This Just In: Baked Oatmeal RULES!

Aww, shucks! I found out today that my recipe for baked oatmeal was a winner in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition's Thanksgiving recipe contest.

I won a cool cookbook, can't wait to read it.

Thanks to ya'all who took the time to vote.

Merciful bouquets!

Four Carrot Salad: Husband-Approved Salad #3!

It's been a while since I posted a husband-approved salad. The last one was the Pesto Edamame Salad, and that was all the way back in August! Well, in the meantime, I had a couple salad attempts that he didn't dig (unapproved), and then the weather turned cold. Once there's an autumn chill, we tend to eat warm veggie sides, not cold salads.

But last week, I made the four carrot salad for Thanksgiving. And the hubs gave it a serious thumbs up.

So now, finally, I have come up with HUSBAND-APPROVED SALAD #3. Hoorah. (Just 47 more to go on my 50 HUSBAND-APPROVED SALADS CHALLENGE).

Eat Your Fractals! (Thanksgiving Sides To-Go)

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, I'm on my way out, onto the road, bringing with me a couple of side dishes for the big supper! I love trying out new and different foods. Grabbing the stuff I've never eaten before from the produce aisle is certainly a good way (for me) to make sure I eat my vegetables.

The first side dish: garlic roasted Romanesco cauliflower
This awesome cauliflower looks like fractals! I love it! Beautiful green florets, sweet, and in the shape of wicked cool fractals!

I used the recipe for garlic cauliflower from the Food Network. Alas, my oven must be a tad hotter than it should be, as the garlic burned some. I'll bring with me the cauliflower and not the overly browned garlic.


The second side dish: four carrot salad
... orange carrots, purple carrots, gold carrots, and yellow (satin!) carrots. Each have an variety of slightly different vitamins and minerals to offer, as well as a slightly different flavor (ranging from sweeter to slightly more celeric).

The recipe was exceptionally simple.
1) I sliced the organic carrots very, very thin.
2) I finely diced 1 medium shallot and added that to the carrots.
3) I finely diced 1/4 c. of dried cranberries and added those in, too.
4) I made a salad dressing with 3 T. dijon mustard, 1 T. garlic-chili sauce, 1/4 c. balsamic vinegar, 1/4 c. white wine vinegar, 1 T. organic sesame oil, 3 T. organic olive oil, 1 T. dried parsley flakes, 1 T. dried basil flakes, black pepper, and 2 T. Bragg Liquid Amino (used instead of plain old salt, this is a great healthful substitute with a lot of flavor).
5) I tossed together and let sit overnight.


Gobble, gobble!

Here are some pictures!

The Morning After: Baked Oatmeal

(This is a great food for everyday buzz-buzz busy life and also for holiday guests! Which is why I posted a holiday version of this recipe in a ***CONTEST*** through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Please go to this website and vote for my recipe every day!)


Got hunger? Got guests? Got a pregnant friend??? Give 'em baked oatmeal.

I've always loved oatmeal. But I don't like to cook it every day. Enter in the majestic and tasty solution: baked oatmeal. I'd never heard about baked oatmeal before last week, when my friend and fellow blogger (The Variegated Life) introduced me to the lovely food blog and site A Nourished Kitchen.

I slightly altered A Nourished Kitchen's recipe to suit my tastes in a few ways:
1) Less sugar
2) Bran flakes (for the fiber)
3) Less dried fruit, etc. (to decrease the sugar)
4) Less custard, i.e. less egg and milk mix (to decrease the cholesterol and to insure that the squares of baked oatmeal keep their form and are truly portable)

Baked Oatmeal
Grab it cold, it's good to go. Because this is so easy to make, so filling and tasty, and makes so much, it is a great recipe for the holidays when your home is full of guests. Filling and tasty. Loaded with whole grains to help get your body restarted, metabolism smoothed out, and blood sugar leveled!

Baked Oatmeal, Yogurt, Cinnamon, and Maple Syrup

5 c. organic steel cut oats
1 c. organic bran flakes
1-2 T. yogurt
1/3-1/2 c. prunes, finely chopped
4 organic, free-range eggs
1 c. organic milk
1/4 c. molasses
**for more flavor, add 1 tsp. vanilla or almond extract
**for more sweetness, add 1/2 c. more dried fruit (such as raisins) or sucanat sugar

1) Put the oats, bran flakes, and yogurt in a large container or bowl. Completely cover with water and mix to combine the yogurt throughout. Cover the container with its top, a clean dishcloth, or plastic wrap. Let sit overnight.
2) Strain in a colander. Lightly with the back of a large spoon to be sure most of the excess water drains.
3) Beat the eggs and milk together (along with the extracts or sugar, if you are using those). Stir the drained oats, chopped prunes, and molasses thoroughly into the egg and milk mix.
4) Grease a 9 x 11 glass baking dish with coconut oil or vegetable oil. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
5) Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until brown, solid yet moist. (While cooking, you might see liquid bubbling up in places. If so, the baked oatmeal is done when there is little liquid left to bubble.)
6) Allow to cool for a few minutes. This also lets the oats absorb any remaining moisture.
7) Slice into squares and serve immediately, with brown sugar, yogurt, milk or soy milk, fresh fruit, maple syrup, honey or jam!
8) Or allow to cool completely, store in the refrigerator, and eat later. Baked oatmeal can last about 1 week.

