We are three weeks into this year's CSA, and so naturally, we are drowning in greens.
Spinach. Arugula. Mustard. Lettuces of every kind. Literally pounds of these greens have made their way into our fridge over the past few weeks. And though I have definitely gotten creative about adding greens into just about every meal and blanching spinach to freeze for later, with the hot weather we've been having (it's been in the nineties all week), we've been enjoying a bunch of salads, too.
Or maybe I should say, many servings of this one salad.
Because it's pretty much the only one I've been making.
But yes, it is that good.
You can sub any protein for the boiled eggs--grilled chicken or shrimp would be equally delightful, I'm sure, probably even better than the egg. But eggs don't need to be defrosted before you use them, so. You know.
A note on nuts: The DDH and I are not particularly big nut eaters. Neither of us go out of our way to put them on anything, we don't snack on them plain, and please for the love of all that is holy, keep them the heck away from our baked goods.
But the thing about CSAs is they make you try things you don't normally eat. In this case, our farmer's father has a bunch of pecan trees on his land, and so pecans regularly make their way into our CSA bags, especially early in the season when there isn't much else on offer. Except greens, obviously.
And it turns out that if you toast them in honey and butter, even a die-hard pecan-hater like the DDH will gobble them down. So while the dressing is all well and good for any salad, the pecans really make it special. And delicious.
Salad with Orange Vinaigrette and Honey-Toasted Pecans
Boil eggs, approximately 2 per person being served.
In a small bowl or convenient dressing shaker, combine:
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons honey
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Whisk or shake until thoroughly combined. Set aside.
In a different small bowl, put some pecans, shelled. Ours arrive cracked and blown, so I still have to pick out all the shells and I just do this until I get bored. But if you like measurements, aim for about a quarter cup.
Add enough honey to coat the pecans. It's about a 2:1 ratio, so for a 1/4 cup pecans I use about 1/8 cup (aka 2 Tablespoons) honey. But this is all sort of to taste, so feel free to use a little more or a little less.
Mix the honey and pecans until thoroughly coated.
In a small skillet, heat about 2 Tablespoons butter over medium heat.
Once the butter is melted and foamy, add the pecans. Cook until browned and toasty. There's a fine line between a browned pecan and a burnt pecan. Your best tool here is actually your nose; the pecans will just start to smell pecan-y and toasty. Stir them about; you'll notice the underside should be a little darker than the top. Give them another thirty seconds or so after your stir, then turn off the heat.
Separate your greens--spinach is especially good here, or the sort of thing called "premium greens mix" at the grocery store, but really just any sort of salad green will do--into each person's bowl. Top each serving with two sliced eggs and some pecans. Drizzle the dressing over the lot of it. Enjoy.
Showing posts with label make ahead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label make ahead. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake
Am I the only person who goes crazy buying fresh cranberries when they're on sale at Christmas, only to have a freezer full of unused cranberries come February?
Please say I'm not.
Anyway, I had to make a coffee cake to bring to a church brunch the other day. I'm not really much of a cake person.
But I am a cranberry-orange person. And a streusel person.
I'm also a butter person; the 9x13 version of this recipe uses an entire pound of butter. Sorry, not sorry.
This is a fairly sweet coffee cake; you could probably cut the sugar in the cake by at least a half cup, since you still have the streusel. It's also very dense and heavy; surprisingly hefty and filling for a cake.
You can easily halve the recipe for an 8x8 cake if you want something a little more suitable for a family, but the 9x13 size works great if you're bringing it to a brunch, as I was.
Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9x13 inch pan and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour, 3 tsp. baking powder, 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt.
In a different, small bowl, combine 2 cups sugar and the zest of 2 large oranges (or 4 tangerines/clementines). Rub the sugar and zest together with your fingers until fragrant; it will clump together a little bit as the sugar moistens from the zest.
Cream 2 sticks (1 cup) butter and the sugar mixture until fluffy, about three minutes.
Add in 4 large eggs, one at a time, beating each one into the mixture before adding the next. Beat until smooth.
