Adaptable Oatmeal

You might have noticed: oatmeal is infinitely adaptable.  It takes to nearly any flavor you throw at it.  Since I dislike eating the same thing for breakfast every day, oatmeal offers the opportunity to keep my breakfast fresh and delicious.  And when you use a package of instant oatmeal (or some old-fashioned or steel-cut oats you prepared and have stored in the refrigerator, ready to be reheated each morning), it's so darn easy to heat and add ingredients in.  Here are some of my recent favorite combinations:

With almond milk, raspberries, strawberries, slivered almonds, chia seeds, and cocoa nibs.

With coconut milk, blueberries, peaches, cardamom, and dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds.

With coconut milk, roasted peanuts, banana, cocoa nibs, and dark chocolate peanut butter 

(aka heaven in a jar).

With dark chocolate peanut butter, bananas, walnuts, and cinnamon.

With coconut milk, strawberry-chia seed jam, banana slices, slivered almonds, and coconut flakes.

With pumpkin puree, cinnamon, ginger, pumpkin seeds, almonds, and raspberries.

What is your favorite way to enjoy oatmeal?

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte

Friends, I've been holding out on you.  I've been enjoying pumpkin-laden baked goods and homemade pumpkin spice lattes for weeks now.  For failing to share my information, will you please forgive me?  Please?  I'll make it up to you, with recipes for everything, starting with pumpkin spice lattes.  All you have to make is a pumpkin spice mixture you store in the refrigerator, then you add warmed pumpkin spice mixture to your coffee each morning.

As a word of warning, the pumpkin spice mixture is far too easy to eat by the spoonful. You may also find yourself tipping the container of pumpkin spice mixture directly into your mouth.  I won't judge. I've already done it. Repeatedly.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

From A Farmgirl's Dabbles (get the original recipe here)

Makes enough pumpkin spice mixture for 7-8 homemade lattes

Ingredients for the pumpkin spice mixture:

1  15 oz. can of pumpkin puree

2 cups milk (preferably whole milk)

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp. pure vanilla extract

1 tbsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg (preferably freshly grated, it's incomparable)

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. allspice

Ingredients for the pumpkin spice latte:

Approx. 1/2 cup of pumpkin spice mixture

Approx. 1 cup of strong, freshly brewed coffee

Whipped cream, cinnamon, dark chocolate shavings (optional)

Preparation for the pumpkin spice mixture:

Combine all the mixture ingredients in a blender and blend for about 30 seconds, until well mixed.  Transfer to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

To prepare the pumpkin spice latte:

Brew approximately 1 cup of strong coffee. 

Stir or shake your refrigerated container of pumpkin spice mixture to redistribute the ingredients; they tend to separate.  Pour approximately 1/2 cup of pumpkin spice mixture (you can use more or less, depending on your preference) into a large mug.  Microwave for 20-40 seconds on high to warm the mixture. 

Add the freshly brewed coffee to the pumpkin spice mixture, stir, and enjoy!  If you're feeling fancy, add the whipped cream, cinnamon, and dark chocolate shavings.  

Note: the pumpkin spice mixture will settle out of the coffee, so give it a stir before every sip.

Warmed pumpkin spice mixture...

...with coffee added

Homemade pumpkin spice lattes have made these increasingly chilly and dark mornings far more bearable.  Plus I feel as if this homemade version is healthier than the highly caloric (but oh so delicious) Starbucks version.

Plenty more pumpkin recipes to come!

What is your favorite pumpkin dish?

Malted Strawberry Pancakes

I had a powerful craving for pancakes. Pancakes with whole oats.  That was my only requirement.  So I searched through the archives of all the food blogs I follow. I flipped through my cookbook collections. I even Googled it.  The results were meager. Surprisingly, most recipes using whole oats instruct them to be ground into oat flour in the food processor.  That's not what I was looking for, though. My craving demanded whole oats.

One recipe, however, had potential. A link to a link to yet another link led me to Strawberry Malted Pancakes. I had malt powder (hard as a rock from disuse), I had strawberries, and--hooray!--it called for whole oats!

These pancakes hit the spot. And the next few days saw me eating them cold, directly out of the refrigerator.   So you know it's good. And I won't hold out on you.

