Pressure Cooker Breakfast: Steel-cut Oats

My electric pressure cooker. One of my favorite kitchen appliances. This one also slow cooks and sautés.

About a year ago, I posted a recipe for steel-cut oats cooked in the pressure cooker. The secret to pressure cooker oats is to use non-dairy milk. Cow's milk contains sugar - lactose, specifically -  and it can scorch to the bottom of your pot. Nut milks don't have lactose, nor much of any other sugar unless sweetened.

This new recipe still uses non-dairy milk, but the proportions are different. I made a mistake and added too much water the last time I made them. And, I liked it better! The oats are creamier and don't set up quite as stiff, which makes them better the next day.

Pressure Cooker Steel-Cut Oats, the 2015 version
(serves 4)

3 cups water
1 cup non-dairy milk, such as almond or coconut
1 cup steel-cut oats
12 dried apricots, chopped (see Note)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 big pinches salt

Garnishes
4 Tablespoons chopped nuts or nut butter
4 teaspoons brown sugar or maple syrup

Put everything but the garnishes in the pressure cooker, lock down the lid, and bring up to pressure. Cook for 3 minutes (4 minutes at 5000 ft. altitude). Turn off the heat and allow pot to cool for 10 minutes. Release the pressure. To serve, garnish with chopped nuts and sweetener. Any nut is yummy but I really like roasted pistachios with dried apricots.

Note: Dried apricots can be sticky. If you freeze them for 10 minutes then chop them, they won't stick to your knife.

Blueberry Wheat Germ Pancakes

We love pancakes in my house. My husband makes classic buttermilk pancakes every few weeks. I like to mix it up with some variations. I made these pancakes for Mother's Day this year. I adapted them from a King Arthur Flour recipe. As you can see from the picture, my recipe makes quite a stack of pancakes. This is half the King Arthur recipe. People must have very large families or else plan to feed all their neighbors in Vermont!

These are not sweet at all. I put real maple syrup on my pancakes. I vacationed in Vermont as a kid and only the real stuff will do. If the pancakes are sweet, breakfast tastes more like dessert. As much as the Vermonters like dessert for breakfast - pie for breakfast is a local tradition - I don't like sweet things for breakfast.

Blueberry Wheat Germ Pancakes

(serves 5-6)

Dry Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

¾ teaspoon baking powder (1 ½ teaspoon at sea level)

½ teaspon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda (same at sea level)

½ cup toasted wheat germ

Wet Ingredients

2 eggs

2 cups buttermilk

3 Tablespoons vegetable or nut oil (walnut is particularly good)

1 ½ cups fresh or frozen blueberries (no need to thaw frozen ones)

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix together all the wet ingredients in a large measuring cup until well combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until there are no large pockets of dry ingredients. Add the blueberries, and stir gently to incorporate. Do not over-mix. Heat up a griddle using a medium heat. Too hot and your pancakes will burn before they are cooked through. Too low, and you'll be waiting forever and they will dry out. Grease the griddle lightly with butter or oil before each set of pancakes. For medium-sized pancakes, use a scant ¼ cup of batter per pancake. Do not crowd them; it becomes very hard to flip them if they are too close together. Cook until bubbles pop through the top and the holes formed don't close up. The edges will be cooked and the pancakes nicely browned. Flip and cook until the other side it toasty brown. Repeat until all the batter is gone. Serve hot.

Can be reheated in a microwave or oven but they are at their best fresh from the griddle.

Adapted from The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook by Brinna B. Sands, Countryman Press, 1992.

Honey Lemon Peach Compote

Yummy topping for pancakes with some chopped almonds for crunch

Here's a tasty way to add some fruits to your diet. I was inspired by the very popular peach teas out there. Why not use those flavors in a saucy compote that you can mix with your yogurt, pour over your pancakes, or spoon over ice cream?

I don't suggest you go out and buy fresh peaches this time of year. They are probably from Chile, where they grow delicious peaches (I was there a year ago this month) but peaches don't travel well. Far too often, they are picked underripe so they can be shipped without turning to mush. Underripe peaches, even once they soften, taste bland and have a mealy texture. Trust, me, the peaches in Chile were nothing like this.