Beat in 2 cups plain Greek yogurt and 2 tsp. vanilla extract. Beat until well combined.
Add the dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing until just combined.
Fold in 2 cups fresh cranberries.
For the streusel:
In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar, and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Whisk together.
Cut 2 sticks (1 cup) butter into small pieces. Add the butter pieces to the flour/brown sugar mixture. Cut butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or your fingertips. You're looking for an even mixture of large crumbs--you know what streusel looks like.
Pour half of the coffee cake batter into the pan and top with half of the streusel. Spoon the remaining batter over the streusel, using a spatula to spread it gently across the pan. Top with the remaining streusel.
Bake until golden brown and it passes the toothpick test, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Please say I'm not.
Anyway, I had to make a coffee cake to bring to a church brunch the other day. I'm not really much of a cake person.
But I am a cranberry-orange person. And a streusel person.
I'm also a butter person; the 9x13 version of this recipe uses an entire pound of butter. Sorry, not sorry.
This is a fairly sweet coffee cake; you could probably cut the sugar in the cake by at least a half cup, since you still have the streusel. It's also very dense and heavy; surprisingly hefty and filling for a cake.
You can easily halve the recipe for an 8x8 cake if you want something a little more suitable for a family, but the 9x13 size works great if you're bringing it to a brunch, as I was.
Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9x13 inch pan and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour, 3 tsp. baking powder, 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt.
In a different, small bowl, combine 2 cups sugar and the zest of 2 large oranges (or 4 tangerines/clementines). Rub the sugar and zest together with your fingers until fragrant; it will clump together a little bit as the sugar moistens from the zest.
Cream 2 sticks (1 cup) butter and the sugar mixture until fluffy, about three minutes.
Add in 4 large eggs, one at a time, beating each one into the mixture before adding the next. Beat until smooth.
Beat in 2 cups plain Greek yogurt and 2 tsp. vanilla extract. Beat until well combined.
Add the dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing until just combined.
Fold in 2 cups fresh cranberries.
For the streusel:
In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar, and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Whisk together.
Cut 2 sticks (1 cup) butter into small pieces. Add the butter pieces to the flour/brown sugar mixture. Cut butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or your fingertips. You're looking for an even mixture of large crumbs--you know what streusel looks like.
Pour half of the coffee cake batter into the pan and top with half of the streusel. Spoon the remaining batter over the streusel, using a spatula to spread it gently across the pan. Top with the remaining streusel.
Bake until golden brown and it passes the toothpick test, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
KFC-Style Coleslaw
Coleslaw is impossible to make.
What I mean is, coleslaw recipes vary so widely. People use mustard or no mustard, add other vegetables, make it tangy or sweet or both or neither. It can be sloppy and wet or dry and barely dressed.
It's always a gamble ordering coleslaw at restaurants because you never know what you're going to get and if you'll like it. And the same principle applies to coleslaw recipes. I mean, if you know you like a mustardy slaw or a creamy one, you can look at recipes that look like they'll result in the kind you prefer. But it's hard to tell.
I do know I usually like KFC coleslaw. It's a bit too sweet and sometimes a little gloppy, but overall it has a list of things I like--finely chopped cabbage, a touch of carrot and onion, creamy and sweet but still with some tang.
So when I went to make my own coleslaw with some of the bounty of CSA cabbage in my refrigerator, I went hunting for the KFC recipe. And if you want to clone a restaurant's recipe, you go to the Top Secret Recipes website.
I made a couple changes, and the resulting slaw--is very KFC-like.
KFC-Style Coleslaw
Adapted from Top Secret Recipes.
Gluten Free
Grain Free
Vegetarian
Use your food processor to finely shred two small or one medium heads of cabbage and two carrots or a generous handful of baby carrots.
Use the food processor to mince an onion (red preferred) and add 2 Tablespoons minced onion.
Mix the vegetables together in a large bowl.
