupcake soon!

Meal 1: Breakfast oats with or without the peanut butter. I usually top it with a banana, goji berries and some blueberries. With pb:7 pp, 275 kcal, 23 gr carbs, 13 gr fat, 16 gr protein. Without pb: 5pp, 224 kcal, 22 gr carbs, 9 gr fat, 14 gr protein.

Snacks: An apple, a tangerine, some carrots and cucumber. I eat some of them between breakfast and lunch and some between lunch and dinner: 0 pp, 139 kcal, 34 gr carbs, 0 gr fat, 1 gr protein

Questbar: Depending on which one you take, it’s 4 or 5 pp, for example Cookies&cream: 5pp, 180 kcal, 5 gr carbs (17 gr fiber), 7 gr fat and 21 gr protein.

Meal 2: Steamed chicken, steamed sweet potato and raw/fresh cherry tomatoes: 9pp, 358 kcal, 32 gr carbs, 2 gr fat, 49 gr protein.

Meal 3: Quinoa with Moroccan pumpkin stew (this time with beef, but can also be made vegetarian): 9pp, 466 kcal, 55 gr carbs, 15 gr fat, 25 gr protein.

This makes for one whole day: 1418 kcal, 149 gr carbs, 37 gr fat, 112 gr protein, or 30 pp. Personally, this would be a low day for me, I usually add at least 1 protein shake on the days I workout, sometimes another Questbar and/or a handful of almonds. This mealprep is really not enough for a regular/obese man or a woman who is obese! Make sure you know what your body needs, eat the pp that Weightwatchers gives you, check www.myfitnesspal.com or www.iifym.com for a kcal and macro breakdown that fits your body and your activity level. I’m a firm believer in feeding your body the right way, crash diets will only make you suffer and will leave you with less muscle and a higher chance of gaining everything back and more!

So now to the mealprep:

There are a couple of things I have in my storage that don’t spoil and I don’t shop for weekly. If you don’t have it, add it to the shopping list:

• Raw cacao nibs
• Flax, broken
• Hemp seeds
• Chia seeds
• Protein powder (choose your own flavor, I have peanut butter, coconut and cookies&cream)
• Cinnamon
• Ground cloves
• Peanut butter (natural type without additives)
• Oats
• Goji berries
• Liquid organic vanilla flavor
• Curry powder
• Vegetable stock blocks (maggi type)
• Cardamom
• Turmeric
• Nutmeg
• Coriander (ground seeds)
• Salt and pepper
• Dried ground ginger
• Olive oil

Shopping list:

• 400 ml of Oatmilk. I use Alpro ‘oats’. You can also use unsweetened almond milk, unsweetened soy milk or any other milk you want. Adjust your pp accordingly!
• 5 medium sized bananas
• 1 packet of blueberries, fresh (roughly 150 grams)
• 2 big carrots
• 1 cucumber
• 4 apples
• 4 tangerines
• 4 protein bars/questbars or any other protein rich snack you want
• 4 chicken breasts, I buy them 200 grams each
• 700 grams of sweet potato (you need 600 grams peeled ones)
• 1-2 packets of cherry tomatoes (about 200 grams)
• 1 orange pumpkin, size of a spread hand
• 50 grams of green olives
• 50 grams of dark raisins
• 1 can of chickpeas (265 grams of peas without the water)
• 250 grams of lean beef
• 3 cm/1 inch of fresh ginger
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 red chilli pepper
• 3 medium white onions
• 2 big or 4 small tomatoes
• 1 can of diced tomatoes (no additives)
• 2 blocks of vegetable stock (maggi)
• 80 grams of quinoa

Directions:

For the exact oatmeal recipe, I refer to this post. For the exact pumpkin stew recipe, I refer to this post.

So I wake up on Monday morning, and I start with the oatmeal immediately. I make it for 5 days, divide it into the appropriate portions and eat 1 right away. A tip: weigh your empty pan. When you finish, weigh it again, and subtract the original pan weight. Now divide it by 5 and you know the exact weight of 1 portion when you divide it into tubs/bowls.

