Unassuming, but delicious.

This year I decided to participate in my first ever Cookie Swap!

This means that I sent out three boxes of cookies to three food bloggers and three other food bloggers will be hopefully sending me three boxes of goodies.

While I was mailing my boxes of cookies I did have this moment of thinking that this might be some very elaborate pyramid scheme to get millions of free holiday cookies for a few lucky people!

I had this vision of the creators (Lindsay and Julie) sitting around hundreds of boxes of collected cookies… laughing all the way to the dentist’s office.

Of course, that won’t really happen. Food bloggers are generally the nicest people ever and I have full faith that I’ll receive my delicious boxes of cookies.

This year I think something crazy like 700 food bloggers signed up for the cookie swap. I have no earthly idea how long it took Lindsay and Julie to organize and match that many people, but I do honestly hope they sent themselves a few free boxes of cookies just for the trouble!

If you want to sign up for next year’s cookie swap, there’s already a signup form for it.

These brown butter guys are the cookies I sent out to my matches!

Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Yield: 36 cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, browned
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oat flour
3 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant kind)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup dried cherries, chopped
1 Cup chocolate chips

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Directions:

1) Add butter to a small saucepan over medium heat. Melt butter, stirring slowly. After butter melts, continue to cook for a few minutes until the butter solids start to brown. It easy to tell this if you use a non-dark colored pan as you'll be able to actually see the brown bits on the bottom. You can also tell when the butter is browned by the smell. It will start to smell very nutty which means it's done!

2) Pour off browned butter carefully. Try to leave most of the browned solids in the pan, but it's okay if some go with the butter. Let this cool.

3) Cream together sugars with brown butter until they are smooth using a hand mixer or stand mixer.

4) Beat in eggs one at a time and vanilla extract.

5) In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients except chocolate chips and cherries.

6) Slowly mix in dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Mix until just combined.

7) Stir in add-ins (chocolate and cherries).

8) Spoon large tablespoons of cookie dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

9) Bake cookies at 375 for 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned around the edges.

10) Let cookies cool on a wire rack.

Butter, Browned

What I like about these cookies is that they are surprising. They look just like normal old oatmeal cookies, but they are jam-packed with flavor.

Step one to creating that flavor is to brown some butter. That gives the cookies a great nutty flavor that goes really well with the brown sugar.

If you’ve never browned butter before, it’s not all that hard. Just add your butter to a small saucepan and melt the butter over medium heat. Stir it frequently and after a few minutes the butter solids will separate out and sink to the bottom of the pan.

If you have a light colored saucepan, you’ll be able to actually start to see them brown a bit. You’ll also be able to smell the butter. When it’s done, it will have an intense nutty smell.

Start to finish, the butter browning process maybe takes 5-6 minutes.

Then you can pour off your browned butter. Try to leave behind most of the butter solids, but its okay if some get mixed in. It won’t affect the recipe at all.

Flavor town.

The Cookie Dough

Start this dough by mixing together all the dry ingredients in a bowl. If you can’t find oat flour, you can definitely use just all-purpose flour.

All the dry business.

Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat together the browned butter and sugars until they are smooth and light. This should take a few minutes.

Then slowly mix in your eggs and your vanilla.

Once that is all mixed together, slowly mix in your dry ingredients, working in batches.

Try not to overmix this dough. When the flour is incorporated, it’s done!

Pretty simple.

The Add-ins

I figured these cookies would have lots of flavor and great texture as-is, but this is a cookie swap so I wanted to amp up the flavor even more.

So I mixed in some chocolate and dried cherries. I figured it’s hard to go wrong with these flavors.

Don't skimp on these!

Once those are mixed in your dough is done and you’re ready to make some cookies!

This makes a lot of cookies.

Baking the Cookies

Scoop large tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You should get about 36 cookies out of this recipe.

Twelve cookies per baking sheet should be about right.

Ready to go!

Bake these guys at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

The should be lightly browned around the edges and still a bit soft in the center.

Let them cool on a wire rack if you have one.

If you’re photographing your cookies, here’s a TIP! Don’t photograph them on a counter that is almost exactly the same color as the cookies.