Strawberry Malted Pancakes
From The Spiffy Cookie via Rachel Cook's 31 Days of Pancakes
Makes approximately 1 dozen pancakes

Ingredients:
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup ground old fashioned oats*
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup malted milk powder
1 1/2 cups sliced fresh strawberries

*I must have wanted pancakes with whole oats so badly, I failed to read the word "ground" and skipped the grinding part.  But my pancakes turned out quite well.

Preparation:
In a large bowl, use an electric hand mixer (or a whisk and the power of your marvelous arms) to beat the eggs and milk on high until light and foamy, about 3 minutes.  Stir in the melted butter.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, salt, baking powder, and malted milk powder.  Gently mix the egg and milk mixture into the dry ingredient mixture.  Fold in 1 cup of the strawberries and let the batter rest for 15 minutes so it can thicken slightly.

Heat a non-stick pan or griddle over medium heat.  Melt a tiny bit of butter in the pan and drop 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the pan.  When bubbles are visible on the top of each pancake (which will take about 2 minutes), flip the pancake over and cook on the other side for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes.  Serve with remaining strawberries and syrup or whipped cream.

Matcha Lemon Chiller

Poised on the highest shelf in my kitchen are two plastic bins of tea. All types of tea - black, green, hibiscus, rooibos, herbal, yerba mate...  It's an appreciation for tea gone terribly astray.  But every weekday morning without fail (I often fail on the weekends, simply because I'm not groggily following my morning routine), I make a travel mug of tea to take to work.  Usually it's green tea, so I can reap all those marvelous nutritional benefits...antioxidants!...helps burn fat!...helps curb hunger!

This summer, though, I've been trying something different for at least a few days a week. It's still tea. Matcha tea, to be specific. Matcha is ground green tea leaves that you drink or use in baking.  Inspired by a recipe from another blog, I made a matcha - honey - lemon concoction that chilled in the refrigerator overnight.

The next morning, it was the perfect way to keep cool in the morning. And I bet this drink is wonderful when sipped on the patio in the afternoon.

Matcha Lemon Chiller
Adapted from Inspired Edibles (get the original recipe here)
Makes 2 cups

Ingredients:
1/2 tsp. matcha powder
1.5 cups water, just before boiling if you can
1/2 cup lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
1-2 tbsp. honey or agave nectar

Lots of lovely lemon zest

Preparation:
Bring the water to just before a boil. While it is heating, put your matcha powder into a heat-safe container. (I use a glass mason jar). When your water is ready, pour it onto your matcha powder. Add honey or agave nectar and lemon zest. Stir well...though I never seem to stir enough to get the matcha to dissolve, so do what you can.  Add lemon juice. Store in the refrigerator overnight in an airtight container. Give it a brief stir before enjoying the next morning.

Note: the original recipe called for steeping mint leaves in the hot water.  I tried it, but realized I preferred the chiller without the mint. I also tried using only lime juice and zest, which was too harshly tart for my taste.  Feel free to add your own strokes of genius. And add more matcha powder if that's your thing.

It's not another green smoothie!
It's a matcha lemon chiller...and it's green too.

Now that I'm drinking matcha, I'm looking forward to testing the matcha-melon milkshake from the first Baked cookbook and matcha with milk.

Cold-Brewed Coffee Latte

I tried to be a coffee drinker. It sounded so cozy, as if each sip from a steaming mug of java would wake me up piece by piece, until I was ready to tackle the new day. It sounded like I would have a relaxed start to each day, mug in one hand and book in the other as I sat curled on the couch or a picturesque window seat.

Alas, my forays into being a daily coffee drinker did not match the slightly hallucinatory scenarios I had pictured.  I still dashed around my apartment in a desperate attempt to get to work on time.  I still wanted to crawl back into bed whether I had that cup of coffee or not.  Plus I didn't really enjoy the taste.  So I went back to tea, which evokes no such grandiose illusions in my head.  Tea isn't going to propel me into the workday singing show tunes. I kind of like it that way. I'm just not much of a morning person.

But a recent slew of articles in food arenas rekindled my desire to be a coffee drinker.  These articles threw out the concept of cold-brewing your coffee, where you steep the grounds in room temperature water for several hours, strain them, and use.  A chilled coffee beverage in the morning? With the ridiculous heat and humidity that is our apartment in the summer? Yes. Please. Now.