In another bowl, combine 1/2 cup mayonnaise, between 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup buttermilk (I used the lemon-juice-in-milk trick), 2 1/2 Tablespoons lemon juice, scant 2 1/2 Tablespoons white vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Combine. I like to put the ingredients in the tall cylinder that came with my immersion blender and then use the immersion blender to blend everything. This ensures that the mayonnaise gets thoroughly mixed without leaving big chunks of mayo in the dressing.
Pour dressing over the vegetables and mix well.
Cover and refrigerate at least two hours before serving.
The verdict? It really does taste like KFC coleslaw, only slightly tangier and a little less sweet. The only problem is that I used homemade mayo and my recipe has a bit of dried mustard in it, so the coleslaw ended up tasting mustardy, which is exactly what I didn't want. SIGH. I wasn't thinking about the tiny bit of mustard in the batch of mayo, but it comes through really strongly. So if you're using homemade mayonnaise, leave the mustard out of it! But if you're using storebought, I'm sure it will taste exactly right.
What I mean is, coleslaw recipes vary so widely. People use mustard or no mustard, add other vegetables, make it tangy or sweet or both or neither. It can be sloppy and wet or dry and barely dressed.
It's always a gamble ordering coleslaw at restaurants because you never know what you're going to get and if you'll like it. And the same principle applies to coleslaw recipes. I mean, if you know you like a mustardy slaw or a creamy one, you can look at recipes that look like they'll result in the kind you prefer. But it's hard to tell.
I do know I usually like KFC coleslaw. It's a bit too sweet and sometimes a little gloppy, but overall it has a list of things I like--finely chopped cabbage, a touch of carrot and onion, creamy and sweet but still with some tang.
So when I went to make my own coleslaw with some of the bounty of CSA cabbage in my refrigerator, I went hunting for the KFC recipe. And if you want to clone a restaurant's recipe, you go to the Top Secret Recipes website.
I made a couple changes, and the resulting slaw--is very KFC-like.
KFC-Style Coleslaw
Adapted from Top Secret Recipes.
Gluten Free
Grain Free
Vegetarian
Use your food processor to finely shred two small or one medium heads of cabbage and two carrots or a generous handful of baby carrots.
Use the food processor to mince an onion (red preferred) and add 2 Tablespoons minced onion.
Mix the vegetables together in a large bowl.
In another bowl, combine 1/2 cup mayonnaise, between 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup buttermilk (I used the lemon-juice-in-milk trick), 2 1/2 Tablespoons lemon juice, scant 2 1/2 Tablespoons white vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Combine. I like to put the ingredients in the tall cylinder that came with my immersion blender and then use the immersion blender to blend everything. This ensures that the mayonnaise gets thoroughly mixed without leaving big chunks of mayo in the dressing.
Pour dressing over the vegetables and mix well.
Cover and refrigerate at least two hours before serving.
The verdict? It really does taste like KFC coleslaw, only slightly tangier and a little less sweet. The only problem is that I used homemade mayo and my recipe has a bit of dried mustard in it, so the coleslaw ended up tasting mustardy, which is exactly what I didn't want. SIGH. I wasn't thinking about the tiny bit of mustard in the batch of mayo, but it comes through really strongly. So if you're using homemade mayonnaise, leave the mustard out of it! But if you're using storebought, I'm sure it will taste exactly right.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Miscellaneous Summer Food Projects
I've actually been getting better at blogging the meals we've been eating, but here's a little taste (sorry) of some of the other food projects I've been working on:
Sourdough Starter
I've been feeding a sourdough culture for a couple months now. I've used it to make delicious sourdough pancakes, amazing sourdough English muffins, and two giant bricks that were supposed to be bread.
Canning
The DDH and I (well, mostly the DDH, honestly, while I ran baby-control) pickled a couple pounds of jalapenos and some cucumbers. He loves the results; I don't. I think it's the pickling spice he used.
Other Preservation
I've turned tomatoes into sauce and tossed it in the freezer. I've been chopping and freezing jalapenos and strawberries, roasting, skinning, and freezing green chile, and blanching and freezing basil. This bit of work now will make the winter so much tastier!