Talk about camouflage!

My counter is like camo for these...

The Packaging

I stressed out a lot about how to ship these cookies. I ended up letting the cookies cool completely and then sealing them well in a large freezer plastic bag.

Next I lined a large box with plastic wrap and filled the bottom with spicy kettle corn! I figured that would cushion the cookies a bit and also give the recipients a little extra treat.

The finished package!

Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Now I need to make another batch of these for myself!

These are actually kind of healthy.

My pantry is in an embarrassing state of disrepair right now. I would guess I have 15-20 random bags of seeds, flours, and oats that I’m not really sure what to do with.

So anytime I make something baked I’m always trying to use up some of these random things.

The ironic thing about it is that the more I use them, the more I like them, so I just buy more when they run out. So the crazy pantry ends up growing instead of shrinking…

Champagne problems right?

Anyway, these pancakes are about as healthy as I’ll do on pancakes. They still have butter and syrup. It’s my view that if you aren’t willing to put butter in your pancakes, then you might as well not make them (unless you have some sort of dietary reason as to why you can’t have butter).

But these guys have a lot of good stuff in them also like chia seeds, flax seeds, and whole wheat flour. I was really happy with how they turned out.

Multigrain Pancakes

Yield: 8 medium pancakes

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Cup rolled oats
1/4 Cup ground flax seeds
1/4 Cup chia seeds
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
1 1/4 Cups milk
1/2 Cup buttermilk
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Quick Berry Topping:
2 Cups frozen berries
2 Tablespoons water
1/4 Cup sugar

Directions:

1) Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix wet ingredients (except butter) in a small bowl.

2) Stir wet stuff into dry stuff. Mix well and let sit for 15 minutes. If the batter is too thick, don't be afraid to add a bit more milk.

3) Right before making pancakes, stir in melted butter.

4) Cook pancakes over medium heat. Add a tiny amount of butter to the pan before starting pancakes. They should need to cook for about 2-3 minutes on the first side and then just a minute on side two.

5) Flip the pancakes when there are bubbles forming on the top and the sides are starting to dry up and become firm.

6) Serve pancakes right away with butter, syrup, and berry topping.

Making the Batter

There’s some pretty standard ingredients that almost any pancake recipe should have. You obviously need flour and some sort of leavening ingredient (baking powder/soda). Most will also have some dairy stuff for the liquids (buttermilk, milk, eggs, butter, etc). I think you could substitute these with soy products, but I’ve never really tried that.

The only substitutions that I made from the standard pancake ingredients is subbing some of the flour with whole wheat flour and also using brown sugar instead of normal sugar.

The normal stuff. Kind of.

What I did do though was add in some other delicious grains and seeds.

These guys give the pancakes a fantastic texture and an almost nutty flavor. I really liked them.

The fun stuff.

Pancake batter is pretty straightforward to mix. I’ve never really understood the advantage of boxed pancake mix. It maybe saves you 60 seconds and is way more expensive than just buying the individual ingredients.

Plus I just don’t think the resulting pancakes are as good!

To make the batter, just mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and the wet ingredients (except melted butter) in a smaller bowl.

Then just stir your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients.

Wet into dry always.

Since this batter has oats in it, I recommend letting it sit for about 15 minutes before making the pancakes. This will give the batter a chance to absorb some of the liquids.

After that point, you might need to add a few extra tablespoons of milk if your batter is too thick. It should almost be the consistency of a thick gravy.

Right before you start making your pancakes, stir in your melted butter.

Gotta have it.

Cooking the Pancakes

I think one thing that people mess up sometimes when they make pancakes is cranking the heat up to super-hot on their pan. While this works great for steaks, it’s not a good idea for pancakes. Nobody likes medium rare pancakes.

So start your heat on medium which will give your pancake time to cook through as it browns on the outside. Use a nonstick griddle or skillet to cook your pancakes in and add just a tiny amount of butter to the pan before ladling in the batter. You want just enough butter to lightly coat the pan.

People always want to know about how you can tell when to flip the pancake. The two things I look for are bubbles forming on the top and the edges turning solid and slightly dry.