Frozen peaches, though they get a bad rap, are pretty good in a sauce like this. There is enough sugar and acidity to improve even frozen peaches. They are cheaper and far superior to bad fresh peaches, which is all you are going to find this time of year anyway.

If you are not a lemonhead, use the zest of ½ a lemon. The zest isn't tart but it packs a lot of lemon flavor.

Honey Lemon Peach Compote
(makes 4 servings)

1 pound of sliced frozen peaches
¼ cup honey
½ cup water
1 3" cinnamon stick or a big pinch of ground cinnamon
zest of ½ - 1 lemon

Combine everything in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to maintain a slow boil. It shouldn't look like a volcano but bubbles breaking on the surface without spraying peach everywhere. Cook until the liquid is reduced and syrupy and the peaches are hot. Can be refrigerated for up to a week, served hot or cold.

Steel Cut Oats

[For an alternate version of this oatmeal, one that is creamier, see this update.]

Oatmeal is good. Oatmeal with steel cut oats is even better. The downside to the steel cut oats is they take a while to cook, at least 15 minutes and sometimes much longer. Because they cook longer, they can stick to the bottom of the pot, especially if you don't stir them.

There are two ways to make cooking steel cut oats foolproof: a pressure cooker or a slow cooker.

If you want to use a slow cooker, I recommend Alton Brown's method. You cook the oats overnight and they are perfect when you wake up in the morning. Alton uses dried cranberries and dried figs in his recipe. You can use any combination of dried fruits you want. They will all add some sweetness, enough so you won't need much sweetener besides the fruit.

My favorite method is the pressure cooker. I would recommend a pressure cooker over a slow cooker as your first time-saving cooking device (you can even get a combination pressure/slow cooker called an Instant Pot, which I recommend if you have the funds for this investment). You can cook steel cut oats in about 4 minutes. They will be slightly chewy at this point. Their texture is better if you let them sit, off the heat, for 10 minutes. It's also great reheated in the microwave. Add a bit of milk because it will get thicker after it cools.

The Instant Pot recommends that you cook oats in a non-dairy milk, such as almond milk or coconut milk. Cow's milk scorches while non-dairy milk doesn't. I've tried all three milks and I like coconut milk the best. I did find that cow's milk scorches and therefore don't recommend it for pressure cooker oats.

Pressure Cooker Steel Cut Oats
(serves 4)

1 cup steel cut oats
2 cups water
1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk such as coconut or almond
¼ cup raisins or your favorite dried fruit, diced
2 pinches salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1 3" stick cinnamon (optional)

For each serving, add all or some of these:
fresh fruit or more dried fruit
2 teaspoons sweetener, like brown sugar or maple sugar
1 Tablespoon chopped nuts
a sprinkling of ground cinnamon
a splash of milk or cream

Put the oats, water, milk, raisins, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon stick in the pressure cooker. Lock on the lid and bring up to pressure. Reduce heat to maintain pressure and cook for 3 minutes (4 minutes at 5000 ft.). Turn off heat and allow pressure to drop naturally for 10 minutes or more. Open the pot (carefully - the contents are still very hot) and stir. Serve hot.

Leftovers should be stored in the refrigerator. They can be reheated, covered, in the microwave for 90 seconds.

Pumpkin Pie Spice Granola

The oats level goes down and the granola level goes up. Law of conservation of breakfast.

It's all about the pumpkin right now. Pumpkin pie spice this and that. If you are looking for a treat, check out these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. If you are looking for something you can enjoy every single day until the pumpkin rage passes, here is a granola for your breakfast. It uses pumpkin pie spice and shelled pumpkin seeds. Like our standard low-sugar granola with a couple of tweeks. Granola is the chameleon of the breakfast pantry.

Pumpkin Spice Granola
(4 cups, at least 8 servings)

3 cups Rolled Oats , not quick-cooking or instant
1 cup unsalted raw shelled pumpkin seeds (also called pepitas)
½ cup Dried Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
1 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
a Pinch of Salt
¼ cup Honey
½ cup Chopped Dried Apricots
½ teaspoon Vanilla or Maple Extract

Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine oats, seeds, coconut, pumpkin pie spice, honey, and salt in a large heatproof bowl. It's going to be clumpy, but don't worry about that. Dump onto a large rimmed cookie sheet. Don't clean out of the bowl; you'll be using it again. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, stirring it every 10 minutes so that it browns evenly. Keep an eye on it near the end of baking so that it doesn't burn. Transfer the cooked, hot granola from the cookie sheet back to the bowl. Drizzle on the vanilla or maple. Allow to cool and mix in the dried apricot. Store in a cool, dry place.