After this, I take my shopping list and do the shoppings. Ideally, I could also shop on Sunday, but I’m usually busy with other things on Sundays.

I start with preheating the oven for the pumpkin and setting up the steam cooker. Mine has 3 layers, I put the 4 chicken breasts in the 2 lowest layers, then peel the sweet potato and cut them into 1 inch pieces and throw them in the upper layer of the steam cooker. I set it to 60 minutes and take out the potatoes after 40 minutes (check them regularly) Here is a picture of the steam cooker, cooking a 1 person dish, so only using 2 layers. If you don’t have one, you can choose to boil/steam the sweet potato and chicken in a pan. As you can see I don’t use seasoning on both, because I really like the pure taste. If you want, you can add some spices or something like Mrs. Dash or Flavorgod.

So now this is set up, I clean the pumpkin, remove the seeds and cut it into pieces. I don’t remove the skin! Lay the pieces on a tray and put it in the oven for about 40 minutes. Use a baking sheet to make cleaning up easier! I continue with the pumpkin stew recipe. I also start cooking the quinoa, I used 20 grams per portion for this prep, because I added meat and wanted to come to 9pp. Just add about 200 ml of water, a bit of salt and pepper or a veg stock block and some turmeric and boil until the water is finished.

I add the diced meat to the stew when I also add the can of tomatoes (the original recipe is without meat). When there is some waiting time, I peel and cut the carrots and cut the cucumber and divide them into the tubs. I add a splash of water to prevent drying out and store them in the fridge. In the meantime, the pumpkin should be finished, I add them to the stew and let it boil for some time. I bring out the tubs, let the already finished chicken and potato cool down. Put a chicken breast in each container, 1/4 of the sweet potato and 1/4 of the tomatoes. When it’s cooled down enough, put the lid on it and store it in the fridge. The stew and the quinoa should be finished now. Divide them into 4 portions and let the tubs cool down before you put the lid on them and store them in the fridge.

After this, I clean the kitchen, stove, oven and put all my utensils in the dishwasher. I also continue with vacuum cleaning and mopping the floor of my place, because yeah, I like to start my week clean 😉 lol!

To keep on track, I mealprep! (Mealprep recipe for oatmeal breakfast)

To keep on track I mealprep!

I have a busy job and with all the ‘on calls’, evenings at the gym and social events, I lack time and energy to cook daily. With mealprepping I eat exactly what I plan and that way I stay on track! Usually, I cook my meals every Monday, so I make healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for the next 4 days. Today I’ll share with you my recipe for this yum breakfast. This recipe is for 5 servings as I will eat one right away!

Nutritional information: With pb: 275 kcal, 23 gr carbs, 13 gr fat, 16 gr protein. Without pb: 224 kcal, 22 gr carbs, 9 gr fat, 14 gr protein.

Ingredients:
50 grams of oats
30 grams of broken flax
15 grams of hemp seeds
15 grams of raw cacao nibs
15 grams of chia seeds
56 grams (2 scoops) of protein powder (I use coconut and/or peanutbutter flavor)
dash of cinnamon
few drops of vanilla flavor
dash of ground cloves
4x 10 grams of natural peanutbutter
400 ml oatmilk (or unsweetened almond milk or any other type of milk)
400 ml water

Put all the dry ingredients in a pan, mix it together and then pour in the milk and water. Mix and then heat until it’s boiling for about 5 minutes. Keep stirring because it can stick to your pan! Turn off the heat and let it stand for about 5 minutes, stir and add a bit of extra water if it gets too thick. I usually end up adding about a cup of extra water. Devide it into 5 tubs or bowls and add the peanutbutter. Store it in the fridge and heat in microwave when you want to eat it. Top with your favorite fruits, I usually use banana, goji berries and blueberries. Enjoy!