Nordic Trip: Budget Friendly Things to do in Sweden and a Toasted Coconut & Pumpkin Baked Protein Oatmeal [Clean, Vegan, GF]

It’s the time for pumpkin and cooler weather. Why not warm up with this clean, vegan and glutenfree toasted coconut and pumpkin baked protein oatmeal for breakfast! Meanwhile, you can read about the last installment of my trip…Sweden!

Not going to lie, out of all of the countries Sweden was easily my favorite. I know! It may be a shock, but it beat out Iceland. I loved it in Sweden. Maybe because it was so aesthetically pleasing with the buildings (a big plus for me. On a side note, Prague is also fabulous if you like architecture). There was just so much to see and do and look at.

The two main cities that I spent time in were Stockholm and Gotenborg (or Gothenburg. I saw it spelled both ways). Traveling around these Nordic countries were made incredibly easy by train. It was a beautiful way to see the countries and relax. I used a website called omio.com and it was SO SO easy. I highly recommend it when booking your travel over in Europe and Scandinavia. I initially tried to use the Sweden train site, etc, but it was so hard to figure out. Omio made it simple and I could easily compare train versus bus versus flights. (Not sponsored. I was just extremely pleased with the website. They also have a mobile app so it was easy to pull up the reservation and tickets on my phone. It was also super cheap in comparison to other sites. I recommend it for sure.)

Let’s start with Stockholm. The above picture is the inside of the Parliament building. They give free tours at certain times of the day to the first 20 (I want say, no more than 30) people that are there. I am all about free museums and activities. It makes it a lot easier on my wallet and allows me to see really cool things on my trip for minimal costs! It was a good tour and very informative of how the Swedish government works.

While in Stockholm I stayed at the cutest hotel!! It was called Hotel C and it was within walking distance from Central Station. I could walk to everywhere I wanted to see from this location. The room was clean and cute. The hotel was adorable and it came with an awesome breakfast (hard to find included breakfast here). It was like an all inclusive spread! SO awesome. You could eat to your heart’s content to fuel your full day of walking and exploring.

In terms of areas of Stockholm, I really enjoyed perusing Gamla Stan. It’s the “old city” of Stockholm. Lots of history, cute cafes and stores.

My favorite church to look at was the Riddarholmen Church in Gamla Stan. Look at how intricate this spire is!

If you are a museum person, there is a really neat free museum called the Medieval museum. It talks about the history of the city and even shows the original foundation of the city.

I ate at some really good restaurants, too. The first was Bianci’s Cafe. It’s a bicycle cafe. In the back is a store for bicycle supplies etc and the front is a restaurant. They have large individual sized pizzas which is what I recommend and other more Italian-esque items. It was super yummy and the crust was SO good.

Another cafe was in Gamla Stan. Apparently people only really get yummy drinks and desserts (I got actual lunch…), but it was also quite good. Now, just to note, traditional a Swedish meatball sandwich is NOT what you would expect. You hear meatball sandwich and think meatballs, mozzarella cheese and marinana sauce, right? Wrong. The picture on the left is a traditional Swedish meatball sandwich. Meatballs on beets. Who would have guessed. (The right was a salmon and broccoli quiche. Yum!)

Gotenborg was also nice. It was cold and sort of rainy the entire time, but that’s ok. It was a pretty easy town to walk around, as well. I stayed at a Scandic Crown hotel. There are two in this town so make sure you go to the right one! (Made that mistake, lol.) There was a beautiful flower garden pretty close to the hotel that was just so lovely to walk around and explore.

I also stumbled upon a concert and got to see live performances by Ava Max and Lukas Graham!! It was awesome. I was eating dinner at a super yummy and pretty reasonably priced restaurant called Cafe Du Nord. OMG. Their Swedish meatballs are so so good. You get 3 big ones with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. So, so good. Especially if you pair it with a Briska Pear Cider. (My favorite. It tastes like you are eating a super super juicy pear. It was amazing, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to find it elsewhere.)

Anywho, highly recommend that place. I actually ate there twice hahaha. It was that good. There are a lot of super cute shops to browse and an indoor food market across the street to look at, as well! However, that was a super long tangent for me to say that there was music the first time there so went out afterwards and it was this big music festival with big named singers! It was quite exciting for me haha. I really like Lukas Graham’s 7 years song. Give it a listen if you haven’t heard it.

So, that’s a final round up of my trip! Here are links to the previous 3 countries if you are interested in reading about those and haven’t already. Just click on the country name to be taken to that post. Iceland. Denmark. Norway. In the meantime, check out this super delicious pumpkin baked oatmeal!!!!

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Toasted Coconut Pumpkin Protein Baked Oatmeal [Clean, Vegan, Glutenfree]

Baked Oatmeal recipe

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Keyword baked oatmeal, breakfast, clean, coconut, easy, glutenfree, protein, protein powder, psyllium husk powder, pumpkin, vegan

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Servings 1 bowl

Author AZ@…And A Dash of Cinnamon

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup old fashioned oatmeal
• 1/2-1 scoop vanilla protein powder
• 1 T psyllium husk powder
• 1 T unsweetened coconut
• few dashes pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 cup pure pumpkin puree
• water/liquid of choice

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an oven safe bowl

2. Mix you oatmeal, psyllium husk powder (if using), pumpkin pie spice, vanilla protein powder in a bowl.

3. Add your pumpkin puree and start mixing in water or your liquid of choice slowly until mixture is sludgy (ok if you add too much, it will just take longer to bake)

4. Pour mixture into greased bowl with a spatula.

5. Top with the coconut as desired

6. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until desired solidy is achieved and coconut on top is toasted.

7. Eat and enjoy! Be careful, oatmeal will be very hot.

Recipe Notes

The amount of liquid you need will be dependent on the absorbency of your protein powder and if you are using psyllium. Baked oatmeal is very forgiving though. Don’t worry if you add to much liquid. You can just bake for longer. 

 

This recipe is easy to make for multiple people, just increase the amounts respectively for the amount of people you want to feed!

I link up with Deborah and Sarah’s, and  the fit foodie mama’s Meatless Monday, #recipeoftheweek,What’s for Dinner

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