Mango and candied ginger

Stopped by Machias hardware today, which is half hardware store/ half natural grocery. Very cool store. I am trying to avoid sugar, but I am a sucker for candied ginger, which they sell in little baggies at the hardware store. So today's oatmeal is steel cut oatmeal with candied ginger and mango. The mango was a bit sour, but it went really well with the sweet spicy ginger and creamy oatmeal.

Grandy Oats

I saw these organic oatmeal cups at the store and decided to give it a try. It was pretty good for instant oatmeal. It had organic raisins, apples, and cranberries, with very little organic cane sugar. This brand is probably healthier than the Quaker instant oatmeal cups, and were comparably priced. I still think it's best to get old fashioned or steel cut oatmeal and cook it yourself, but Grandy Oats organic oatmeal with fruit is a pretty healthy and tasty option for those too busy to cook.

Down East Maine Seafood

I'm finally back at our house in Machias Maine after a long 4 months of crashing with relatives. Our house had some old peeling lead paint and... Eh it's a long story.

First thing we did after getting settled was to go to the local Hannaford, where you can buy the most amazing fresh local crabmeat. This stuff is just to die for: sweet and tender with just a touch of ocean salt spray. I can't find the words to describe this stuff. Heaven. Yes.

So today's oatmeal: thick rolled oatmeal with cream, orange zest, garlic, pepper, and a generous scoop of the most amazing crab meat in the world. This shit is epic.

Best Western Continental Breakfast

On Saturday night we stayed at a Best Western in York, Maine. Our room was awesome; we somehow got this enormous room for the same price as a normal hotel room. In the morning they had a continental breakfast that was not as impressive. I managed to through together some mediocre oatmeal though. I grabbed a packet of Quaker instant oatmeal, original flavor. I added hot water and then through some fruit from a fruit cup and some half-and-half on top. It was ok.

On the road again

On Saturday we drove from Schenectady to York Maine. I was still sick with a stomach bug, so I wasn't up for eating much fast food on the road. So instead I grabbed a gnu foods blueberry cobbler bar. It says "Fiber & Flavor" right across the wrapper. I think the world is full of flavorful foods high in fiber, but its a good thing to advertise I guess. It was all healthy ingredients, including oats of course. It had quite an intense blueberry flavor; I think next time I'll try one of their other flavors.

Food poisoning Friday

On Friday, I had lunch at a hot dog place in Schenectady called Mike's Hot dogs. I got there too late for breakfast, which is too bad because they had oatmeal for $2.00. Instead I had a steak sandwich, which probably gave me food poisoning. I was too sick to make the oatmeal I was planning to make for dinner. So if you're ever in Schenectady, go to Tara Kitchen or Bombers, or even Burger King. If you must go to Mike's Hot Dogs, get the oatmeal, and tell me how it is.

Crazy week? Eat some pancakes!

First off, I would like to apologize. I had a combination of being insanely busy as well as sick with a stomach flu for the past several days. While I continued to make oatmeal, I was unable to find the time to update the blog. So this post has oatmeal from Thursday, April 4th.

Oatmeal Pancakes IV ?

2 cups oat flour
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup water
2 eggs
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup applesauce
2 tsp baking soda
2 Tablespoons melted butter.

Combine the yogurt, water, eggs, applesauce, salt, and spices. In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking soda. Mix the dry ingredients in quickly then fold in the melted butter. Cook pancakes on a hot griddle.

Muesli & yogurt

I posted a while back that oatmeal contains anti-nutrients, and ideally should soak for several hours in warm water with yogurt to make it easier to digest. Having healthy gut flora will also help you break down the phytic acid in oatmeal. One way to do that is to just eat yogurt with your oatmeal.

Today I had a bowl of Swiss Muesli with thick Greek yogurt, a rich and filling meal.

Veselka Bowery

While in NY yesterday, we had brunch at Veselka Bowery to try their oatmeal with candied walnuts and bruleèd bananas. This Ukrainian bar and restaurant was gorgeous and had an amazing menu. If I ever go there again I want to try the lox and cream cheese perogies.

The oatmeal was so unbelievably good. Just the right amount of sweetness and crunch atop creamy old fashioned oatmeal. It was a work of art. This oatmeal was listed in CBS local's 5 best bowls of oatmeal in NYC. I definitely think it was the best oatmeal I've ever had. I really need to step up my game.

April fools, and oatmeal to go.

So obviously I was kidding about the oatmeal allergy. April fools! Ha ha heh..

Today the family is heading down to New York City for the day. I found a really awesome oatmeal bar for the road: Bobo's Oat Bar, made in Boulder Colorado. This thing is huge and chewy and dense. Its much more filling than most granola bars, and its also sweetened with brown rice syrup, so it's not too unhealthy. I highly recommend this brand if you happen upon it.

Bad news...

I'm afraid this will be my last post on this blog. I just got back from the allergist, where I discovered I have a severe allergy to oatmeal. I will be switching to eating corn everyday instead.

Easter-birthday cake!!!

Today is Easter Sunday, and it is also my birthday. This happens once in a while, and my Easter-birthdays have been my some of my favorite ones.  I actually never really care much about Easter, unless it happens to fall on my birthday. Today was also Seraphine's first Easter, so that made it extra special.

