Made: Personal Pan Oatmeal

I saw these Personal Sized Baked Oatmeals on Pinterest and promptly made some.  They are deeee-lishous!  The recipe is from Sugar-Free Mom and I am posting the recipe with only slight revisions to reflect how I made it and so I can find the recipe again next time!  This link will take you to the original recipe.




Personal Pan Oatmeal

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups applesauce
• 1 banana, mashed
• slight 1/2 cup honey
• 5 cups, Old Fashioned rolled oats (I ran out and had to sub in some steel-cut oats and it was ok)
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• toppings: raisins, chocolate chips, pecans, blueberries

Directions

•  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Mix eggs, vanilla, applesauce, banana and honey together in a bowl.
• Add in oats, flax, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and mix well with wet ingredients.
• Finally pour in milk and combine.
• Spray a 12 and 6 capacity muffin tin with cooking spray or use cupcake liners.
  Pour mixture evenly into muffin tin cups.
• Add toppings.
• Bake 30 minutes until a toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool and enjoy or freeze them in gallon freezer bags.

The Sprout had great fun personalizing her own muffins--raisins and chocolate chips for her.  I made mine with blueberries and pecans.  They are a great grab-and-go breakfast.  30 seconds in the microwave and we are out the door.  Of course, the Sprout prefers to just eat the chocolate chips off the top.  Sigh....  three year olds!

Quinoa Cakes + Greens + Poached Eggs + Pancetta

Sometimes I wonder why more full-time working mothers don't have blogs. And then I re-read that sentence and think about my own life and I remember why. The last month or so has been crazy. Not only is my job busy, but my husband's has had several major deadlines that have demanded many extra hours. Then there was my grandmother's death, the accompanying trip to Indiana and the subsequent nasty colds.

I am not complaining because I know the busy-ness of my life is all the result of choices I have made, and I have no regrets. I just find it challenging to nurture my creativity when we're existing in survival mode around here. Perhaps you've felt the same way.

One way I have been "playing" is with food. I'll be the first to admit that cooking is not one of my fortes. In fact, I usually leave the heavy-duty cooking up to the Wise And Bearded One who is more gifted in this area. But his recent super-long hours means he's been cooking less, and, hey, we've still gotta eat.  So that means I've gotta cook.

Here's a recent favorite of mine (discovered on Pinterest, of course): Quinoa Cakes.  And, I realize you can't even see the quinoa cake in this picture because it's so covered up by all the other stuff, but believe me, it's in there and it's DEEElicious.

I've been trying to shift my family over to healthy whole grains for a while and quinoa is one we all seem to like. The original recipe is from Annie 's Eats and I have only modified it slightly based on the ingredients we are most likely to have around the house.

Quinoa Cakes with Poached Eggs

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked quinoa, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• ½ tsp. coarse salt
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ cup whole grain bread crumbs, plus more if needed
• Olive oil, for frying patties
• (for serving) 6 poached eggs (one for each patty)
• (for serving) Salt and pepper

 Directions

• In a medium bowl, combine the quinoa, eggs, salt, onion, Parmesan, and garlic.  Stir to blend.  Mix in the bread crumbs and stir gently until evenly incorporated.  Form the mixture into six evenly sized patties, about 3-4 inches in diameter.
  
• Heat a bit of olive oil in a large sauté pan set over medium-high heat and swirl to coat.  Add the patties to the pan so that they are not touching.  Let cook about 4 minutes or until the first side is lightly browned.  Carefully flip the patties with a spatula and let the second side cook until golden brown, about 4 minutes more.  Repeat with the remaining patties, using additional olive oil if needed.  Top each patty with a poached egg*, and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over a bed of spinach or other leafy greens**.
  

 *I recommend Smitten Kitchen's method for poaching eggs.
**The Wise and Bearded One got home from work just as I was finishing up this dish, and he had the brilliant idea of crisping up a bit of pancetta in a frying pan and using it to garnish the dish. Oh, bacon, you always make everything better!


So,hard-working blog-reading friends, here's to finding a place for creativity even when you're existing in survival mode!

Pinspiration: Autumn Chopped Salad

On Pinterest:

On my table:

Although I'd like to eat salads more often, I am an uninspired salad-maker.  I saw this combination of pears, cranberries, pecans, and bacon and thought I could sell it to most of the members of our household.  A little bit of bacon goes a long way in enticing some of the less-inclined members to eat their veggies.  And I'm not just talking about the toddlers, if you get my drift.

