"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing..." -Helen Keller
 
We love oatmeal in the mornings, and fortunately we have the oats available to make it often. Hot oatmeal cereal, hot millet cereal, hot oatmeal and millet, and the occasional box of Rice Cric (some foreign brand of Rice Krispies) from a nearby town comprise our breakfast menu.

The other day we purchased 2 boxes of what we thought was cold cereal (judging by the appearance of the box, the presence of the word "crisp" in the title, and the appearance of the stuff on the spoon in the picture). Upon excitedly opening them at dinner time, we discovered they were, but again, packets of flaky and powdery stuff meant to be made into hot cereal. Here are the deceptive little boxes:
Picture
Feeling deceived, tricked, and a little stupid that I'd fallen for the picture on the front cover and not thoroughly inspected the box, I thought, "There must be a way to make our own cereal with stuff we can find around town." So after my last afternoon class, I hopped on my little blue bike and rode my way to the local supermarket.

At the supermarket, I taste-tested a few grains from the large scooping bins. Unsure of exactly what I was buying or what I'd do with it, I picked up some little circles made of corn, some non-instant oats, two mystery bags which I later discovered were crushed/pressed oats, one dark, one light (they look like oats that someone ran over with a truck so they're kind of fractured and more flat), and some "malnut meats" (code for walnuts). Then I pedaled back home, cuddled with my language notebook, and waited for inspiration to hit.

I'm not sure how inspired this was, but it did turn out surprisingly well. I decided to make kind of a mixed-grains cold cereal with some sweet clusters to make our taste buds dance.

Ingredients:
1 cup corn pieces/discs/flakes
4 1/2 cups oats
1/4 cup powdered sugar
3 T. water
1/3 c. honey
3 T. crushed walnut pieces
2 T. wheat germ

Well, the corn pieces were stale and really hard to bite into, so first, I toasted them and measured out one cup to be thrown into the cereal.

Then I measured one cup of each of the kinds of oats (Three cups of regular oats would do just fine.) I dissolved 1/4 cup powdered sugar in 3 T. of water and slowly added it to the oats, stirring constantly to make sure the sweet liquid coated them evenly rather than soaking into any one part. Then I toasted them at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until dry and a bit crispy. I had to stir them frequently to make sure they didn't burn.
I mixed the honey, walnuts, wheat germ, and 1 1/2 cups of oats together and baked that for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Once cooked, it made a super-tasty bunch of oat clusters to be mixed with the other cereal parts.
Picture
 
Cereal, cereal, cereal. It's on the top 5 list of things I miss from my former life.

Granola isn't exactly the same as a nice, big bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats or Honey Nut Cheerios, but it is a step closer to my favorite breakfast food.
Picture
This is orange sesame granola.

Ingredients:
5 1/2 cups of oats
1/2 c. sesame seeds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. lemon juice
1/2 c. orange juice

I combined the last 5 ingredients in a saucepan and heated them over medium heat for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly until the sugar was dissolved and everything had blended together.

Then I poured the mixture over the oats and sesame seeds and stirred together, finally pouring all of it onto a cookie sheet. I baked this for 20-30 minutes (I can't remember exactly) at around 400 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring it every 5-10 minutes to prevent burning. After I pulled it out of the oven, I returned to stir it every 3-4 minutes as it cooled so it wouldn't harden into one large sheet on the cookie sheet.

 
Picture
Project Casserole continues.

First, I got some pumpkin cubes boiling. (We don't really have canned veggies of any sort over here, but a can of pumpkin puree would be a grand alternative.)

The pumpkin took about 10-12 minutes to boil and soften so I could easily mash it. Meanwhile, I prepared a 9 x 13 pan of bread cubes.
I based this off of a recipe from a vegan website. Vegan I am not, and neither was this recipe by the time I finished with it. But I loved the recipe. It was fun, easy, freedom-giving, and delicious!