Iced Coffee "Latte"
Adapted from Bon Appetite's recipe for iced coffee (get their recipe here)

Cold-brewed coffee concentrate with milk,
ice cold on a warm morning

Make cold-brewed coffee concentrate:
Combine 7 oz. ground coffee beans with 3.5 cups of water. Allow to sit at room temperature for at least 15 hours (I went to about 24 hours for the sake of convenience).  Line a mesh strainer with cheesecloth that has been folded once (you want a double layer of cheesecloth). Pour the coffee ground/water mixture through, giving the captured coffee grounds a good squeeze to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the grounds and cheesecloth. Line the mesh strainer with a standard coffee filter and pour the liquid through. This will go much more slowly, so be patient and work in batches, never filling above the top of the coffee filter. If your liquid stops straining, you can either stir the liquid trapped in the strainer to move the coffee grounds out of the way...or you can use a new coffee filter.  Store your cold-brewed coffee concentrate in the refrigerator in an airtight container. I recommend glass so you avoid any funky flavor transfer from plastic.

Coffee grounds soaked in water for about 24 hours

Filter through cheesecloth first, to remove
most of the grounds and make your
next filtration faster

A second filtration through a coffee filter removes any remaining
particulate for a smooth concentrate

Store your concentrate in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
I like to use glass containers, so any funky flavors from plastic containers
don't leach into my concentrate...and so I don't stain my plastic containers!

Make an iced coffee "latte":
Combine equal parts of coffee concentrate and milk (cow, soy, almond, coconut, go crazy here!) in a glass, stir, and enjoy.  It's a lot of fun to make it in a glass jar so you can screw on the top and shake.

If you want, add ice, but be aware this will dilute your drink. Try freezing coffee in your ice cube tray...or just go with the chill the refrigerator will put on your drink.

Maybe add a bit of chocolate syrup or cocoa powder for a mocha twist. Or try a sprinkle of cinnamon or cardamom for a spicy, chai-like taste.

Any Morning French Toast

I have a bit of a problem. Every day, I agonize over what to have for breakfast.  My usual go-to's are Greek yogurt with assorted stuff, oatmeal with assorted stuff, or a smoothie.  Recently, I added in two different options:  eggs and toast (I obviously forgot how darn quick eggs cook.) or French toast.  You heard me. French toast.  In the morning, before work.  It takes a whole 5 minutes to cook. And it tastes delicious.

Doesn't this just make your morning better?
It's also the perfect balance of whole grains,
dairy protein, fruit, and nuts. Talk about
a power breakfast!

Any Morning French Toast
French toast quick and easy enough for a weekday morning
Makes 1 serving

Ingredients:
1-2 slices of your favorite bread (I love sliced 10 grain)
1 egg
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
Ricotta cheese
Fresh fruit (chopped), nuts, honey or maple syrup

Preparation:
In a shallow, wide bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, sugar and vanilla extract until thoroughly mixed.  Press one slice of your bread into the mixture and give it a moment to soak up the eggy goodness.  Flip the slice over so the other side soaks in the egg mixture as well.

Heat a skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the butter to your pre-heated skillet and allow it to melt, swirling it around the pan.  Put your egg-soaked bread slice in the pan and cook until golden brown, about 2-4 minutes.  Flip the bread over and cook until golden brown on the other side.  Transfer to your plate.

Spread ricotta over the bread. Top with fruit, nuts, and honey or maple syrup.  Heck, go crazy and add some chia seeds and shredded coconut. What about a dollop of delicious jam? Bonus if it's strawberry-chia seed quick jam...

Note: If you have extra egg mixture, you can store it in the refrigerator for a few days.  This makes the French toast-making process even faster! Just pour it in a shallow bowl, give it a brief stir, and use.

Peaches, plums, and sliced almonds

Some other ideas for your French toast...