For my birthday this year, I made a sugar free carob-banana oatmeal cake. The cake actually tasted great. I tried to make some sugar-free icing to go with it, but it came out really horrible.

Here's the recipe for the cake though:

2 ripe bananas
3 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 stick of butter
1 cup sweet whey powder
1 cup oat flour
1/2 cup carob powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a bunt pan.

In a mixing bowl combine eggs, butter, bananas, whey powder, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat thoroughly for 10 minutes. In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients. Fold in the dry ingredients, bake in a bunt for about 40 minutes.

Beautiful red cabbage

Yesterday I used half a red cabbage to make blue and purple dye for our Easter eggs. The other half of the cabbage became coleslaw. I used greek yogurt, mustard, and Italian dressing instead of mayonnaise. It sat overnight in the fridge and turned a beautiful magenta-purple color. So for today's oatmeal, I just made plain oatmeal and topped it with red cabbage coleslaw and a scoop of Greek yogurt. This was a colorful and flavorful dish to start my day.

I burned today's oatmeal.

Sorry world, I burned the oatmeal. I guess I got distracted, and forgot to turn the pan down to low after it started boiling.

I was going to use some homemade vegetable dye to color my oatmeal fun colors today, but since its ruined, I guess I'll just have to put up pictures of died eggs instead.

3/28/2013. Poached

Today I tried out poaching eggs in the same pot as the oatmeal, rather than poaching them separately. It worked, though the yolks were firmer than I liked. I basically waited till the oatmeal was almost done, then cracked two eggs right on top of the oatmeal, covered it and let them simmer for a couple minutes. Next time I will really watch the clock so my yolks stay runny.

Spring is in the air...

I opened up a bag of steel cut oatmeal today that was sitting in a forgotten corner of the pantry. I then noticed that the expiration date had passed. The oats were probably still fine, but I decided to search for an alternative use for them.

A few google searches later I learned that oat groats and steel cut oats are often used in bird seed mix. So I dumped the expired-but-probably-fine oatmeal into the bird feeder.

Within a few minutes of filling the feeder some sparrows and juncos arrived. I tried to get a picture of the birds eating the oats, but I don't have a zoom lens. Oh well.

Raisin and walnut baked oatmeal

I had some leftover cooked oatmeal from a couple days ago. I decided to mix it up with an egg, some whole wheat matzah meal, raisins, walnuts, and almond meal. Then baked it in ramekins at 350 for 45 minutes. The result is a rich and moist baked oatmeal with nice chewy bites of nuts and sweet raisins. Delicious.

Oat matzah-ish

As I discussed yesterday, oats are unlikely one of the five grains that can be chametz or be made into matzah. But for fun today I made some matzah-like oat crackers. It's a simple recipe, but you need to work quickly to get them cooked in under 18 minutes (like matzah).

1 cup steel cut oats, ground in a coffee grinder into flour.
1/4 cup water
1 pinch of kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 425. Place a pizza stone or cast iron pan in the oven to heat up.

Sprinkle some of the oat flour on the counter top. Mix the water a little at a time into the oat flour until its a thick doughy consistency. Roll out to 1/8 inch thick and cut into large squares. Prick all over with a fork. Place on the pan or stone to cook in the oven. Makes 2 or 3 large square matzos.

What to do with Seder leftovers...

We had our Passover Seder early this year so my siblings could come in from out of town for it. In the chaos of family visiting for the holiday, I completely forgot to write a blog post yesterday. So today I'm making up for it with two different oatmeal dishes, both involving leftovers from the seder meal.

I.

Haroset Oatmeal Pancakes (maybe Kosher for Passover?)

Blend some leftover haroset into your oatmeal pancake batter for hearty and flavorful pancakes.

Oatmeal may or may not be one of the grains considered chametz.  For a long time in Europe, Jews considered the five grains to be wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt, probably because these were the five most common grains in Europe. But oats do not rise when they are mixed with water due to their lack of gluten. Oats also are not commonly found in the Middle East, so they were not likely one of the original five grains listed as chametz (The Daily Def). In short, I have no idea whether this recipe is Kosher for passover or not:

Oatmeal Haroset Pancakes

1 cup leftover haroset
1 1/2 cup steel cut oats
2 cups water
1 tablespoon yogurt or 1 tsp lemon juice (use lemon juice for parve)
3/4 cup matzah meal
4 eggs
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted coconut oil

1. Soak the oats in the water with either lemon juice or yogurt in a warm place overnight.
2. In a blender combine the soaked oatmeal with all the other ingredients in a blender until smooth.
3. Grease a griddle with coconut oil. Cook pancakes at a medium heat until brown on both sides. Makes 16 6" pancakes. 

II.

Oatmeal with Leftover Brisket and Fried Eggs

Oatmeal with leftover beef brisket, fried eggs, and pikliz.

 This is just plain cooked steel cut oatmeal (soaked overnight). I threw on top a couple of eggs over easy and some leftover red wine- braised beef brisket. Topped the whole thing off with a little spicy pikliz. Yum.

"Sourdough" oatmeal

I let some of the oats from yesterday soak for a full 24 hours in the warm water/ yogurt mix. Today I cooked them up and to my delight the oatmeal tasted exactly like sourdough bread. I didn't want to over power the natural sour flavor so I just served this morning's oatmeal plain with milk. I'm now trying to wrap my palate around these lacto-fermented oats and what other flavors would go with them.