Ingredients:
bread (I used a loaf of unsliced bread, broken into large cubes. Stale bread would probably be best, but mine was fresh, so I just toasted it a bit first to dry it out.)
1 c. mashed pumpkin/ pumpkin puree (could also use applesauce, banana, etc.)
1 c. milk
2 T. cornstarch
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. ginger
3 T. brown sugar

Glaze:
2  egg whites
a little honey

So I mixed all of the wet ingredients together and then poured them over the bread. The pan looked a bit dry after I stirred it, so I splashed in a little more milk.
Picture
I stirred the mixture and let it sit for about 10 minutes while I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. Then I stirred again and let it sit for another 10 minutes.

I put it in the oven for about 15 minutes and then took it out to brush it with the egg-white and honey glaze. (To this point, there was not egg in the recipe, so I could have cooked it as long or as short as I wanted, longer for a less moist casserole.) After brushing the top, I put it back in the oven and baked it for about 10 more minutes. The glaze gave it a bit of hard/ crunchy sweetness on the outside of the top, which we really liked; it tasted a bit like monkey bread. The honey in the glaze also gave it a nice touch of sweetness so we didn't need to douse it in syrup. This tasted fantastic, and we'll definitely be making it again.
Picture
 
Pumpkin. Totally an autumn-esque food, but I just love it and can't keep myself from cooking with it year-round. I decided to try my hand at some pumpkin-spice scones. There are a bunch of recipes out there that look amazing, but unfortunately they all use loads of butter, which (a) we don't have here, and (b) just isn't going to be healthy at all. So, at the risk of having bunch of true scone connoisseurs stick up their noses at my baking, here's how I made mine. I adapted it from a recipe I found at this site.

Ingredients:
3 c. all-purpose flour
2 T. baking powder
2 T. white sugar (I reduced the white sugar and supplemented with brown sugar)
2 T. brown sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. cinnamon (I used cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg since I didn't have pumpkin pie spice)
1/8 t. ginger
1/8 t. nutmeg
2 T. oil (reduced from 1/3 c. oil)
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree/ mashed pumpkin
1 t. apple cider vinegar
raisins

I just combined all of the ingredients. (Raisins were my own addition, and I'm so glad I decided to throw them in. They added a great touch of flavor.) It took a while to incorporate all of the ingredients; at points it looked like there was too much flour, but in the end, it turned out great.

I formed the batter into 10 discs and baked them for about 14 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Picture
When they were golden brown, I removed them from the oven. We drizzled a cinnamon & powdered sugar glaze over them before eating them for breakfast.
Picture
 
Picture
Breakfast for dinner night. Again. And again. And again. It doesn't really get old, but trying to steer clear of sugar eliminates quite a few options. These apple egg omelets, though, were satisfying.

Ingredients per Big Omelet: 4-5 eggs, 1/4 cup milk, 1/8 t. salt, 1/8 t. cinnamon, 1 small apple (diced), 2 slices of low fat cheese

Mix the first 5 ingredients together.
Picture
Pour the mixture into a lightly oiled frying pan. Allow to cook on low heat (covered, if possible) until the top appears cooked. This took less than 10 minutes when covered, about 10-12 when uncovered. Add 2 slices of cheese and fold the omelet in half.
Cook another minute or two until the cheese is melted.
Picture
 
Pancakes. A good, solid breakfast food. Why not top it off with a good fruit syrup? We were originally going for healthy, so we de-seeded and blended up a bunch of grapes, then boiled them down into a nice, thick syrup. The only problem was that the syrup was a little tart. Goodbye, healthy. Hello, chocolate!