• After dipping your bread in the egg mixture, dip or sprinkle with wheat germ or ground flaxseed before cooking.
• Give your fruit a theme. Tropical -- pineapple, shredded coconut, macadamia nuts, mango, kiwi.  Stone fruits. Apples and caramel sauce for fall. Pumpkin puree and pumpkin seeds for October. You get the idea. Have some fun!
• Make two slices and sandwich around nut butter and banana slices. If you're really daring, add some cooked bacon for a twist Elvis would love.
• Mix your ricotta with a teaspoon (or a tablespoon if you're a chocoholic) of cocoa powder for a chocolately twist. This is especially great with raspberries and strawberries.
• Mix your ricotta or your fruit with a splash of Gran Marnier or fruit liquor (creme de cassis, raspberry liquor like Chambord, etc.). 
• Add some orange zest to the ricotta, sprinkle the top with pistachios and chocolate chips. It's an impromptu cannoli.
• Have leftover fruit sauce?  Add a hefty spoonful or two on top of your ricotta. 
• Go the more savory route and omit sugar and vanilla from your egg mixture. Then top your French toast with a veggie saute.

Ricotta, walnuts, honey, strawberries, blueberries.
And some hibiscus tea.

Oatmeal of a Different Color

I had pink oatmeal today.  Pink, because the raspberries tinted the almond milk a pale and lovely pink. Don't worry, there was chocolate and coconut in there too. I made it for breakfast. All I can say is...incredible! It'll make you finish the entire bowl of oatmeal, which is not typical for me.

Oatmeal of A Different Color

Ingredients:
1 package of instant oatmeal (I prefer Nature's Path brand)
Almond milk (add enough to get the consistency of oatmeal you love)
Handful of raspberries
1 tbsp. walnuts, broken into pieces
1 tbsp. chia seeds
1 1/2 tsp. cocoa nibs
1 tbsp. shredded coconut
1 tbsp. semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation:
Combine oatmeal packet and almond milk in a bowl. Microwave as the packet instructs.

Add remaining ingredients and stir well, so the chocolate chips begin to melt into the oatmeal.

*I like to use frozen raspberries, because they're always in season and because I enjoy the texture and chill of a frozen raspberry.  If you use frozen raspberries, microwave the oatmeal for half the time listed on the packet...then add in the raspberries and microwave for the remaining time. The frozen raspberry will be thawed just enough to enjoy while still providing a chilled and firm texture.

Maple - Bacon Oatmeal

Inspired by a brief article in a magazine read months ago (sheesh, time, what happened?), I decided on a whim this morning to give a new oatmeal concoction a test spin.  And, oh man, was it good.  It was good because not only was it a change from the typical bowl of oatmeal I've been consuming lately, but it was such a delicious combination of flavors.  I'll most definitely be revisiting this combo soon.

Directions:

• Put one packet of instant oatmeal into a microwave safe bowl (I'm partial to Nature's Path brand)
• Add milk (or soy or coconut milk) and or water to the bowl.  Add the amount you want to get your desired consistency. I like my oats thicker, more like porridge, so I add enough to cover and just a bit extra.
• Add a spoonful of nut butter and stir to dissolve as much as possible
• Microwave according to packet's directions
• After your oats are cooked, stir to mix. Then add in the goodness:  a hefty dose of dark amber maple syrup, a small handful of slivered almonds, a solid pinch of chia seeds and cocoa nibs, and - wait for it! - two to three strips of cooked bacon, torn into smaller pieces.
• Stir again and devour

It's almost Friday. Hang in there!

A Poofy Breakfast

I'm not much of a morning person.  I try to be...but I still haven't figured out how to do that.  So you could see why breakfast is the highlight of the morning.  Weekday breakfasts are quick affairs, thrown together in the morning from a rotating list of options. Yogurt with fruit and nuts (and now some homemade granola!).  A muffin or bread I made with some kefir.  Oatmeal with either PB and dried fruit or milk/coconut milk and a fruit sauce.  Occasionally cereal and milk.  Don't get me wrong. I love my weekday breakfasts.  They're delicious and, most of the time, nutritious.  But going off a short list every week makes me crave something different on the weekends, when I have more time to put into breakfast.

Eggs are the favorite choice of Eric.  He makes killer omelettes and scrambled eggs.  Sometimes we indulge in Trader Joe's Cinnamon Rolls.  I sneak raisins into one roll for me, but leave the rest unsullied by such things for him.  Waffles occasionally make an appearance too, though I keep the fruit limited to toppings on my plate.  For weekend breakfasts, these are perfect, especially when enjoyed at an actual dining room table with a place mat.  Holy cow, we're talking crazy-luxurious here!

