Creamy Oatmeal

I'm sure I saw this recipe and a picture tutorial for making it on a blog somewhere this week, but now I can't find it. And soon after I saw that, I came across the same recipe in one of these food storage books that I have. But now I can't find it, either. However, that didn't deter me from trying it this morning. The recipe is simple, and it turned out good. I think this will be my new way of making oatmeal on the mornings that we have it.

1 part oatmeal (1/2 cup per person)

1 part milk (see proportion, above)

1 part water (see proportion, above)

Put this in a pot, add a shake of salt and a handful of raisins if you like, and turn the heat to medium. Stir it every two or three minutes, keeping the heat on medium, until it begins to bubble. Still keep the heat on medium and keep stirring it every couple of minutes, until it thickens up and looks nice and creamy. This takes about 15 minutes or so, I think. While it was cooking I ironed Jim's clothes for the morning and checked my email (gotta set a timer for that one so I don't get lost in my own world and let the oatmeal burn!).

Serve with whole wheat toast and butter, milk and a little sugar and cinnamon if you like.

Keeper!

Basic Hot Cakes

Here's the recipe:

1 cup wheat flour (may use part white flour)

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 scant cup milk

2 tablespoons oil

1 large egg, beaten lightly

Sift dry ingredients. Combine milk and oil and egg and add to dry ingredients. Then stir until moist but not too much. Cook on hot griddle over medium heat.

Here's the variation I made this morning:

1 cup wheat flour

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon powdered egg, pressed through a sieve to "sift" it

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour milk (hey, it was going bad, so this was a good way to finish it up)

2 tablespoons oil

Stir dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl combine milk and oil then add to dry ingredients. Let it sit a couple of minutes while you preheat the griddle, then cook 2 minutes on one side and one minute on the other over medium heat.

And here's the variation I would have made if I didn't have sour milk needing to be used:

1 cup wheat flour

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon powdered egg, pressed through a sieve to "sift" it

1 heaping spoonful powdered milk (about 2-3 tablespoons)

1 cup water

2 tablespoons oil

Stir dry ingredients together. Combine water and oil and add to dry ingredients. Cook as above.

Comment: I think the sour milk might make it a little lighter and flufflier, kind of like buttermilk or sour cream would do. But, whether it does or not, it's the best way I know of to use up sour milk and feel like I'm not making it go to waste.

Cinnamon rolls

This morning I made these cinnamon rolls from Dana Thornock's Lean and Free 2000 Plus book. They are light and yummy, and I highly recommend trying them.

Ellen

Pumpkin Pancakes

Last night I tried out these Pumpkin Pancakes from allrecipes.com for dinner. They were so good! I think I will start buying pumpkin puree now and trying other pumpkin dishes because even my kids liked the pancakes. I wanted to share the recipe here so besides posting the link I will copy and paste it too. I hope that's ok:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, ginger and salt in a separate bowl. Stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

I just put all the wet ingredients in my blender and blended them a bit then mixed all the dry ingredients together and dumped in the wet. These were the fluffiest pancakes I've ever had. They were a little bland but I think that's because I was missing the ginger and allspice. I still loved them though!

Cornmeal pancakes

These are pooper helpers. I actually like these better than whole wheat pancakes because corn is a bit more flavorful. My kids seem to like them too.

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 T sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup oil or melted butter

Then you know how to do the rest, right? This is just my regular pancake recipe, I just substituted half the flour for corn flour.
**Edited to add in the baking powder. Sorry about that. But like I said, you can just use your own pancake recipe and just do half corn meal if you are interested.

Delicious fiber packed blueberry muffins!

I have found a truly amazingly delicious healthy enough for my standards recipe! I am excited to share this. I tried it today, and one of my kids gobbled one down, so I think we are making progress. The other two kids just took little nibbles, but that's to be expected. It sounds too healthy to be tasty and I don't think I would have tried it except for all the great reviews but they are delicious! So, here is my adaptation of this recipe from allrecipes:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup wheat bran

1/4 cup quick cooking oats

1/4 cup wheat germ (I think that's what I used, but I'm not sure because it was from an unlabeled bag in my cupboard)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup blueberries

1 banana mashed

1 cup buttermilk (I used 1 cup milk and 1 tsp lemon juice)

1 egg

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract (oops, I guess I forgot to put this in)

Mix dry ingredients first, then add the blueberries. Then mix wet ingredients and add them all to the dry ones. Fill muffin tins all the way to the top. Bake at 350 for 15-18 min or until top springs back when touched.

Next time I make these (which will be very soon) I will use craisins instead of blueberries. My daughter thought she wanted blueberry because she likes blueberry bagels (probably made with imitation blueberries) but she didn't like the big gooey bluberry blobs in this. I think she will really like it with craisins though and I think the craisins will help soak up a bit of the moisture and dry them out a bit as they were quite moist. I really really liked them, although you wouldn't want to gobble down the whole batch yourself.