Note: Pumpkin pie spice is a combination of cinnamon, ground ginger, ground allspice, ground mace, ground nutmeg, and ground cloves. Sometimes all of them, sometimes the first three. If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, substitute ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ground ginger, and a pinch of any combination of whatever else you've got. If you don't like something, leave it out.

Apple Cinnamon Granola

My breakfast: granola with strawberries and yogurt. Yum!

As I said last year, the low-sugar granola recipe is one of the most popular here. Here's yet another version of this: apple-cinnamon. Boosted the cinnamon a bit, added a touch of powdered ginger, dried apples, and raisins, though like my dear friend Deb, I like to add the dried fruit as I eat it, so I can eat what I feel like that day.

Apple Cinnamon Granola
(serves about 8-10)

3 cups rolled oats (not quick or instant)
½ cup shredded unsweetened coconut
¼ cup honey, heated in the microwave until pourable
1 cup silvered or sliced almonds
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
a large pinch of salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup diced dried apples
½ cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine oats, nuts, coconut, cinnamon, honey and salt in a large heatproof bowl. Dump onto a large rimmed cookie sheet. Don't clean out of the bowl; you'll be using it again. Bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring it every 10 minutes so that it browns evenly. Keep an eye on it near the end of baking so that it doesn't burn. Transfer the hot granola from the cookie sheet back to the bowl. Drizzle on the vanilla and stir. Allow to cool and mix in the dried fruit. Store in a cool, dry place.

Microwave Scrambled Eggs

In my last class, one of my students was shocked to learn that you can make scrambled eggs in the microwave. Not really scrambled eggs but if you consider the eggs on most fast food breakfasts sandwiches "scrambled eggs," you won't be disappointed in these. They are more steamed than scrambled, light and puffy. For weekday breakfasts, these are great - fast and easy and sized for a bagel or English muffin.

Glass storage containers or measuring cups work as cooking containers. A 2-cup round one is the perfect size for the egg to fit on your bagel, but any tall round container that’s microwave safe will work. It puffs up quite a bit. A 2-cup measure may sound huge for one little egg, but any smaller and the egg is going to overflow.

Get your bagel toasting if you want it toasted, because the egg will take less time than the bagel. Just crack the egg into the glass container, add 1 Tablespoon milk or cream, and a little salt and pepper, and scramble it all up with a fork. Microwave the egg for about 1 minute. You’ll see it get really big, but it won’t overflow the container. If you want some melted cheese, sprinkle some grated cheese on top and put it back in for 10-15 seconds. Just scoop the egg with cheese on top onto your bagel.

That's it! No messing up a frying pan and it takes about 1 minute. For a quick breakfast, it's hard to beat.

Fresh Granola

Finally, we are cooling off. Good thing because I am just about out of granola. No!! We cannot run out of granola. I stop making it when it's too hot to turn on the oven. It is with great joy that I turn on the oven again and crank out a batch of homemade granola.

This latest batch has hazelnuts and I'll add raisins after it cools.

If you haven't checked out our recipe for low-sugar granola, please do. It's one of our most popular. It's Mark Bittman's recipe actually, but I have tweaked the preparation slightly. It's a winner and one of the most delicious ways to start your day. I don't have a cost on the recipe because it depends on what nuts and fruit you use. But, let's assume you use honey, raisins, and almonds, which is a great combination. The whole batch of granola costs under $5, which is about  8-10 hearty servings. Packed full of goodness and a bargain too!

The original recipe uses vanilla extract, but if you use almonds, consider using almond extract instead. It will boost the almond flavors and is a delicious change from vanilla. Other nut extracts are good too, if you have some in your cupboard.

Easy Summer Breakfast: Cheese and Peach Toast

This time of year, I'm figuring out all sorts of ways to get ripe peaches or nectarines into my cooking. This is an really simple way: pair them with a soft cheese on toast and eat it for breakfast or as a light snack.