This guy is about ready to go.

Almost there...

Flip with confidence!

Perfect!

If you cook your first pancake and it’s too thick, add a bit more milk to the batter to thin it out. If it’s really then, then your batter is too runny, so stir in a bit more flour.

A Quick Berry Topping

I usually just like butter and syrup on my pancakes, but I had some frozen fruit (my freezer is maybe in more disarray than my pantry) so I thought I’d make a quick berry topping.

I just added a few cups of fruit with some water and sugar to a pot. Bring this to a simmer and cook down the berries until they are thick.

Quick and easy.

Even with the fruit topping, I still couldn’t resist topping the cakes with some butter and syrup.

Hopefully you can see all the goodies that are in these guys.

Great texture and flavor for these.

I thought these turned out fantastic. They are very filling but still light and fluffy as a pancake should be.

Because of all the add-ins your getting a lot of your daily fiber requirements just with a pancake. That’s pretty hard to beat!

Oh I'll take that!

This week is an entire week of peaches here at Macheesmo! How excited are you?

If you don’t like peaches, probably not very excited.

But seriously, who doesn’t like peaches? I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t at least think they are okay. A perfectly ripe peach, in my mind, is a lot like a ripe tomato. They suck when they are out of season, but when they are in season, they’re one of the best things out there. I try to eat my weight in them every year and usually get pretty close.

This is a simple dish, but one that’s guaranteed to please. Stick half a peach in a ramekin with some oatmeal, cream, and spices. Then bake it with brown sugar on top. What’s not to love?

Baked Peaches

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2 ripe peaches, halved with pits removed
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 Cup cream
1 Cup milk
2 large eggs
1 Teaspoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1/4 Cup dates, chopped (optional)
Pinch of Salt
Sprinkle of brown sugar
Butter (for baking dish)

Helpful Equipment:

Individual ramekins (although you can also bake the whole thing in a large casserole dish)

Directions:

1) Mix oats, milk, cream, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in chopped dates or raisins.

2) Let oat mixture sit for at least 20 minutes to absorb the liquid.

3) Cut peaches in half and remove pits.

4) Butter ramekins or baking dish well.

5) Spoon about 2/3 cup of oats mixture into each ramekin. Push a peach half in the center and sprinkle with brown sugar.

6) Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees for ramekins. You'll probably have to add on 15 minutes if you're using a large baking dish.

7) Let cool for a minute before serving.

Prepping the Oatmeal

You can just stick a peach in the oven and bake it for a few minutes if you want. Then eat it with a spoon. It’ll be delicious. This is just a bit of an elaborate version of that.

The oatmeal base for each ramekin is loosely based on my baked oatmeal recipe which, if you didn’t know, is freakin’ delicious.

All the basics.

Start by mixing in the oats with the milk, cream, eggs, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla.

If you’re an observant reader, ignore the portions in the below photo (1 egg). I halved the recipe because I didn’t need four servings of this.

The base of the thing.

I had some dried dates on hand so I threw those into the oatmeal also. They are completely optional and you could also use raisins or something. They just absorb some of the liquid and give the oatmeal some texture.

If you do use them, dice them up pretty small.

Tasty things.

Add the dates (or raisins) to the oat mixture and stir it together well. Let this sit for about 20-30 minutes. You could even make it the night before if you wanted to. You just want to make sure that the oats have some time to absorb some of the liquid and flavor.

All mixed up!

Peachy.

When it comes to halving a peach, I usually just run a knife around the pit of the peach. Then lightly twist the peach and half of it should pop off, leaving the pit in the other half of the peach. If you have a super-ripe peach, this might not work though and you’ll have to kind of dig around with a knife to get the pit out.

If you have to cut the pit out that’s okay too. There’s no reason why these halves have to look perfect.

Expert pit removal.

Prepping the Ramekins

Whether you’re using ramekins or a large casserole dish for baking these guys, make sure to butter the dish really well. If you don’t lube them up well, the oatmeal will stick to them really badly.

