Baking Craze Cont...

Now for the bread…

My story starts with too much oatmeal. I’d made extra because there was only half a cup left in the package, and for all the work involved you can’t just leave half a cup in the package, so I cooked it. Normally I’d just throw the leftovers in the fridge knowing someone would want a snack—(oatmeal, as I think I’ve mentioned doesn’t last very long at my house) but that day I was in the mood to bake.

So, I picked up the phone for a chat with Nana.

Now, before I tell you about that conversation however, you need to know that Nana is an amazing baker. Every week she bakes me 3 loaves of the most amazing whole wheat bread. Talk about spoiled, huh? She also bakes amazing rolls, pies, buns, cinnamon rolls and myriad of other things too numerous to list. Anyway…for the past several years I’ve gone on baking kicks, always trying to make my bread turn out as good hers…and of course….ending with varying degrees of success.

“What would happen if I tried to make bread with some of this leftover oatmeal?” I asked her.

Her reply was immediate. It would be great, and she used to make oatmeal bread all the time when I was little. (I don’t remember that…my memories are of ‘healthy’ whole wheat bread, but I’ll take her word for it.) Then she rattles off a recipe from memory while I frantically scribble down ingredients and measurements.

“Add some raisins and make cinnamon-raisin swirl bread,” she suggested. Then said, “after you add the cinnamon, mist it with a little water so it sticks together better”…and “a little sugar sprinkled on the cinnamon is nice”….and “let me know how it turns out, Honey.” I hang up the phone, shaking my head. OMG! Amazing.

And believe me it was…which is why I wanted to share it with you. I hope you’ll enjoy!

Oatmeal Raisin Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Makes 2 loaves

2 cups               water—warm (115 degree F or so)

¾ - 1 cup         cooked steel cut or Scottish Oatmeal—cooked

3 Tbs                 brown Sugar

3 Tbs                 butter (or 1 ½ Tbs butter and 1 ½ Tbs Shortening
                                          to extend shelf life)

5 tsp                   active dry yeast

5-6 cups            flour

2 cups                raisins

1 tsp                   salt

2 Tbs                  oil (for coating bread bowl)

2-3+ Tbs           cinnamon

1-2 Tbs              white sugar

Bottle with water for misting

Directions:

I usually use the dough cycle of my bread machine for this recipe but you could use a KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook or make by hand.

Place the water, oatmeal, brown sugar, butter, flour, yeast, and salt in the pan of your bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select the dough cycle and press start.

(If making without a bread machine, you may consider proofing the yeast in part of the warm water with some of the brown sugar before combining with the flour and oatmeal)

Keep an eye on your dough and add more flour if needed. About 5 minutes before the end of the kneading cycle add the raisins.

Pour oil into large bowl. Remove dough from pan and place in oiled bowl. Coat dough with oil and cover with plastic wrap. Allow bread to rise until almost doubled (30-45 minutes.)

Prepare loaf pans by spraying with no-stick cooking spray.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (175 C).

After dough has risen, punch down and pat dough into a large rectangle (about 1-inch thick) and sprinkle with cinnamon. Mist with water, and sprinkle on the white sugar. Roll dough into a 'log' and pinch edges closed.

Cut the ‘log’ in half and shape into a loaves.

Place into prepared loaf pans. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise additional 30 minutes or until nicely risen above the loaf pans.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until nicely brown.

Remove from loaf pans and brush top of loaves with butter.

This bread makes awesome toast. 

Winter Comfort and Italian Sweet Cream

What do you make for breakfast that just comforts the soul?

At my house, it’s oatmeal.

During my growing up years, I didn’t have oatmeal often because my dad—who usually made our breakfasts (Mama worked swing shifts and didn’t get up in the mornings before we went to school) wasn’t overly fond of the mushy, gummy mess that posed for breakfast as his mother had made it. (Instead, he was a master of scrambled eggs cooked in the microwave. Sounds gross, I know but somehow they always turned out fluffy and delicious.)

When I was in college, I dated a man who taught me to make oatmeal (and triticale—his favorite) with nothing more than boiling water and time. It was quick and tasty and that was how I made oatmeal until about a year ago, when I stumbled upon a recipe for Irish or steel cut oatmeal. Wow! What a delightful find…we were immediately hooked. Even my “I don’t eat mush!” husband fell in love.

Our favorite way to eat steel cut oats is with a little Italian Sweet Cream and a dollop of raspberry or strawberry freezer jam. Frozen huckleberries and slivered almonds with brown sugar are also good. I usually make extra because they heat up easily in the microwave for a quick and tasty breakfast when you’re in a rush and they never last long in the refrigerator…someone always wants a snack.