I made the same pancakes I usually do, with:
1 cup white flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 cup ground oats (I just blend them in the food processor until they're somewhat powdery.)
2 eggs
milk until desired consistency

I mixed these together and cooked them on our always-exciting, flame-shooting gas stove.
Picture
Then I took the remaining grape syrup from a few days before and added just a few chocolate chips and about a tablespoon of honey. I stirred this on the stove top for just a minute until the chocolate melted. This was fantastic. Chocolate-covered fruit in syrup form. It's what's for breakfast.
Picture
Picture

Quiche

11/28/2010

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
After eating french toast for several consecutive breakfast-at-dinner Wednesdays, we decided to experiment a little with a savory treat- quiche! This was much easier that I'd expected, and delicious too! It's officially on our regular list!
For the crust, I mixed 1 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 Tablespoons oil, and 1/4 cup ice water and put it into a lightly sprayed 10" round pan. I lined the crust with leafy greens, added some veggies (garlic, potatoes, mushrooms, and tomatoes), and added a little ground beef. Then I mixed 5 eggs with 3/4 milk, lightly salted, and poured it over the top. Of course, everything's better with cheese, but there's none to be found in our town, so we put this guy in the oven for 35 minutes or so at 375 degrees and baked it until it was golden brown on top and oh so delicious!

Picture
 
French toast is possibly our favorite breakfast food these days, especially Austin's. Wednesday night is breakfast at dinner night (a tradition we picked up from my good friend Sarah), and about every week we find ourselves making french toast. Here's an easy recipe I found on one internet site, nothing spectacular, but a good way to mix things up a little.
Picture
Ingredients:
2 or 3 slices of bread, cut into quarters
1 cup cornflake cereal
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon all-purpose flour

Toast the bread squares 5 minutes or so; cool completely. Mix 2 eggs and 1/3 c. milk in a large, shallow bowl. Soak the bread squares about 1 minute on each side in the egg mixture. Cover the bread squares in corn flake pieces and place on sprayed baking sheet. Cook for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, flip, cook another 10 minutes.

This was really fun. We actually ate breakfast for breakfast this time because I just couldn't wait until breakfast at dinner... that still came just hours later.
 
We are definitely cereal lovers. We'd eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every snack in between if we could! It's just a little hard to come by here, and by that, I mean our town has NONE! We can find a little for outrageous prices in towns far away, and some corn flakes and fiber cereal for okay prices about an hour away. Our family also helps with our supply from time to time. (Thanks!) But for those in-between times when the cereal spot is looking a little bare, we've taken to experimenting with making our own granola.

I've tried lots of kind this year, adding sesame seeds, peanut butter, almonds, raisins, and anything else I could think of, but this recipe is probably my favorite. Simple, sweet, and great for snacking. Usually I just pour in ingredients until it looks good, but for the sake of blogging, I tried to measure this time.
Picture
Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups oats (Old Fashioned style)
1/2-1/3 cup of honey (Both our oats and our honey are a little different than those in the U.S., so you may need to adjust just a little.)
1T. + 1t. cinnamon
Stir the three ingredients together (feel free to add any other spices, seeds, or fruit pieces too!). Spread them on a baking tray, sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.
Picture
Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes, stirring granola when it is halfway cooked. I usually pull mine out when it is browning but still soft. It hardens a whole lot as it cools, and we don't like ours too too crunchy.

I move it immediately from the baking tray to a pot to prevent it from cooling as one big rock, and I use the spatula to stir it around every five minutes or so until it cools. Sometimes it's a little sticky and will need to be chopped up or stirred again before pouring a bowl for breakfast, but it tastes great!
Picture
An Original Recipe
 
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups oat flour*
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
 1 Tbsp sugar
3/4 cup canned pumpkin**
1 cup milk (skim or plain soy)
1 egg

*The original recipe suggested whole wheat flour rather than oat, but I decided to give oat flour a try, and it worked really well. We just use ground oats.
**Of course we don't have canned pumpkin; I just boiled some pumpkin chunks for a few minutes and they mashed really easily.

Mix together the dry ingredients, then mix in the wet ingredients. Pour into a nonstick pan (or a huge, cast-iron griddle) that has some cooking spray on it. Flip when you see bubbles forming at the top of the pancake and cook for another minute or two.
Picture
This recipe was super moist and delicious. They were some nice, thick pancakes!
Picture
Picture