I used goat cheese with herbs, but Neufchatel cheese (aka low-fat cream cheese) is tasty too. Toast a couple of slices of bread, smear on a bit of cheese, and top with slices of ripe, juicy peaches. It's a great combination.

Using up Cottage Cheese: Pancakes

I recently posted a quick pasta dish that uses cottage cheese. If you need a way to use up the remainder of that tub of cottage cheese, these pancakes are the ticket. They are light, somewhere between a thick crepe and a pancake. They are delicious with a pile of sliced strawberries or peaches, yogurt, and a drizzle of maple syrup. They are very puffy fresh from the griddle and then they deflate as they cool, becoming more crepe-like. They reheat well but they won't be puffy.

My advice, having made these many times, is to keep them small. That's actually my advice for most pancakes. Big pancakes are tough to flip and they can get tangled with their neighbors on the descent.

These guys are ready for flippin'

How do you know when to flip them? Bubbles will form and pop. If the hole from the bubble doesn't fill in, it's time to flip. Also, the edges of the pancake won't be liquid and sticky anymore.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes
(serves 4-6, costs $2.90)

1 cup low-fat cottage cheese (a little less or a little more is fine)
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk or ½ cup buttermilk and ½ cup skim or lowfat milk (see Note)
1 Tablespoon honey
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup all purpose flour
2 Tablespoons wheat germ (plain or toasted)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt

non-stick cooking spray

Whisk together the cottage cheese, eggs, milk, honey, and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Stir together the flours, wheat germ, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture to the large bowl and mix to just combine and there are not dry lumps.

Heat up a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. Spray with cooking spray. Using a measuring cup or large cooking spoon, drop ¼ cup portions on the griddle. Leave a bit of space between the pancakes as they spread. When bubbles form, pop, and leave a hole, flip and brown on the other side. Don't be tempted to turn up the heat too high because these will over-brown before the inside is cooked. Respray the griddle with cooking spray between batches to prevent sticking.

Serve with sliced fruit, some yogurt (or whipped cream if you are being decadent), and a drizzle of maple syrup. Any leftovers can be refrigerated or frozen. Reheat in a 350°F oven for 5-10 minutes until hot. They lose their puff but still taste good.

Note: You can find powdered buttermilk in most supermarkets now in the baking aisle. It's a great way to have buttermilk on hand all the time without having to figure out what to do with the rest of a carton of buttermilk. Follow the instructions on the package to reconstitute.

Adapted from Jane Brody's Good Food Book by Jane Brody, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1985.

The SNAP Challenge

I have been following the Cory Booker/SNAP Challenge with great interest. Cory Booker is the mayor of Newark, NJ. SNAP is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Someone following Booker on Twitter challenged him to live on SNAP for a week. He'll be starting his challenge on today, December 4. You can see how it's going at #SNAPChallenge on Twitter, and UB SNAP Food Challenge on Facebook (you can see the rules for the challenge there too). The short story is you need to spend no more than $5/day/person for all your food and drink. This is not an easy challenge.

I'm going to offer some hints on how to eat on a mere $5/day on this blog going forward. Though School of Eating Good does not set a upper limit on the cost of meals, we do bring you delicious real food on a budget. This challenge is a great way to focus on eating decent food on a very strict budget, and I love a challenge!

First, forget about processed food. You pay a premium for food that someone else has prepared for you. Processed food that looks really cheap isn't. That's because the ingredients used in cheap processed foods are absolutely the lowest cost/lowest quality foods they can find. If you are on a budget, provide your own labor, cook it yourself and select real ingredients that are naturally cheaper: grains, beans, potatoes, frozen vegetables (often reliably cheaper than fresh but still nutritious), and sticking to sales for more expensive things like fruit, fresh veggies, and meat. I don't want to minimize the effort required for this. If you have a family and a job, cooking feels like another job, and that is the last thing you need.

So, in these posts, we will focus on recipes that make good food with the minimum of effort and cost. I will give prices, based on local food prices where I live, which is Boulder, Colorado. To further complicate it, I will shop at the supermarket closest to my house. It's a Safeway and within walking distance. I will also compare the made-from-scratch  version with the processed equivalent.