Then add about 2/3 cup of oat mixture to each ramekin and push a peach half right down in the center. Then sprinkle it with brown sugar and it’s ready for the oven!

Ready to bake!

Baking this Peach

If you’re using ramekins, bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. If you poured everything into one dish, then you’ll need to add probably 15 minutes onto the cooking time. The oatmeal should be pretty set.

After these cool for a bit, you can serve them up! The oatmeal is really rich and the fruit flavor in the peach cuts through some of the sweetness. It’s a pretty awesome combo!

CHOMP.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel like I just kicked off Peach Week with a real winner of a recipe.

These were just out of this world and not too hard to make! In fact, you could prep the whole thing in advance and then just toss them in the oven. Done deal.

Do your taste buds a flavor-favor and try this out.

PS. Flavor-Favor would be a cool name for a food blog…

There are some figs in there somewhere.

I have to say that I really like it when you guys email me recipes to try. There’s two reasons for this.

First, most of you are pretty good cooks (or on your way to becoming good cooks) and you have at least a few awesome recipes hidden away that are usually very unique and different from what I would normally do.

Second, you may not know this, but I’m actually fairly lazy and the idea of new, awesome recipes from readers just appearing in my Inbox always makes me happy.

So when reader Rachel (Hi Rachel!) emailed me this lovely Bircher Muesli recipe, I just had to try it out.

Bircher Muesli

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 5 minutes + overnight soak

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

100 g. (about 1 1/4 cups) rolled oats, not the instant kind
250ml (1 Cup) milk
50ml (1/4 Cup) cream
50g (1/2 Cup) raisins (I subbed dried figs for these guys)
1 apple, peeled and grated
1 banana, diced
1 orange, cut into segments
1/2 lemon, juice only
Sliced almonds (or other nut)
Honey, brown sugar, or agave syrup (some sort of sweetener)
Yogurt

Directions:

1) Mix oats, raisins (or figs), milk, and cream in a bowl, cover, and store in the fridge overnight.

2) The next morning, prep the fruit. Dice the banana, peel the orange and dice the segments, peel the apple and grate it.

3) Mix the fruit with lemon juice.

4) Serve muesli with fruit topping, yogurt, chopped nuts, and some sort of sweetener.

Planning is Important

This recipe is far from hard. Actually, it’s very easy. Maybe easier than making actual oatmeal because there’s nothing to cook!

But it does require a bit of planning. For the muesli to really work well, you need to prep it the night before.

It takes all of 2 minutes. I think you can handle it.

Just the basics.

Rachel’s original recipe called for raisins, but I used some dried figs because my loving wife isn’t a huge raisin fan.

Just pour everything into a bowl, stir it together, cover it and stick it in the fridge!

If you’re using figs, chop them up a bit.

Soupy!

The Next Day

The next day, when you wake up, you’ll see that the oats have completely absorbed all the liquid.

It’s like a magic trick.

All soaked up!

Now you can prep the fruit part of the dish.

You’ll need these things.

A fruit assortment

For the banana, just peel it, cut it in half long-wise, then dice it up.

For the orange, peel it and cut the segments into chunks. Nothing fancy.

For the apple, peel it and then grate it. The grated apple adds an awesome texture to the final dish. It’s a great touch.

Mix all these things together and squeeze in some lemon juice to stop the fruit from browning.

NOT Cheese.

Other Add ins

Besides all that fruit, you can add in almost any nut in the world and any sweetener you can think of. I went with some sliced almonds and agave syrup.

Very tasty.

Any nut and any sweetener will do.

You can either mix the fruit into the muesli or just serve it on top. I liked it on top with the almonds and agave and a good dollop of yogurt.

A great breakfast.

This is a really great summer breakfast if you like oatmeal. It’s cold obviously which is nice and refreshing on a hot summer morning. And you don’t need to ever turn the stove on!

If you’re eating this by yourself, this will feed you for a few days and it keeps just fine in the fridge for that long.

Give this a shot if you’re in a breakfast rut!

I have a bone to pick!

When I posted a request for dog treat recipes last week, I was pretty shocked at the number of emails and comments I got with cool ideas! I didn’t realize that people were so into making their own dog treats!