Serving Ideas
You can appeal to your guests' wide range of tastes and hankerings with this baked oatmeal, simply by putting out an assortment of simple additions and condiments. For example, baked oatmeal can be served with:
• brown sugar or sucanat,
• yogurt,
• warm milk or soy milk,
• fresh fruit,
• maple syrup,
• honey,
• jam,
• barley malt syrup,
• peanut butter or almond butter,
• agave nectar,
• sprinkling of cocoa powder or powdered sugar,
• applesauce,
and of course …
• leftover whole berry cranberry sauce!

Meaner, Greener, Leaner!
* Steel cut oats are good food. In Terry Walter's great book Clean Food, she notes how groats are the most nutritious form of oats, with steel cut oats coming in second. In other words, steel cut oats are a terrific source of vitamins and minerals.
* Nourished Kitchen says it best, I think:
"Baked oatmeal is both deeply nutritive and deeply satisfying. Steel cut oats are gently soaked overnight in water acidified by a touch of yogurt or fresh whey which helps to increase not only your body’s ability to better digest the grain, but also your body’s ability to better absorb its minerals. Oats are rich in minerals, including phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, iron and zinc, .... Moreover, oats are a rich source of B vitamins including folate – that critical nutrient which is vital to reproductive health and the proper development of babies growing within their mothers’ wombs."
* Nourished Kitchen and Terry Walters both recommend soaking oats in order to diminish the phytic acid. As Nourished Kitchen states:
".... but due to the effects of naturally occurring antinutrients found in whole grain, such as phytic acid, those minerals due your body little good unless oats are properly prepared as they are in this recipe."
But other sites dispute this. Some, such as The World's Healthiest Foods, suggest that there are low levels of phytic acid in oats, others suggest that the phytic acid in oats doesn't diminish much with soaking (as with other grains). One site, Rebuild the Blog, recommended adding a different type of grain into oats and soaking together as an aid to the breakdown of phytic acid. It is based on this advice that I chose to add the bran.
* This recipe makes a great breakfast, but it could be easily adapted to make a low-sugar, healthful desert option--an oat-y substitution to bread pudding!
Baked Chocolate and Cherry Oatmeal!
Just replace the prunes with 3/4 c. of dried chopped cherries, add 1 more c. of organic milk, add the extract and sucanat (as noted above), do not use the molasses, add 1/3 c. of fair-trade cocoa powder, and add 1/2 c. of fair-trade chocolate chunks.

Here are more pictures from the process.

Oats getting a soak!


Outta' the oven ...




And on my plate!

A Tad Tardy: Bloody Halloween Finger Cookies Without the Red #40

Oops! I'm still getting the hang of this blogging thing, so this is a belated blog post about the Halloween recipe I tried.

I saw these on In Erika's Kitchen ...

(image from In Erika's Kitchen)

She used a great, clear recipe to make these wicked severed finger cookies from Shockingly Delicious. I checked around online, and there are a lot of variations for these awesome gruesome buttery fingers ... green-colored Frankenstein fingers, red-colored demonic digits, and werewolf claws with toasted coconut 'hair.'

AWESOME!

EXCEPT for one thing--Red #40 and Red #40 Lake, the dye used in most red food coloring and most red gels.

My friend over at Middle Aged Jock wrote a clear and succinct analysis of these food dyes, particularly about how they're banned in Europe. Yes, banned. There have been studies linking these colors to ADHD and lowered IQs in children. There's a lot of Internet debate about these dyes from a wide-range of sources. But I take it seriously when a group of countries chooses to ban something. Of course, in the United States, these dyes abound in all sorts of children's treats.

I wanted to come up with a replacement for the red gel that would be cheap, easy, and practical for busy parents and busy witches.

So, I slightly altered the recipe in one way:
* I did not use store-bought red gel.
* I mixed 1 T. dye-free red jam with 1/2 c. confectioner's sugar to create a bright red gel, free of added coloring. I happened to have lingonberry, but raspberry or strawberry would also work well.

Ta-da! Delicious! And I can rest assured that the health and IQs of any witches and warlocks who ate these cookies stayed a-okay.