We probably erred on the side of over-indulgence.  The Wise and Bearded One happened to purchase a more expensive and more pungent goat cheese that we tried to use in this salad.  It really over-powered the rest of the ingredients and all the flavors just didn't seem to work together.  We also didn't have any balsamic vinaigrette so we skipped that entirely. 

I'd be willing to give it another shot with a milder cheese and maybe trying the poppy seed dressing mixed with balsamic vinaigrette that the recipe recommends.

In the meantime, 3 out of 5 stars.  Recipe HERE.

Pinspiration: Zuppa Toscana

I posted a few months ago about my love affair with Pinterest.   The affair is still going on hot and heavy, and I've actually started to make some of the things I've "pinned".  Here's one:

On Pinterest:

On my Table:

Obviously, I'm neither a food stylist nor a great food photographer, but this recipe is Ah. May. Zing!   With sausage, kale and potatoes it makes a hearty cold-weather dinner.  It will be making repeat appearances in the Miller household this winter.

5 out of 5 stars.  Recipe HERE.

Gwyneth's Homemade Veggie Burgers

Last summer I was on the quest to find the perfect veggie burger. I tried several different recipes and never got to one that I truly liked. And then, voila! Gwynnie saves the day! These black bean burgers are made with ingredients I usually have around the house and they have enough spice to make them interesting. I like them with sour cream and salsa.




Ingredients:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, peeled and finely diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp course salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 14 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh cilantro
2 tbsp flour
3 tbsp safflower oil (I substituted olive oil)
4 sprouted grain or whole wheat burger buns

Directions:
Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium-low heat. Saute the onion, garlic and cumin together unitl softened and fragrant, about 7 minutes. Add the salt, pepper, beans, and rice and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the cilantro and mash the mixture with a potato masher just to combine and get some cohesion--you want the burgers to have some texture.

Let the mixture cool until it's easy to handle. Form the mixture into 4 patties. At this point, you can set the burgers in the fridge for a few hours. Dust on both sides with flour. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and brown the burgers on both sides, about a minute on each side. Serve them on grilled buns with all your favorite fixings.

(From My Father's Daughter by Gwyneth Paltrow, page 100)

Happy Summer Eating!

Cooking with Gwynnie

I am not much of a cook, I'll admit it. My husband does a lot of the cooking in our household because he takes pleasure in cooking. I take pleasure in eating. And thinking about cooking.

I really like reading cookbooks. When I heard Gwyneth Paltrow out promoting her new cookbook a couple of months ago, I knew I wanted to check it out. I've been a fan of Gwyneth ever since watching Spain: On the Road Again which she filmed with Mario Battali and Mark Bittman as they ate their way across Spain. When I saw her lunge into a perfect churro, I thought, "There's a girl who loves to eat!"

The cookbook is a mix of simple, accessible recipes with a few Big Deal recipes that would take a lot of work. Although Gwynnie doesn't eat red meat, she includes a recipe for beef brisket just because it is her family's traditional meal. She often includes "healthier" alternatives for ingredients (example: substituting spelt flour for all-purpose) and several recipes have a standard and a "healthier" variation. As a mother trying to reduce the sugar in our diet and still have meals that are attractive for children, I appreciate the attempt to keep it healthy.

So far we've made:
-Homemade Veggie Burgers (great)
-Vietnamese Prawn Sandwiches (good)
-Fish Tacos (superb! I will never be able to eat these in a restaurant again now that I know we can make them better at home)
-Blythe's Blueberry Muffins (mediocre...but I'm picky about muffins)

The personal anecdotes interwoven with the recipes draw me into the book, and the photography and styling is simply beautiful. Brief fantasies of dressing in only white linen float through my head... And then I remember that I live with toddlers and dogs and dirt. Sigh.

Gwynnie writes an enjoyable read of a cookbook. I recommend it if you're a cookbook-reading geek like me.

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What's been inspiring your cooking and eating lately? Are you put off by celebrity cookbooks or do you secretly find them fascinating?

It's been a little quiet in the comments section lately, so I'd love it if you'd pop in and say hi. And if your blogger profile allows me to, I'll even reply right back.