Of course, after a trip to Petco, I can see why. Most dog treats are really basic ingredients, cut into interesting shapes, and sold for a million times the cost it takes to make them.

Plus, guess what? Dogs aren’t picky. They will pretty much happily eat anything you put in front of them including shoes, cat litter, and their own vomit.

Surprisingly, this made me more nervous. Because if Porter didn’t like my treats, that means they were, in fact, worse than vomit.

Peanut Butter Dog Treats

Yield: 24 dog biscuits

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1/4 Cup peanut butter
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1 Cup water
2 Eggs
2 Cups whole wheat flour (or all-purpose)
1 Cup oats
1 Cup cornmeal

Directions:

1) Mix peanut butter, water, and oil together. Then add in eggs and dry ingredients.

2) Stir until it forms a sturdy dough.

3) Roll dough out until it's 1/4 inch thick and cut it into various shapes. Feel free to re-roll it as many times as you want.

4) Bake biscuits at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

5) Turn off oven, but let biscuits cool in the oven as it cools which will make them very hard.

6) Give one to the pooch when he or she is a good boy or girl.

From a comment on my post Friday!

Making the Dough

This is basically the easiest cookie dough you’ll ever make. I like that it has cornmeal in it though instead of just all flour, because dogs aren’t really supposed to be eating a lot of grain.

Some people are very intense on this and won’t feed their dogs any grain at all. My take on it is that if the dog is just eating grain one once in a while, it’s not going to hurt him. I guarantee you that most dogs eat weirder things throughout the day, so I’m not going to stress it if he consumed a tablespoon of flour.

The basics

Start by mixing the peanut butter, oil, and water until it’s well combined. Stir it well to make sure the peanut butter is mixed in.

Then stir in the egg, oats, cornmeal, and flour. You should have what is basically a very firm cookie dough. Instead of sugar and butter though, there’s just water in this dough so it’ll become very hard.

Looks like cookie dough!

Roll this out until it’s about 1/4 inch thick and cut it out into whatever shapes you want. I tried to find a dog bone cookie cutter, but couldn’t find one anywhere!

So I kind of just free-formed a few. Again, I don’t think Porter cares.

Pain in the butt!

You can re-roll this dough as many times as you want to get maximum usage.

The second time around I went with circles because it was easier.

Easier!

Baking the Biscuits

Bake these guys at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Then turn off the oven, but leave them in the oven as they cool. This will make them really hard which dogs love.

When they are cool, feel free to try one!

I took a bite just to see what the big deal was.

Not bad!

They were a bit on the bland side, but they were rock-hard which I figured Porter would like. They had a faint peanut butter taste, but mostly they tasted like a brick.

The real test was if the dog would eat them.

No problem there!

Happy dog!

He munched this thing into pieces in a few seconds and then spent the next few minutes licking up every possible crumb he could find.

Then he looked at me like, “Hey. You got any more of those buddy?”

He licked all those up. Don't worry.

This would be a totally fun project for kids to do. They could cut them out into various shapes and then feed them to the dogs!

The recipe is pretty foolproof.

Even if you do mess it up, your dog will probably eat it anyway and still love you unconditionally.

That’s what they do after all: Eat and love.

Good stuff!

I ran a test on Twitter last week that pretty much confirmed what I thought was true. I sent out a quick Tweet asking for people to send me their favorite granola ingredients. Here’s a quick sampling of the dozen or so responses I got:

- @jessicabair: Honey & Blueberries
– @lowrha: Maple syrup, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, and dried strawberries.
– @gardenvarieties: coconut, dried fig & apricot, pecans.
– @outlawdiva: Sesame seeds, oats, flax seeds, walnuts, cashews, raisins (all colors), currants, honey, maple syrup.
– @onmaggiesfarm: Maple syrup, almonds, unsweetened coconut. I mix up the flavor with spices: cardamom, nutmeg, ginger.
– @melissamauk: Applesauce, pepitas, brown rice syrup and oats.

Honestly, it was probably my most responded to tweet ever. People have opinions about granola and all their opinions are different!