CSA
We've been loving our CSA share from my friend Don at Bootstrap Farm. Most of the jalapenos and some of the green chiles have come from the CSA, as have all the cucumbers, basil, and most of the other produce I've mentioned (the strawberries, though, were just on sale at Aldi). It's great to pick up a giant bag of tasty, local, organic produce every week that I've already paid for. :-) It's forced me to get creative in the kitchen and try out some new recipes, from fried okra to eggplant parmesan and more.
Bone Broth
I made my monthly-ish chicken and bone broth batch this past week. This is seriously one of the best things I can advise anyone to do in the kitchen. Roast a chicken (I use the crockpot because it's easy, but I make the World's Best Roasted Chicken in the oven). The meat gets used for meals immediately and/or shredded and frozen for quick meals later. All the bones, organ meats, skin, etc. get dumped back in the crockpot and turned into delicious bone broth, which I also freeze. Whenever you see a recipe on here that calls for chicken broth or stock, this is what I use. It's practically free, delicious, and super good for you--stock from the store (or bouillon) is none of those things.
Sourdough Starter
I've been feeding a sourdough culture for a couple months now. I've used it to make delicious sourdough pancakes, amazing sourdough English muffins, and two giant bricks that were supposed to be bread.
Canning
 |
| Pickled jalapenos and pickles. |
Other Preservation
 |
| Blanched basil drying before being frozen. |
CSA
 |
| Fried okra. |
 |
| Delicious CSA watermelon. |
We've been loving our CSA share from my friend Don at Bootstrap Farm. Most of the jalapenos and some of the green chiles have come from the CSA, as have all the cucumbers, basil, and most of the other produce I've mentioned (the strawberries, though, were just on sale at Aldi). It's great to pick up a giant bag of tasty, local, organic produce every week that I've already paid for. :-) It's forced me to get creative in the kitchen and try out some new recipes, from fried okra to eggplant parmesan and more.
Bone Broth
I made my monthly-ish chicken and bone broth batch this past week. This is seriously one of the best things I can advise anyone to do in the kitchen. Roast a chicken (I use the crockpot because it's easy, but I make the World's Best Roasted Chicken in the oven). The meat gets used for meals immediately and/or shredded and frozen for quick meals later. All the bones, organ meats, skin, etc. get dumped back in the crockpot and turned into delicious bone broth, which I also freeze. Whenever you see a recipe on here that calls for chicken broth or stock, this is what I use. It's practically free, delicious, and super good for you--stock from the store (or bouillon) is none of those things.
So that's what I've been up to in the kitchen this summer--how about you?
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Beef Stroganoff
The DDH doesn't make requests often. He's usually pretty content to just eat whatever I make, and will admit that he has discovered he loves lots of foods and flavors he had never tried before I made them for him.
However, I always ask him if he has any requests when I'm making my meal plan for the week, and this week he had one: beef stroganoff. Apparently he was feeling nostalgic for his mom's beef stroganoff.
The problem is, I really don't care for beef stroganoff. For one, it's usually served on egg noodles, of which I am not a fan. I'm not a fan of "cream of whatever"-type foods in general. Maybe it makes me a bad Lutheran, but I skip all those casseroles consisting mostly of different canned "cream of" soups. Blech.
But the DDH so rarely makes requests, and he clearly wanted beef stroganoff with egg noodles like his mom used to make. So I agreed to try it if he could get his mom's recipe.
A call to his mom led to the discovery of an old church cookbook containing her beef stroganoff recipe.
While the stroganoffs of my youth involved flank steak or some other sort of chopped beef, this recipe gave ground beef as an option and the DDH agreed that that would be fine.
The rest of the ingredients seemed fairly innocuous, other than the condensed cream of mushroom soup (and the strange specification that the sour cream be "dairy sour cream," which makes me wonder what other sorts of sour cream they ate in the eighties).