Ribollita Soup: Tuscan Farm in a Bowl

I first ate ribollita soup in a small, dingy restaurant in a corner of Florence. Here was a place where you sat, you were served on teeny tables shared with strangers, and you drank your wine from tiny plain glass cups. No pretension. Insanely brilliant food. At the time, my husband and I were visiting his extended Italian relatives. A few days after that awesome restaurant meal, we were treated to a large family reunion on the family farm. Every table top was covered with homemade food, and one of the foods served was this soup.

It is awesome.

It is full of vegetables. All types of vegetables. Including leafy greens. And yet the husband eats it. That is a little miracle.

Ribollita Soup (Vegetable & Bread Soup)
This is one of my all-time favorite soups. And in addition to being tasty, it's healthy. I mean really healthy. Do I sound astonished? Yes, I do. It's just this soup is so tasty and so healthy ... It's like a scientific breakthrough or something. Just try it, and you too will be agog, happy, and pleasantly full.


2 organic onions, finely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4-6 stalks organic celery, finely chopped
4-5 organic carrots, finely chopped
2 organic beef tomatoes, rough chopped
28 oz. organic crushed tomatoes (with basil, ideally)
4 cups of organic vegetable broth (or 4 cups of water and low-sodium vegetable bouillon cubes)
2+ cups of water, as needed
4 cups of cooked organic white beans (cannellini, ideally from dried beans)
about a thumb-length piece of dried kombu
a head of a chopped dark leafy greens (bok choy, kale, spinach, savoy cabbage, your choice)
1/3 c. grated Parmesan cheese
2 stale rolls (kaiser, ciabatta, or equivalent crusty bread), ripped into tiny pieces
1 T. dried basil
1 T. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried red pepper flakes
3 T. organic, cold-pressed olive oil

1) Use a big pot. A large kettle. A witch's caldron, if you have it!
2) Heat up the olive oil in the pot over a medium flame, then add the onions. Once they are slightly translucent, add the garlic. Be sure to stir so that the garlic doesn't burn until the onions and garlic and slightly brown.
3) Add the carrots and celery. Continue to cook on medium heat until browned and slightly cooked, stirring as needed.
4) Add the dried basil, parsley, and red pepper flakes. Turn off the heat and stir. Allow the dried herbs to absorb any remaining oil or moisture. If there is no moisture left, add a spoonful of water so that the dry herbs can rehydrate.
5) Turn the heat back on. Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, vegetable broth, white beans, and kombu. I like to let the soup cook in a slow boil for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. By doing so, the fresh tomatoes have a chance to break down, the broth and dried seasonings develop and meld, and the carrots and beans to fully cook. During this time, I add extra water as needed, as the broth boils down.
6) Taste the soup. Add black pepper if you want more spice.
7) Remove the kombu. Add the chopped greens, pieces of bread, and grated cheese. Cook about another 10 minutes, until the greens are completely cooked and the bread has pretty much dissolved to thicken the soup. Again, as the soup boils, it will evaporate, and so add extra water as needed.
8) Serve!

Meaner, Greener, Leaner!
* Dried beans! Using dried beans beans means:
--we use less plastic, metal, and energy from tin cans, packaging, and shipping.
--soaking and cooking the dried beans diminishes the bean's phytic acid.
--we take in less BPAs and expose the environment to fewer BPAs (BPAs can be found in the lining of tin cans).
--cooking the beans yourself means you can cook them with some dried rosemary or thyme, thereby developing the flavor of the beans, the soup, and anything you use the beans in.
--you take in fewer preservatives and salts (as used in your standard canned cooked beans).
* If you do need to use canned beans, please check the label for BPA-free cans. (Eden Foods, on their website, says that they use BPA-free cans.)
* I just started trying to use kombu, after reading about it in Terry Walter's wonderful book, Clean Food. Kombu is a type of kelp, known for its "umami" (ooh la la). It is can be used to develop flavorful broths, grains, and legumes. It is also known for its ability to break down acids in foods, thereby improving the digestibility of those foods.
* This soup is a low-fat, low-cholesterol highly flavorful and nutritious meal, full of a variety of vegetables and vitamins; and the beans are a great source of vegetable-based protein.

How to Cook Dried Beans
1) Place the beans in a pot and cover with water.
2) Soak overnight. (This should help diminish any aftereffects, like gas.)
3) Drain the water. Rinse the beans. Then add fresh water (1 c. of dried beans to 3 c. of water).
4) Add about an inch-long piece of kombu and any dried herbs you like.
5) Boil for about 45-60 minutes, or until the beans are tender. B sure to skim off any foam. (Another thing to help diminish beany aftereffects.)
6) Use what you need, and store the extra (when cooled) in the freezer for a later date.