So I called my theory confirmed… my theory, of course, being that you can put almost anything in granola.

Because of this, it’s the perfect way to clean out your pantry and use up extra nuts, spices, and fruits. So let’s make some!

Kitchen Sink Granola

Yield: 9-10 Cups

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

6 Cups rolled oats
2 Cups of any nuts that you have on hand (I used peanuts, almonds, and pecans)
1 Cup Sweetener (maple syrup, honey, agave, rice syrup, etc)
1-2 Cups dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries, etc)
1 Teaspoon cinnamon (always a good idea)
1 Teaspoon salt (necessary)
Up two 2 Teaspoons of other spices (cardamom, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, etc.)
Various seeds (poppy seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds...)
Up to 2 Teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1) Grind any whole spices you are using and roughly chop nuts.

2) Add spices, seeds, and nuts to oats and mix well to combine.

3) Add sweetener to mixture and stir well.

4) Spread granola out onto two baking sheets. Make sure there is an even layer on both sheets.

5) Bake granola at 300 degrees for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 3-5 minutes. Keep a really close eye on it.

6) Remove granola once it's golden brown and let it cool for a few minutes.

7) Add dried fruit to granola and let it cool completely.

8) Stir in a large plastic bag and serve with yogurt or milk.

Cleaning house

This might surprise you, but I have a pretty ridiculous pantry on any given day. Because I make a very wide range of dishes here on Macheesmo, I have a drawer full of almost any spice you could want, a full inventory of nuts and seeds, various dried fruits, and a ton of other random stuff.

And sometimes, I need to clean house. This is the perfect recipe for such a task. Out of all the things in my kitchen sink granola, I only bought two items: Oats and agave syrup. I had honey and maple syrup in my pantry also, but I wanted to try agave so I picked some up.

So I encourage you to use what you have for this recipe and not copy me exactly. It’ll be good. Trust me.

Go crazy.

The Method

While it isn’t really all that important what you put in your granola, it is important how you make it. You’re shooting for a nice crunchy granola that’s toasted, but not burned. It’s a very fine line.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I needed to grind up some whole spices. If you have them, use them, otherwise don’t. I wouldn’t buy new spices just for this recipe frankly.

All are pretty optional.

Mix your oats with all the spices and seeds very well. I had a spice attack for this version!

Get it?

The Agave

I’ve never used agave syrup before and it’s becoming the talk of the town so I figured I’d jump on the bandwagon.

Since agave is the same stuff that Tequila is made from, I was pretty sure this syrup would make me puke and blackout, but it did nothing of the sort. Probably because it doesn’t have alcohol in it, but still. I was worried.

Really the only purchase I made...

In actuality, it’s a really good syrup. It has a very unique flavor and it isn’t quite as sweet as honey. I think it worked great for granola.

Once I had all my spices, nuts, and seeds mixed in with my oats, I added my agave and stirred it all together!

The sweet stuff.

Baking the granola

Ok. The tricky part is baking this stuff. Spoon out the granola mixture onto two baking sheets and try to make sure the granola is in a pretty even layer over the sheets. This will make sure it cooks evenly.

Nice and even.

Bake this stuff at 300 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Stir it every few minutes, five at the most. This is really important because the edges will cook slightly faster than the center and if you don’t stir it often, you’ll end up with burned edges.

As it gets closer to being done, check it very frequently, every three minutes or so. You definitely don’t want to burn the stuff, but you do want it to be golden brown. It’s a bit tricky, but as long as you keep an eye on it, you should be okay.

In short, this is not a recipe where you can walk away from the kitchen and do something else for 30 minutes and expect to come back to anything edible.

But if you keep an eye on it and stir it frequently, you’ll be well rewarded with some beautiful granola.

Careful not to burn it!

The Fruits

Once your granola comes out of the oven, let it cool for 5-10 minutes and then toss in any dried fruit that you want to add to it. Again, I added some dried cherries and cranberries because that’s what I had on hand.

Some dried fruit.

Once the granola is cooled completely you can store it in a large freezer bag.

This stuff will keep for weeks without a problem.