If I could figure out how to replace the soup, then I had all the ingredients except egg noodles. I picked some of those up and also bought some fresh mushrooms, since they were on sale at Aldi (I do often use canned mushrooms, but I'm not sure how this recipe will work with them).
I consulted Katie Kimball's cookbook Better Than a Box* to figure out how to replace the soup. Turns out, condensed cream of whatever soup is essentially a thick bechamel sauce with your vegetable or meat of choice for the base. Excellent.
I adjusted the procedures in Katie's book, added the seasonings from my mother-in-law's recipe, and went to work while T-Rex took an obligingly long nap.
Well, guess what? I still don't really like beef stroganoff. Or egg noodles. But I did find a way to make a dish that apparently people who do like beef stroganoff think is super tasty, and it didn't involve a single can of anything. The DDH declared it tasted just like he remembered, which means that clearly the flavor of the dish comes from something other than the cream of mushroom soup, and also that the addition of Worcestershire sauce to his mom's recipe didn't change much.
I don't have any pictures of this because a) I was trying to work quickly while the baby napped and b) beef stroganoff looks like barf. Not appetizing.
Real Food Beef Stroganoff
In a large skillet or dutch oven, brown 1 pound ground beef or beef cut of your choice. Set aside.
While the meat browns, roughly chop up 1 package mushrooms (8 oz) and 1 medium onion.
Heat about 2 Tablespoons oil or butter in the skillet in which you cooked the beef. Add your onions and mushrooms. Cook down for about twenty minutes (stirring every five minutes or so) or until onions caramelize some and everything is soft.
While your mushrooms and onions cook, mix in a small bowl: 2 Tablespoons ketchup, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 1-5 cloves minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce.
When the mushrooms and onions have cooked down, gradually add up to 1/2 cup flour, stirring until well incorporated.
Add 1 cup beef broth and 1 cup milk, whisking constantly.
Bring to a low boil and boil for one to two minutes, whisking frequently.
Add ketchup mixture. Stir to incorporate.
Add beef. Mix well.
Reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened and warmed through. Just before serving, stir in 8 oz. sour cream. Serve over egg noodles.
I made the stroganoff (sans sour cream) while T-Rex took his afternoon nap, then left it on the stove (heat off) until just before dinnertime. Then I turned the heat on the stroganoff to medium low and stirred it occasionally while I cooked the egg noodles, and it was warm and ready to go by the time the noodles were done.
I forgot to add the sour cream. The DDH thought it still tasted fine, but I could tell it was missing something and I'm pretty sure the sour cream would have fixed that. However, I'm limiting my dairy intake because it doesn't seem to agree with the baby's digestion, so, having forgotten it, I just left it out.
Like I said, I didn't think it was that fantastic, but it did indeed taste like beef stroganoff. The DDH was super happy. He made me write down what I did and even texted his mother to tell her how well it turned out. It was definitely not as terrible as some stroganoffs I've had, and I promised the DDH I'll make it again. Overall, a success.
Best of all: no cans required! :-)
*I bought this book on sale; $17 seems a lot to pay for an ebook. But it is a very interesting and educational read, going into the process behind adapting recipes to use less-processed ingredients, as well as including a number of recipes for real food versions of precisely those potluck-type foods that I don't actually like but everybody else does. ^_^
However, I always ask him if he has any requests when I'm making my meal plan for the week, and this week he had one: beef stroganoff. Apparently he was feeling nostalgic for his mom's beef stroganoff.
The problem is, I really don't care for beef stroganoff. For one, it's usually served on egg noodles, of which I am not a fan. I'm not a fan of "cream of whatever"-type foods in general. Maybe it makes me a bad Lutheran, but I skip all those casseroles consisting mostly of different canned "cream of" soups. Blech.
But the DDH so rarely makes requests, and he clearly wanted beef stroganoff with egg noodles like his mom used to make. So I agreed to try it if he could get his mom's recipe.
A call to his mom led to the discovery of an old church cookbook containing her beef stroganoff recipe.