Let's start with some breakfast. A cup of dry rolled oats (either quick or old-fashioned) costs 30¢. That's 300 calories of oats. 300 calories of instant oatmeal costs 75¢. Many store-brand cold cereals are also very cost-effective. Corn flakes cost 47¢ for 300 calories of cereal.

Oatmeal with Raisins
(serves 2-4, costs $1.26)

2 cups milk
2 cups water
2 cups rolled old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats
¼ cup raisins
a large pinch of salt
2 Tablespoons sugar (optional)

Place the milk, water, oats, raisins, and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Stir, scraping the bottom so the oatmeal doesn't stick. Reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Cook for 3 minutes for quick oats and 5 minutes for old-fashioned oats. Make sure to stir a couple of times while it's cooking to keep it from sticking. Stir in sugar, if desired, and serve.

The raisins and the milk add some sweetness to the oats. If you think it isn't sweet enough, add the optional sugar. This isn't supposed to be terribly sweet. It's breakfast, not dessert.

If you boil the milk and water before adding the oats, the oats will be a bit chewier and less creamy. Try it both ways and see which you prefer.

Pasta Frittata

Another recipe for our class this week. What a tasty way to use up leftover pasta. The texture of this frittata is really unique because of the pasta. There are a world of wonderful variations to this frittata too. You can use pasta in marinara sauce or pesto. You can toss in some chopped cooked bacon. You can switch up the cheese. You can throw in a ¼ cup of minced herbs, like basil (though probably not a good idea with pesto) or parsley.

Pasta Frittata
(serves 4-6)

8 large Eggs
¾ cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Freshly Ground Pepper
4 cups Cooked Pasta, with or without sauce (see Note)
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, cheese, salt, and pepper. Stir in the cooked pasta. In a 10" skillet (either well-seasoned cast iron or non-stick and oven-safe), heat the oil over medium heat. Add the egg mixture and press it flat. Bake for 25-30 minutes until eggs are set and the edges are golden-brown. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Refrigerate any leftovers. Unlike French omelets, frittatas hold up well to reheating.

Note: 4 cups of cooked pasta is about ½ pound of dry pasta.

We're breaking some eggs! For a broccoli frittata...

Next week, we're holding our first class of the academic year. We are featuring eggs, because eggs are delicious, inexpensive, and nutritious. Hard to top that!

We'll be posting all the recipes from the class over the next few days. The first recipe is for broccoli frittata. Frittatas are sort of Italian omelets. They are nothing like French omelets which are light and fluffy when made correctly (and they are not all that easy to make). Sure, they are both made from eggs, but that's where the similarity ends. Frittatas are very easy to make. If you can beat an egg and turn on your oven, you are most of the way there. They suck up all manner of leftovers - cooked vegetables, meat, cheese, herbs, even pasta! And, because they are made of eggs, they are cheap. Frittatas are a great go-to meal for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. They also reheat nicely so if you make a big one, you can reheat leftovers the next day and it's still wonderful. Don't try that with a French omelet.

Broccoli Frittata
(serves 4-6, costs $4.75)

1 pound Broccoli, cleaned (see Note)
¼ cup Olive Oil
2 cloves Garlic, minced
½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Black Pepper
8 large Eggs, beaten
½ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cook broccoli in boiling salted water for 2 minutes until crisp-tender. Cool off quickly with cold water to stop the cooking and drain well. Chop broccoli into bite-sized pieces. Add salt and pepper to eggs and beat well. Heat oil in a 10" oven-proof skillet over medium heat, then add the garlic. When it starts to sizzle, add the broccoli. Stir and cook for a few minutes. Pour eggs over broccoli. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake, uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes until eggs are set and the edges are golden-brown.

Note: Frozen chopped broccoli works just as a well here. Thaw the broccoli and use it instead of the cooked fresh broccoli. And it's even cheaper than fresh broccoli sometimes. At my local supermarket, it's $1.33/pound, which is a good bit cheaper than the fresh broccoli at $1.59/pound last week. Though, it's good to check the sales. Broccoli is on sale this week for 88¢/pound.

Granola - a low sugar recipe

Here's another recipe for granola. It's less sweet than our previous version (Homemade Granola), but it's still very tasty and cost-effective. We don't give a cost here because the recipe is so variable. But, it's definitely cheaper than the store-bought variety. Even better, you can put exactly what you like in it. There are some suggestions at the end, but you can make it your own with your custom combination of nuts and dried fruits. You can even leave out the fruit and mix a handful of whatever kind you like when you eat your breakfast.

