When I started graduate school, the chemistry department required all first year grad students to attend a weekly seminar on Tuesday afternoons. The invited speakers ranged from professors at other universities throughout the US to high-ranking individuals at local pharmaceutical companies and everything in between, but each scientist presented their cutting-edge research and took questions at the end.
In order to make room for all of the first years, along with anyone else in the chemistry department who wanted to attend, the seminars were held in the second largest lecture hall in the building almost three stories tall with slanted stadium-style seating. Most speakers put together slide decks to present on the oversized screen that came down from the ceiling, but a few also drew out specific molecules and mechanism pathways on the green chalkboard behind it.
Partially as a bribe, and partially to ensure we all stayed awake, the chemistry department set out a snack tray in the small classroom across the hall just before the seminars started at 4 pm. They provided two huge urns of coffee and hot water for tea, plus an oversized tray of store-bought cookies.
Free caffeine and sugar—definitely two fail-proof ways to get us grad students to show up!
About ten minutes before the snack trays arrived, first year grad students began congregating in that small hallway, eagerly anticipating the sweet snack’s arrival. We all rushed through the door, more in a chaotic blob than a neat line, quickly grabbed a napkin, and picked out a couple of cookies from the oversized platter.
The sugary treats ranged from classic Oreos and Fig Newtons to chewy chocolate chip cookies and crunchy iced oatmeal cookies to knockoff Thin Mints and Samoas to strawberry cream wafers and Keebler chocolate-striped shortbread… And just about every other cookie that you can possibly find at grocery stores.
We weren’t picky about what sweets they provided us with… We just looked forward to the free snacks and how they got us through the seminars!
Looking back, those store-bought cookies weren’t the best or healthiest option for snacks… But this homemade Healthy Carrot Zucchini Oatmeal Snack Cake definitely would be!
It’s full of fresh zucchini and sweet carrots, along with lots of hearty oats and warm spices, and it keeps me feeling full and satisfied (without any danger of a sugar crash!) much longer than those grad school cookies ever did. Yet it still tastes like a special treat, just like those seminar snacks!
Even better, this healthy oatmeal snack cake contains no refined flour or sugar and just 97 calories in each slice!
Continue reading & see the rest! ›› Healthy Carrot Zucchini Oatmeal Snack Cake
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