It blends in pretty well actually!

I like to eat mine with milk, but Betsy likes hers with yogurt.

It also happens that I made granola that almost exactly matches the counters in my kitchen.

Am I right or what?

I like it as a cereal.

If your pantries are looking slightly overrun these days or if you’re just sick of your normal breakfasts, this is a really good way to use stuff up and change stuff up!

So, I have to ask. What’s your favorite granola ingredients? Leave a comment!

I like my oats a tad purple.

For pretty much all of 2010 Betsy and I have been on a serious smoothie kick. We’ve been making this smoothie everyday for awhile now and it’s a fantastic way to kick the day off.

There’s just one problem.

Our new house is a lot colder in the mornings than our old apartment. We used to live on the top floor of a row house and I think the heat would naturally rise up to us. But now we are in this old (but cute) house and the mornings feel like we’re living inside an ice block.

So smoothies are the last thing I want these days.

Instead I’ve been trying a few different oatmeal breakfasts. I usually just buy rolled oats and call it good, but for some reason I decided to try out the steel cut oats the last time I was in the store.

I’m sure I’ve had steel cut oats before, but I don’t remember them completely blowing my mind like these do now. The problem is that steel cut oats take about an hour to cook properly which just isn’t realistic for me or most people on a weekday.

The good news is that with a little pre-planning the night before, you can have a delicious, hot oatmeal breakfast ready for you in the morning in just a few minutes.

Overnight Oats

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 5 minutes + Overnight soak

Total Time: 15 minutes + Overnight Soak

Ingredients:

3/4 Cups steel cut oats
3 Cups water
Pinch of salt
Optional toppings: Bananas, any fruit you can think of, honey, flax seed, butter, brown sugar, milk, etc.

Directions:

1) The night before, add water to a medium pan and bring to a simmer.

2) Stir in oats and a pinch of salt. Stir on the heat for about a minute.

3) Cover the oats, kill the heat, and go to bed.

4) In the morning, put the oats back over medium heat and cook until bubbling. All the water should be absorbed. It'll probably take 5 minutes for the oats to heat up.

5) Add in fruit or any other add-ins during the last minute of cooking.

6) Top with delicious toppings and eat immediately.

Real Deal Oats

The key to making this overnight situation work is to make sure you have steel cut oats. If you use rolled oats then you’ll have a big soggy mess on your hands the next morning.

These guys are what you’re looking for.

Interesting stuff.

Steel cut oats are a whole different beast from their rolled cousins. Since they aren’t mechanically flattened, they absorb a lot more water and take a lot longer to cook, but the result is an oatmeal that’s much heartier and has a better texture.

I highly recommend trying them out especially since this way of preparing them takes about the same amount of time in the morning as if you were making instant oats.

The Night Before

There’s a tiny amount of planning involved here since it’s an overnight dish, but it’s really not that bad.

Bring your water to a simmer in a medium sized pot and add a pinch of salt. Then, once the water is simmering, toss in your oats. It’ll look like a ridiculous amount of water for the tiny amount of oats.

Stir this over the heat for about a minute. You should have something like this going on.

The night before....

Once you stir it all together for a minute, kill the heat, put on the lid, and go to bed!

In The Morning

When you’re ready to break your fast, you’ll find this in your oatmeal pot!

You'll wake up to this!

Stick this back on medium heat and stir it until it comes to a simmer. You basically just have to heat it up and it’s done. It usually takes me about five minutes to make. The water should be completely absorbed and the oatmeal should be bubbling big bubbles as it simmers.

The Add-ins

As with any oatmeal dish, the add-ins are pretty much endless. Betsy and I like to stir in some frozen fruit to the oatmeal when it’s almost finished cooking.

Today’s fruit was blackberries.

Purpleberries.

When they’re stirred in they turn the oatmeal a slight purplish color, but they give the whole dish a nice fruity taste.

This was my finished pot!

Warms the soul!

I like mine with some banana, flax seed, honey, and occasionally a dollop of butter.

Great way to start the day.

The awesome thing about this dish is that it’s completely filling and energizing. I feel ready to tackle the day after I eat it.