A few weekends ago, I took a walk on the wild side and made an Alton Brown recipe I've had bookmarked for years--the Dutch Baby pancake.  I'd never even tried it at The Original Pancake House because the menu notes it has a 20-30 minute wait, and every time I've been there, I've already waited 30 minutes to sit down and order.  So I was curious and I was nervous and I was excited.  The perfect storm of culinary exploration, right?

The good news:  making a Dutch Baby pancake is actually really easy.

The better news:  there are several flavor combinations you can fit in this recipe. I made a bacon + vanilla one here, but I'm going to try a nectarine + raspberry one in the very near future.

The best news:  a Dutch Baby pancake is delicious!  And huge!!!

Dutch Baby Pancake
From Alton Brown

Ingredients:
3 tbsp. unsalted butter (separate into 2 tbsp. and 1 tbsp. amounts), each melted
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp. granulated sugar (vanilla sugar, if you have it)
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
lemon wedges

Directions:
--Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit

--Place 2 tbsp. of melted butter into a 10-inch cast iron skillet.  Put the skillet into the oven and wait about 10 minutes before assembling the remaining ingredients. You want to get the skillet incredibly hot.

--Put the remaining tablespoon of melted butter, flour, sugar, salt, milk, and eggs in the bowl of a food processor. Process for 30 seconds to form a batter.

--Remove skillet from oven (careful, it's hot!) and carefully pour the batter into the skillet.  Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30-35 minutes, until the edges are puffed and brown.  The whole pancake will puff up inside the oven, but instantly start deflating when you remove it.  Don't worry, it still tastes fantastic.

--Cut into wedges and serve with additional sugar and lemon juice sprinkled on top.

Notes:
--Above all, remember the skillet is hot!  I like to set a pot holder over the skillet's handle after I've removed it from the oven, just to remind myself not to touch.

--Vanilla sugar is super easy to make. Pour granulated sugar into an air-tight container or jar and add a vanilla bean.  I used a vanilla bean I had scraped the seeds out of for a recipe, and it still flavored the sugar quite thoroughly.  Seal the container and give it a shake every few days.  After a week or so, the sugar should have enough vanilla flavor to use.

--My first pancake included bits of bacon I had cooked in a separate skillet and cooled.  After pouring the batter into the hot skillet, I crumbled the bacon on top and put it back into the oven to cook.  I enjoyed the salty-smoky and vanilla sugar contrast, but I'm guessing I'll enjoy the fruit version even more.  Get creative and remember this can be sweet or savory!

Bacon is good for you!!!

Strawberries & Cream Oatmeal

I'm going to gloss over the fact that I've been absent for awhile. Over a month, if I am correct. Oops. Unintentional, I promise. Life became that crazy but wonderful swirl of preparation and party that Christmas time engenders.  We'll sorta catch up soon, I promise.

Until then, I needed to tell you about this sexy oatmeal creation I enjoyed a few mornings ago. Yes, oatmeal can be sexy. At least this oatmeal is. Inspired by Women's Health magazine's recent article on variations on your everyday oatmeal, I tried my own recipe.

1.  Combine a packet of instant oatmeal (I love the Nature's Path brand) and milk in a microwave safe bowl. I added more milk than the instructions called for, but not too much because I didn't want soupy oatmeal. Just eyeball it. 


2.  Microwave according to packet's instructions


3. After microwaving, add more milk to get a thick soup/stew consistency.  Add strawberry sauce (recipe below) and walnuts.  Devour.

*Strawberry Sauce:  in a saucepan, combine a package of frozen whole strawberries (or you can use fresh, trimmed of their leafy green tops), some orange juice, some lemon juice, some lemon zest, and a hearty pinch of tapioca pearls (for thickening).  Bring to a boil for a minute or two, then turn off heat. Store in refrigerator and use on yogurt, ice cream (especially tasty with chocolate sauce!), or oatmeal. You can do this with nearly any fruit and juice combination....so use your imagination.


I apologize for the complete lack of photos...but I'm sincerely hoping to remedy that problem very, very soon. In which case I will make this oatmeal and show it to you in all of its delicious, sexy glory.