While the stroganoffs of my youth involved flank steak or some other sort of chopped beef, this recipe gave ground beef as an option and the DDH agreed that that would be fine.
The rest of the ingredients seemed fairly innocuous, other than the condensed cream of mushroom soup (and the strange specification that the sour cream be "dairy sour cream," which makes me wonder what other sorts of sour cream they ate in the eighties).
If I could figure out how to replace the soup, then I had all the ingredients except egg noodles. I picked some of those up and also bought some fresh mushrooms, since they were on sale at Aldi (I do often use canned mushrooms, but I'm not sure how this recipe will work with them).
I consulted Katie Kimball's cookbook Better Than a Box* to figure out how to replace the soup. Turns out, condensed cream of whatever soup is essentially a thick bechamel sauce with your vegetable or meat of choice for the base. Excellent.
I adjusted the procedures in Katie's book, added the seasonings from my mother-in-law's recipe, and went to work while T-Rex took an obligingly long nap.
Well, guess what? I still don't really like beef stroganoff. Or egg noodles. But I did find a way to make a dish that apparently people who do like beef stroganoff think is super tasty, and it didn't involve a single can of anything. The DDH declared it tasted just like he remembered, which means that clearly the flavor of the dish comes from something other than the cream of mushroom soup, and also that the addition of Worcestershire sauce to his mom's recipe didn't change much.
I don't have any pictures of this because a) I was trying to work quickly while the baby napped and b) beef stroganoff looks like barf. Not appetizing.
Real Food Beef Stroganoff
In a large skillet or dutch oven, brown 1 pound ground beef or beef cut of your choice. Set aside.
While the meat browns, roughly chop up 1 package mushrooms (8 oz) and 1 medium onion.
Heat about 2 Tablespoons oil or butter in the skillet in which you cooked the beef. Add your onions and mushrooms. Cook down for about twenty minutes (stirring every five minutes or so) or until onions caramelize some and everything is soft.
While your mushrooms and onions cook, mix in a small bowl: 2 Tablespoons ketchup, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 1-5 cloves minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce.
When the mushrooms and onions have cooked down, gradually add up to 1/2 cup flour, stirring until well incorporated.
Add 1 cup beef broth and 1 cup milk, whisking constantly.
Bring to a low boil and boil for one to two minutes, whisking frequently.
Add ketchup mixture. Stir to incorporate.
Add beef. Mix well.
Reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened and warmed through. Just before serving, stir in 8 oz. sour cream. Serve over egg noodles.
I made the stroganoff (sans sour cream) while T-Rex took his afternoon nap, then left it on the stove (heat off) until just before dinnertime. Then I turned the heat on the stroganoff to medium low and stirred it occasionally while I cooked the egg noodles, and it was warm and ready to go by the time the noodles were done.
I forgot to add the sour cream. The DDH thought it still tasted fine, but I could tell it was missing something and I'm pretty sure the sour cream would have fixed that. However, I'm limiting my dairy intake because it doesn't seem to agree with the baby's digestion, so, having forgotten it, I just left it out.
Like I said, I didn't think it was that fantastic, but it did indeed taste like beef stroganoff. The DDH was super happy. He made me write down what I did and even texted his mother to tell her how well it turned out. It was definitely not as terrible as some stroganoffs I've had, and I promised the DDH I'll make it again. Overall, a success.
Best of all: no cans required! :-)
*I bought this book on sale; $17 seems a lot to pay for an ebook. But it is a very interesting and educational read, going into the process behind adapting recipes to use less-processed ingredients, as well as including a number of recipes for real food versions of precisely those potluck-type foods that I don't actually like but everybody else does. ^_^
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Pumpkin Spiced Oatmeal
Fall is finally here and with it, a plethora of pumpkin foods.
Seriously. Everybody has a pumpkin everything. The bakery where I get the office's Saturday morning bagels had pumpkin scones and pumpkin bars; the coffee shops all have pumpkin lattes, and restaurants serve pumpkin soups.