Make sure to find unsweetened coconut. Most of the coconut sold in supermarkets is sweetened. Look in the health food or bulk food section to find the unsweetened kind. You can use the sweetened coconut but your granola is going to be a lot sweeter, definitely not a low-sugar variety.

The basic proportions are from a recipe by Mark Bittman, but I've modified the instructions a bit.

The nuts and coconut will brown more than the oats. It smells so good when you add the vanilla.

Crunchy Granola
(makes 4 cups, at least 8 servings)

3 cups Rolled Oats , not quick-cooking or instant
1 cup nuts and/or seeds, whatever kind you like
½ cup Dried Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
½ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
Dash Salt
¼ cup Honey Or Maple Syrup
½ cup Raisins Or Chopped Dried Fruit
½ teaspoon Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine oats, nuts, coconut, cinnamon, sweetener and salt in a large heatproof bowl. If using honey, it's going to be clumpy, but don't worry about that. Dump onto a large rimmed cookie sheet. Don't clean out of the bowl; you'll be using it again. Bake for about 30 minutes, stirring it every 10 minutes so that it browns evenly. Keep an eye on it near the end of baking so that it doesn't burn. Transfer the cooked, hot granola from the cookie sheet back to the bowl. Drizzle on the vanilla (boy, does that smell good!) Allow to cool and mix in the dried fruit. Store in a cool, dry place.

Some tasty combinations:

• chopped pecans, maple syrup, and chopped dried apricots or pears
• chopped or sliced almonds, honey, and raisins
• peeled chopped hazelnuts, maple syrup, and chopped dried apricots or peaches
• chopped walnuts, honey, and craisins

A Dutch baby for Mom

Dutch babies are egg-y puffed-up pancakes that bake in the oven. When I was growing up, we called them German pancakes. Whatever you call them, they are delicious and very easy to make. One piece of special equipment is needed: a heavy 10" cast-iron skillet. I don't think of a solid cast-iron skillet as special equipment since it can be your everyday skillet. Cast-iron is cheap, a fantastic conductor of heat, and when well seasoned, non-stick. Its one drawback is it is heavy. But, think of it as weightlifting. Also, you'll be able to pass the thing down to your children. They are virtually indestructible. Even horribly rusted old ones can be rejuvenated with a good scrubbing and a few re-seasonings. (For instructions on seasoning and care of your new or abused cast iron cookware, check out the Lodge website. Lodge makes most of the cast-iron cookware in the US.)

The pancake has no sugar in it (some do), so serve it with something sweet. I like a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a generous sprinkling of powdered sugar or sliced apples sauteed in a little butter and maple syrup.

You'll get some fiber (not much since there is only ¾ cup flour) if you use whole wheat pastry flour, but it will puff more dramatically and bake up a little lighter if you use all-purpose flour. You can usually find whole wheat pastry flour in the bulk section of supermarkets or health food stores.

This makes a dramatic breakfast for Mom and since the whole thing is done at once, you can sit down with Mom rather than flipping the rest of the pancakes. But, make sure to get it to the table right away because it sinks very quickly!

Dutch Baby Pancake
(serves 4; total cost is $1.25, not including accompaniments)

2 Tablespoons butter
3 large eggs
¾ cup milk (skim, lowfat, whole)
¾ all-purpose or whole wheat pastry flour
1 pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 425°F. Place a 10" cast-iron skillet in the oven with the butter while you prepare the batter.

Whisk together eggs until yolks and whites are totally combined and a little frothy. Add milk and whisk vigorously to combine. Add the flour in 3 parts, whisking vigorously to combine after each addition. There should be no lumps. Add the salt and whisk for another 30 seconds.

Remove skillet from oven, swirl butter around and pour batter into skillet. Return to oven and bake for 15 minutes. It will puff up a lot, usually around the edges. Reduce oven to 350℉ and bake for another 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Serve hot, straight from the oven, with fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar, or sliced sauteed apples and hot maple syrup.