I have to confess to an ulterior motive for sharing this recipe now. Recently, I’ve been on a baking kick and I’ve been using leftover oatmeal in a fun and simple oatmeal raisin-cinnamon swirl bread. Stay tuned for further recipe postings. J

Note: this recipe is great for both steel cut oats and Scottish oatmeal.  What’s the difference? Scottish oats are stone ground into a medium fine meal while steel cut or Irish oats have the oat groat cut into two or three pieces. I toast them both before cooking and the finished product is very similar. The Scottish oats cook in about 10 minutes while the steel cut oats take 40-50 minutes depending on how soft you like them.

Irish Oatmeal

1 cups Irish or steel cut oats—may also be called pinhead oats

1 Tbs butter

pinch salt

3-4 cups boiling water

Instructions:
Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add oats and roast for 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly, until oats are toasty brown. Remove from heat and carefully add boiling water (it will spit and boil up a bit). Cook on low heat, stirring every 5-10 minutes (to prevent sticking) until oats are soft. Enjoy with toppings of your choice.

Italian Sweet Cream: 

This is pure decadence in a bottle and definitely not meant to be eaten on a daily basis. J (I haven’t tried it but I’m sure you could make something similar with fat free half-and-half.)

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1 cup sugar (more or less to taste)

½ tsp vanilla (optional)

Stir all ingredients gently until sugar dissolves. Place in glass jar or bottle. Serve over hot oatmeal. 

Creamed Eggs on Toast and the Cheese Mystery

Left over Easter eggs—some are so pretty you almost hate to use them. They sit in their basket, beautiful reminders of the rite of spring. Renewal. Nevertheless, use them you must, so you’ve made deviled eggs, egg salad sandwiches, and potato salad and you still have more to use. What to do?

The start of my families Easter egg breakfast ritual is unclear but after much research, here is what I know. My grandmother took home economics in 1942. Her curriculum included making many recipes, among which was Creamed Eggs on Toast. My mother and her sisters all grew up eating this delightful dish on Easter morning and it was one of my favorite breakfasts as a child. It was a hard and fast Easter ritual—after the Easter egg hunt, everyone brought their eggs to Mom (saving out the prettiest) and she would make Creamed Eggs on Toast for breakfast. No one I talked to however, remembers whose idea it was to add cheese. My grandmother says she never made this dish with cheese and her eldest daughter, my aunt Vickie, does not make it with cheese. My mother, who is second eldest and her younger sister, my Auntie Pam on the other hand, both use cheese. My mother does not remember a time when she did not make this dish with cheese thus for my family, it has been made this way for at least forty years.

I can still remember the first time I made this for my husband and his ho hum attitude at my mention of our beloved Easter ritual. It only took seconds for him to embrace our favorite breakfast as he too had grown up with no cheese in his ‘Eggy Toast’. I searched the internet today for possible origins for our recipe and found that none of the recipes I looked at contained cheese—thus the mystery.

My internet search did bring to light many interesting facts about the history of food. The base for this recipe is a basic Béchamel sauce whose primary ingredients are a 1:1 ratio of butter to flour, making a roux, and milk. Adding cheese to this turns it into a Mornay sauce often used in soufflés and gratins. Béchamel Sauce or white sauce has long been considered one the four basic ‘mother’ sauces of French cooking. Chefs have used it since the mid 1600’s. (If you are interested in reading about its history I found a very interesting web site, you can view here.) For our Creamed Eggs on Toast we start with the béchamel and use it as the base for my favorite Easter breakfast and the best way to use up those extra Easter eggs.

Note: Traditional Béchamel sauce contains butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. For this recipe, we are going to leave out the nutmeg and add onion and garlic powder.

In addition, followers of this blog please note: This is another ‘dump’ recipe in which I usually do not measure exactly…feel free to play around with the proportions as needed.

Cheesy Creamed Eggs on Toast
(Serves 4-6)

1/3 C butter
1/3 C flour
4 C milk
1/8 t or fair sized pinch garlic powder
¼ t onion powder
Fresh ground pepper
Seasoning salt to taste—can add either while cooking or allow people to add their own at the table
1 ½ C Cheddar Cheese (usually don’t measure…this morning it was three large handfuls)
4-6 hard-boiled Easter eggs—sliced
Hearty whole-wheat toast (to be healthy…)

To make your béchamel, melt butter over medium heat, in a saucepan and add flour, stirring to mix with butter—this is your roux. Allow roux to cook, stirring continuously for about 1 minute. Do not allow it to brown. Whisk in milk and continue whisking until roux is dissolved. Sauce will thicken as the milk warms. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. (To thicken quicker, warm milk in microwave prior to adding to roux.) Add garlic and onion powder, pepper and seasoning salt if desired. When béchamel is thick and beginning to bubble, add cheese and stir to melt. Sauce should be smooth and creamy. Do not allow it to boil. Remove from heat and add eggs. Serve over toast.

My husband and children like to add Baco bits to their ‘Eggy Toast’. My parents and I eat it with seasoning salt sprinkled at the table. Crisp bacon bits are also tasty. Enjoy!