The DDH, who is not a huge pumpkin fan (he doesn't like sweet potatoes either, except as fries), rolls his eyes at this particular trend. But I like pumpkin (and sweet potatoes, for that matter), so it makes me happy.
For three-quarters of the year, I eat oatmeal for breakfast. It's fast, it's easy, it's tasty. I can change it up by adding different dried or frozen fruit. In the summer, it's too hot for oatmeal, and for most of this pregnancy I haven't been able to stomach it or similar warm foods. But my oatmeal appetite has returned with the cooler weather, and I've been happily noshing on strawberry-cherry oatmeal every day.
But then. Then I found a recipe for pumpkin spiced oatmeal.
My favorite fall food fad combined with my everyday, quick-and-easy breakfast?
The end.
This recipe is super easy to whip up, but, let's face it, waaaaay too complicated to make in the morning before work. Because scrambled eggs are too complicated to make in the morning before work. Sometimes coffee is too complicated to make in the morning before work. If it takes more effort than stirring water and ingredients in a bowl and popping it in the microwave, it's too complicated to make in the morning before work (which is why I tend not to eat breakfast in the summer when oatmeal isn't an option, oops).
BUT. This recipe reheats quite well. So I can make a big whopping batch of it on, say, a Thursday afternoon, and have breakfast for almost a week.
It's healthy and filling and fast--everything a breakfast should be. I'm in love.
Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal
Adapted from this recipe at Becky Bakes.
Make sure to read the notes at the end of the recipe regarding oat types and some tasty variations!
Set a medium saucepan on the stove on medium-low heat and gather up your ingredients. You may wish to measure your honey and pumpkin out in advance so you can add them quickly. Not that I speak from an experience wherein I almost burned my honey or anything.
To the hot, dry pan, add: 1/4 tsp. ground cloves, 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp. ginger.
Toast the spices for about two minutes, stirring occasionally so they don't burn. It seems silly to say "toast until fragrant" with these spices, because they're already fragrant. But you'll notice a point at which you suddenly say, "oh! that's what they mean by fragrant," because they'll suddenly smell even more like themselves than before.
Turn the heat down to low.
To the spices, add 1/4 cup honey
and 1 cup pumpkin puree.
You could probably do with as little as 1/8 cup of honey if you want less sweet oatmeal. See the Variations note below for some other options.
Stir the honey and pumpkin together until well combined and smooth.
Turn the heat up to medium high. Stir until combined and bring to a simmer.
After another ten minutes, they looked like this:
I declared them done at that point because I wanted them to still reheat well, but if you plan to eat it all right away, you may wish to let them go a little longer.
Either serve or remove from heat to a heat-safe container. Allow to cool before covering and refrigerating.
It reheated well the next morning:
And was delicious with a splash of cold milk:
It of course lends itself to toppings: more cinnamon, fruit, nuts. I've been eating it with chopped almonds and it's delicious.
***
Seriously. Everybody has a pumpkin everything. The bakery where I get the office's Saturday morning bagels had pumpkin scones and pumpkin bars; the coffee shops all have pumpkin lattes, and restaurants serve pumpkin soups.
The DDH, who is not a huge pumpkin fan (he doesn't like sweet potatoes either, except as fries), rolls his eyes at this particular trend. But I like pumpkin (and sweet potatoes, for that matter), so it makes me happy.
For three-quarters of the year, I eat oatmeal for breakfast. It's fast, it's easy, it's tasty. I can change it up by adding different dried or frozen fruit. In the summer, it's too hot for oatmeal, and for most of this pregnancy I haven't been able to stomach it or similar warm foods. But my oatmeal appetite has returned with the cooler weather, and I've been happily noshing on strawberry-cherry oatmeal every day.
But then. Then I found a recipe for pumpkin spiced oatmeal.
My favorite fall food fad combined with my everyday, quick-and-easy breakfast?
The end.