Note: The batter can also be made in a blender. Blend the eggs for 30 seconds, slowly add the milk while the blender is running. Add the flour and salt and blend for another minute.

Muffins for Two

Having gotten pretty excited about coming up with a recipe for only 6 cookies, I decided to use the same concept to make only a couple muffins. I decided that the first muffin recipe to perfect is one that can be used as a base for many flavors, such as blueberry or chocolate chip. I must say that this was definitely an exercise in the scientific method. I’d modify my base recipe by decreasing the oven temperature and the next day I’d use the leftover egg (even covered and refrigerated, an egg is only good for about 24 hours after it’s cracked open) and change the amount of sugar. Maybe later that day I’d work on the right amount of baking powder. After several days of this, my husband commented one morning “Another day, another muffin!”.

It definitely was worth the effort. This recipe makes 2 reasonably sized muffins; not the ginormous ones that you feel sick and guilty about after eating, and not so small that you gobble up the only other one. Try it out. In less than a half hour you can have a wonderful homemade treat. And, you won't be eating the same muffins for days!

Muffins for Two

 

Basic muffin batter:

½ cup flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1 Tablespoon well-beaten egg (see Note)

2 Tablespoons milk

2 Tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

¼ teaspoon vanilla

Note: to measure the egg, beat it first to combine the white and yolk, then measure.

Preheat oven to 375°. Place two paper muffin cups in a muffin tin (not right next to each other) or butter two of the muffin cups. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugars. In another small bowl or measuring cup, put egg, milk, butter, and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.  Stir in the flavoring ingredients. Spoon half of the batter into the muffin tins and bake until lightly browned, 15 to 20 minutes.

Some flavoring ideas:

¼ cup chocolate chips and 2 Tablespoons chopped, toasted walnuts

¼ cup frozen blueberries and ½ teaspoon lemon zest

¼ cup chopped peaches, 2 Tablespoons toasted sweetened coconut, and 2 Tablespoons toasted slivered almonds

Best Cornbread Ever

We've been posting a lot of cold weather soup recipes lately and I thought I'd include one for cornbread to eat with those soups. This is a sweet cornbread that also goes really well with chili or a salad (try it with the curried chicken salad we posted a while ago). Or, cut a piece in half, toast and butter it and eat it for breakfast.  It's based on a recipe from "A World of Breads" by Dolores Casella. You do need a 9-inch square pan, but you'll use that for lots of other things, so it's well worth getting.

Sweet Cornbread (total price $4.35)

3/4 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups coarsely ground cornmeal
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk, at room temperature

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy with an electric hand mixer. Add the eggs and beat until blended. Stir in the cornmeal. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir the sifted dry ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk. To prepare the pan, either butter the entire 9-inch square pan or take a 9-inch wide piece of parchment paper or non-stick aluminum foil and place it in the pan with the ends coming over the sides (you'll use these for handles to remove the bread). Butter the 2 sides not covered with the paper/foil. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes, until the cornbread is browned and tests done with a toothpick. Cut into squares.

This bread freezes well.  I usually wrap 1 or 2 squares in plastic wrap and then put all the wrapped pieces in a freezer bag.  That way, I can easily take it out one serving at a time.  Microwave on high for 20-30 seconds to defrost each serving.

Homemade Granola

Homemade granola is so much better than what you can buy in a box or from the bulk bins at the store.  You can control the sweetness, include the nuts and fruits you like (or not), and it's way less expensive, too!  Here is the recipe I make every few weeks.  I like it with yogurt or as a snack, but of course, you can eat it for breakfast with milk, too.

Granola
makes about 7 cups

3 cups rolled oats (get the organic oats at the grocery store bulk aisle)
2 cups nuts (I like slivered almonds, but I've made it with half almonds and half pecans, all pecans, or walnuts)
1/8 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup dried fruit (brown or golden raisins, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries, cherries or blueberries)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.  In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, flax seed, coconut, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  In a measuring cup, pour in the oil and maple syrup.    Pour the liquid mixture into the dry and mix thoroughly.  Pour onto a half sheet pan or two smaller pans that have sides.  Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to achieve an even color.  Remove from oven and allow to cool.  Add dried fruit and mix until evenly distributed.  Keep it in the refrigerator, so it stays fresh. Well, that's only if you don't snarf it down right away!