Here are more pictures of the soup!

Soup with a halo of light!

What Are You Eating For Lunch? Tomatoes & Parmesan

There's no recipe here today.

Knock, knock! Any recipe home? Nooo.

Just this simple and beautiful food. Sort of like bragging. Pretty much exactly like bragging.


Fresh orange organic tomatoes from the coop ...


Flavorful and tender. Look at those seeds!


Add some salt, black pepper, and thin peels of Parmesan cheese.


A whole plateful.

Peanut Butter Pie Obsession: Test 1, Test 2, Test 3 ...

Sometime ago, I learned I love peanut butter pie. Adore it like a mother adores a child. Cherish it and try to hold the pie, in all its sweetness, close to my bosom. Dream and plan for it. Coo over it. Sing it lullabies!

And who wouldn't, really? Cookie crust, cream cheese, milk, peanut butter, powdered sugar, and whipped cream. Mmmmm.

Yeah ... well, I might adore peanut butter pie. But I'd prefer to be able to adore this special treat with less worry (about heart valves, build up, arteries, eeks!).

So, the problem is ... How to Make a Healthier Peanut Butter Pie?

Peanut-Butter Pie: An Understandable Obsession

This is my process so far:
Attempt #1: Traditional Recipe
A couple years ago I made my first peanut butter pie, using a very traditional recipe. I used Emeril Lagasse's 5-star Peanut Butter Pie recipe from the Food Network. And a standard graham-cracker pie crust (1.5 c. crushed graham crackers, 8 T. melted butter, 2-3 T. sugar, baked, etc.). It produces an awesome, traditional peanut butter pie. But sadly, one filled to the rim with dairy-based cholesterol.

Attempt #2: Homemade Yogurt Cream Cheese Substitution and Less Butter
Recently, I decided to play with the pie and the crust. For the crust, I wondered if I could make the graham-cracker pie crust with less butter and less sugar. I used 1.5 c crushed graham crackers, 5 T. butter, and no sugar. Bad move! It crumbled and cut very poorly!

For the pie filling, I substituted the cream cheese with homemade yogurt cream cheese. I put the plain unsweetened yogurt in a cheese cloth in the frig overnight to thicken into something more of a cream-cheese consistency. To compensate for the slight added tartness of yogurt (in comparison to the flavor of cream cheese), I also added 1 tsp. of vanilla extract. This worked! But it was a tad labor intensive. Also, I felt this pie lacked a certain zing.

Attempt #3: Homemade Yogurt Cream Cheese, Extra Layer for Flavor, Medium Amount of Butter
Just last week, I tried again. This worked great! For the crust, I used 1.5 c. crushed chocolate cookies, 6 T. butter, and 1 T. sugar. Still a little crumbly, but delicious! I prefer the chocolate, too.

For the filling, I tried again with the homemade yogurt cream-cheese substituting for cream cheese in the traditional recipe. But before adding the whipped cream, I took some of that initial filling (peanut butter, cream cheese, sugar, milk) and spread it as a thin layer in the bottom of the cooled pie crust. Then, I added whipped cream to the remainder of the filling and added this as the main filling. This did two things: (1) created a very peanut buttery layer in the pie and spiked the overall peanut butter flavor, (2) required much less whipped cream, a healthy bonus!

But still, overall, I wonder about the need to strain the yogurt to make a yogurt cream cheese substitute, and I'm still aware of all that cholesterol in the heavy cream for the whipped cream.

***

So, for now, my cravings for peanut butter pie have been sated. But next time ... and there will be a next time ... I have a few other possible plans.

Plan for Attempt #4:
I'd like to keep with the chocolate crust from trial #3. I'd also like to keep the peanut-butter punch of the intense extra layer. But I'd like to try to just use yogurt as a straight substitution for the cream cheese and nix the milk from the traditional recipe. This would mean I wouldn't have to worry about straining the yogurt with a cheese cloth.

Plan for Attempt #5:
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to basically make a thick peanut-butter pudding filling, the way one might when making a chocolate cream pie, for example. This would mean milk, cornstarch, peanut butter, and sugar. This sort of recipe would mean no cream cheese and whipped cream only for a little topping. So, I think this recipe could mean far lower cholesterol and fat levels in the pie.

Plan for Attempt #6:
I am unsure about this idea. I think I'll try a very small batch first. I once made an amazing dark chocolate mousse using tofu and melted dark chocolate. Same premise. This would have to be tofu, peanut butter, and perhaps melted white chocolate. A far lower fat and cholesterol content, and added soy protein to boot! Healthy, for sure! Would it satisfy a peanut butter pie craving? That is the question.

To be determined ...

Excelsior! Onward and upward! From fork to plate to mouth!

Attempt #3--Delicioso!