This recipe is super easy to whip up, but, let's face it, waaaaay too complicated to make in the morning before work. Because scrambled eggs are too complicated to make in the morning before work. Sometimes coffee is too complicated to make in the morning before work. If it takes more effort than stirring water and ingredients in a bowl and popping it in the microwave, it's too complicated to make in the morning before work (which is why I tend not to eat breakfast in the summer when oatmeal isn't an option, oops).
BUT. This recipe reheats quite well. So I can make a big whopping batch of it on, say, a Thursday afternoon, and have breakfast for almost a week.
It's healthy and filling and fast--everything a breakfast should be. I'm in love.
Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal
Adapted from this recipe at Becky Bakes.
Make sure to read the notes at the end of the recipe regarding oat types and some tasty variations!
Set a medium saucepan on the stove on medium-low heat and gather up your ingredients. You may wish to measure your honey and pumpkin out in advance so you can add them quickly. Not that I speak from an experience wherein I almost burned my honey or anything.
To the hot, dry pan, add: 1/4 tsp. ground cloves, 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp. ginger.
Toast the spices for about two minutes, stirring occasionally so they don't burn. It seems silly to say "toast until fragrant" with these spices, because they're already fragrant. But you'll notice a point at which you suddenly say, "oh! that's what they mean by fragrant," because they'll suddenly smell even more like themselves than before.
Turn the heat down to low.
To the spices, add 1/4 cup honey
and 1 cup pumpkin puree.
You could probably do with as little as 1/8 cup of honey if you want less sweet oatmeal. See the Variations note below for some other options.
Stir the honey and pumpkin together until well combined and smooth.
Add 4 cups water to the puree mixture. (Note: If you use steel-cut oats, you may need 1/2 cup more water.)
Turn the heat up to medium high. Stir until combined and bring to a simmer.
Add 2 cups quick oats (1 1/2 cups steel-cut oats). See Oat Note, below.
Turn heat down to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, twenty to thirty minutes or until tender.
After ten minutes, mine looked like this (remember I'm using quick oats):
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| Quick oats after ten minutes. |
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| Quick oats after twenty minutes. |
Either serve or remove from heat to a heat-safe container. Allow to cool before covering and refrigerating.
 |
| Pumpkin spice oatmeal. |
 |
| Oatmeal reheated. |
 |
| Oatmeal with milk. |
***
Oat Note:
Now. There are about a million and one types of oats out there. I usually buy the giant cardboard tube of "quick oats" because they cook quickly for my morning oatmeal but are a bit larger than "instant oats" for when I use them in recipes like this one. Sometimes I get rolled oats or steel-cut oats.
People will argue until they're blue in the face about what kind is better and how you REALLY ABSOLUTELY MUST use this one kind for one recipe or the other. But honestly? You can use any kind of oats in almost any recipe and you'll be fine. You may want to adjust the water : oats ratio of the recipe. You may need to adjust the cooking time. But don't let not having the Exact Perfect Right Kind of oats stop you from making a recipe that looks delicious. Try it with what you have on hand. Let me know if it's a total abject failure so I can delete this note. ;-)
***
 |
| Pumpkin spice oatmeal with almonds and milk. |
Variations:
- Sub any winter squash puree for pumpkin: butternut, acorn, etc. Also, sweet potato.
- Sub banana puree for the pumpkin. Add some chopped nuts for Banana Nut Oatmeal.
- Sub any liquid sweetener, such as agave or maple syrup, for the honey.
- Or sub unsweetened applesauce for the honey for a not-sweet but very autumny version.
- Use 1/8 cup honey and 1/8 cup molasses and up the ginger to 1 1/2 tsp. for Pumpkin Gingersnap Oatmeal. Bonus points for adding diced fresh ginger. This is my real new favorite.
- Play around with the spices, increasing or deleting them until you get it juuuuust right.
What variations can you think of?
I never bothered with any of the millions of baked oatmeal recipes on the internets, because heating up the oven seemed a lot of work for oatmeal. But I'm thinking a lot of those different flavor combinations could adapt well to this cooking method. Yum!
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