Spring Scramble

Spring has, and always will be, my favorite season. I love the way the trees come to life with new buds and the brilliant purple of crocus growing valiantly through the snow. The countryside slowly turns from white and brown to a verdant landscape radiant with new life. It is a time of renewal, in every sense of the word.

Spring is also the time of one of my favorite vegetables—asparagus. Growing up in Montana, asparagus would grow wild along the road and I remember walking by these green shoots, standing as soldier sentinels, on my way to school. How my mother loved when my brother and I would pick, and bring it home to her. At the time, my tastes had not matured enough to appreciate what a treat it was. Now there is practically no way in which I do not enjoy asparagus. Smothered in garlic butter, stir-fried, steamed with cheese sauce or in a scramble for breakfast, it delights my soul with the promise of spring.

My mother-in-law, Ruth Detwiler, taught me this delicious recipe.

Spring Scramble

Serving for one

2 Eggs
5-6 Spears Asparagus—cut on the bias
2-3 Fresh Mushrooms—sliced
1 T milk
1 tsp. butter
1 Tbs Cheddar Cheese—grated (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a small bowl wisk together the eggs and milk. Add salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, swirling to coat pan. Place asparagus and mushrooms in skillet and immediately add eggs. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese if desired. Using a spatula gently push, lift, and fold the egg mixture until
Enjoy with a piece of whole-wheat toast for a nutritious breakfast.

Waffles!

This is actually one of Marguerite's recipes, but I enjoy it so much that I thought I'd post about it. I believe the original recipe came with my grandma's (Marguerite's mom) waffle iron years ago. Marguerite doctored it up a bit to make it even tastier. Here's what you need if you wish to make these yummy waffles at your house:


1 1/4 cup flour (we use unbleached, but any white flour other than self-rising should work)
1 tsp. +/- cornmeal (optional--makes the waffles a little crispier)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg (we use white eggs, but I'm sure brown would also do the trick; we've never tried this with egg substitutes, but I don't see why you couldn't)
1 cup milk (we use whole milk)
1/4 cup oil (I like canola because it doesn't have an overpowering flavor)
1/2 tsp. vanilla (Marguerite likes to go easy on the vanilla because it is kind of pricey, but I think a whole teaspoon adds a little something)
Powdered (confectioner's) sugar (optional)

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside; crack the egg into another bowl and beat it with a fork or spoon; add milk and oil to beaten egg; stir; stir in flour mixture; add vanilla last (for stronger vanilla flavor); bake in waffle iron according to iron's directions (ours clicks when the waffle is done, but yours may differ). Sprinkle powdered sugar or top, if desired (I think it tastes just like a funnel cake, only healthier, with the powdered sugar), or add waffle toppings of your choice. Makes approximately four round waffles in a standard waffle iron.

A Story of Porridge

Once upon a time, in a faraway forest, there lived three little bears. They lived in a tiny stone cottage whose roof was covered in moss and yellow daisies. Every morning, at eight a.m. sharp, Mama Bear would make breakfast for her family. There was a big bowl of porridge for Papa Bear and a medium bowl of porridge for Mama Bear and of course, a small bowl of porridge for Baby Bear.

Now for Mama Bear, no ordinary porridge would do. She did not like instant porridge or the mushy kind either. No. Only healthy organic whole grains would do for her family so every morning from the cupboard above the stove she took down a big tin of old fashioned oatmeal. In Papa Bears bowl, she placed one cup of oatmeal. In her own bowl, she placed a half cup of oatmeal, and in Baby Bear’s bowl, she put a quarter of a cup of oatmeal.

While she boiled water for the oatmeal, Mama Bear poured Papa Bear a tall glass of milk. She poured a medium sized glass of milk for herself and a very tiny glass of milk for Baby Bear who often spilled. When the water was boiling, she took it from the stove and poured it into the bowls of oatmeal until the water just barely covered the oatmeal. She then placed a salad plate over each bowl (to save saran-wrap and thus decrease her family’s carbon footprint) and allowed it to sit for five minutes before calling her bears to Breakfast.

First, in came Papa Bear who was a Grizzly with a great gruff voice and big ‘stompy’ feet. He liked bananas and brown sugar on his oatmeal. Next came Mama Bear who was a sweetheart with a big white apron and pink bunny slippers. She liked dried blueberries and slivered almonds on her oatmeal. Lastly came Baby Bear who was cute as a button in bright red footie pajamas. Baby Bear liked Strawberry jam on his oatmeal.

Now one day, while waiting for the oatmeal to cook, Mama Bear decided to run to the blueberry patch because she wanted fresh blueberries instead of dried…well, I guess you know what happened next.


Oatmeal—serves one.

½ cup Old fashioned rolled oats (not quick oats)
½ cup boiling water or enough to cover oats

Place oats in a bowl and pour in boiling water. Cover and allow to sit for approximately five minutes. Add milk and your favorite toppings for a quick nutritious breakfast.

(This is not your mother’s mushy oatmeal :) )


Photo snagged from here with many thanks!