Carrot Cake BULGUR Wheat...My New Discovery

I did it again...The nutrition nerd in me just keeps popping out. I celebrated the another long productive week with a trip to an organic market I hadn't been to before. This time I chose Roots Market in Olney, MD close to my parents home.

This market was slightly bigger than MOMs and conveniently separated their dairy based products from their soy based products I'm not vegan but if I was it'd be very convenient ;)

I wandered around the store for a bit trying their free samples of freshly ground nut butters and I had a cup of warm lavender tea (see how this can be relaxing?!). Finally,  I found the whole grain bins. (wish I had a picture but felt kinda funny taking it with all the people around).  I usually like to try something new when I have these kind of adventures, usually I chose something fun like dark chocolate or fresh ground cashew butter but this time I grabbed about 1 lbs of bulgur. (Not the bulgurs "unfun" for a nutrition nerd like me BUT I'm not quite sure what my motivation was). 

I spent the whole way home trying to figure out what I was going to do with 1 lbs of bulgur. 

The first thing I did was research it!

Bulgur, I found out... is a whole wheat grain that has been cleaned and pre-cooked so it's a quick easy side dish or meal. The gain is found a lot in middle eastern cuisine and can be served with dinner  or as a hot breakfast cereal. According to Livestrong.com 1 serving of Bulgur (1 cup cooked) is ~150 calories, 5.6 g protein, 8.2 g of fiber, and less than 1 g of sugar! Basically a superfood in my book! 

Now that I knew what bulgur was...It was time to decide what to do with it! I found many salad and dinner dishes that incorporated the grain that looked delish. BUT if you haven't noticed a theme in the blog already I'm a breakfast person so I obviously opted for hot cereal. I've been wanting to make a carrot cake flavored dish so here's what I came up with: 

AMAZING! 

Carrot-Cake Bulgur Wheat

Ingredients: 

1/4 cup uncooked bulgur

1/2 cup water 

1/4 cup shredded carrot 

1Tbsp raisins 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

1 packet splenda 

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Toppings:  

1 Tbsp cottage cheese 

1Tbsp peanut butter 

1 pinch flax seed

And a drizzle of honey. 

The buglur cooks quickly, I brought the  1/2 cup water and 1/4 cup bulgar to a boil and then turned the stove burner on low. I kept a close eye on the grains stirring constantly to avoid burning them! I added in my ingredients, threw on my toppings and breakfast was served in about 8 minutes :)