It seems almost too good to be true that you can make this in about 5 minutes. They’re just too good. They should really take longer to make.

It’s like some sort of strange breakfast cosmic cheat code.

But it’s a cheat code that you should definitely take advantage of!

Smart food!

Betsy heads off to Colorado today to take The Bar Exam and she asked me to make some energy bars that she could take into the test with her. As an aside, the people that administer the bar appear to be the most paranoid people in the world. A few of the things you can’t bring into the bar…

• Neckties
• Garments with hoods, pockets, or linings
• Digital watches
• Costume Jewelry

What’s funny about this list is that I’m sure the items on there are on there for a reason. Some genius student probably tried to cheat somehow by using costume jewelry and got caught. Given the ridiculous amount of information that you have to know for this test, I’m not even sure how you would cheat on it though.

I guess rather than actually study there might be people out there that will use the two months leading up to the bar to figure out how to print 1000 pages of material on the back of a Dr. Pepper label.

Anyway, so I decided to make these no-bake energy bars that are packed with peanut butter, nuts, coconut, and oats. For people that aren’t cheating, you’ll need some good brain food!

Bar Bars

Yield: 8x8 dish of bars.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes + chill time

Ingredients:

1 Cup pecans, chopped
1 Cup almonds, slivered or chopped
2/3 Cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1 1/4 Cups rolled oats
1 1/2 Cups unsweetened crispy brown rice cereal (you could use rice krispies in a pinch)
1 Cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
1 Cup peanut butter
1 1/2 Cups water
1/2 Cup sugar
2 Tablespoons finely ground coffee
1 Teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1) Roughly chop the pecans and almonds and toast them, along with the coconut, in a 350 degree oven for about 8 minutes. Toss the mixture a few times throughout just to make sure they aren't burning. The coconut should be a light tan color when it's done.

2) Once all of that is toasted, mix it with the oats, cereal, and chocolate if you're using it.

3) Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, mix the peanut butter, water, coffee, vanilla, sugar, and salt and stir over low heat until the sugar is melted and everything is combined, about 3 minutes.

4) Let the peanut butter mixture cool for a second and then pour it over the dry stuff. Stir everything together.

5) Pour the bar mix into a lightly greased (I used a non-stick spray) or lightly buttered 9x9 baking dish. You could use a 9x13 pan if you want thinner bars. Press them down to an even layer and let them chill in the fridge for a few hours.

6) Cut them up and serve!

Adapted from a 101 Cookbooks recipe.

Making the Bars

These are no-bake bars, so there’s not a huge amount of prep to them honestly. Even though they are no-bake, you still want to toast the nuts and coconut though. It’ll add a lot of flavor to the final product.

Just roughly chop the pecans and almonds and spread them and the coconut out on a baking sheet.

Ready to roast!

Bake this sheet of deliciousness at 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes. Stir it up once or twice during that time just to make sure the coconut isn’t burning. You’re looking for a lightly tan color on the coconut. When your coconut is done, everything is done.

This was my finished sheet.

After 10 minutes and a few mixes.

The Crispy Rice Cereal

The recipe I was sort of going off of, although I changed a lot of stuff, called for crispy brown rice cereal. I’d never even heard of this.

But I found some! At least I think this is the right stuff. After inspecting it closely, I’m fairly certain that you could use Rice Krispies, but these are somewhat healthier for you. The texture seemed to be about the same to me though.

Any rice cereal will do the trick.

Once your nuts and coconut are done toasting, mix the oats, cereal, chocolate, and toasted things in a large bowl!

All the dry stuff!

The Wet Stuff

The only thing that Betsy requested in these energy bars was peanut butter so I made sure to include a lot of that. I’ve been on a homemade peanut butter kick lately so I just whipped up a batch. Obviously, you can use anything you can buy in the store also.

I'm an overachiever.

In a small saucepan, mix your peanut butter, water, coffee, vanilla, salt, and sugar and bring it to a simmer. It turns into a kind of peanut, coffee, vanilla, syrup situation that is pretty out of this world.

This will only need to simmer for a minute or two. You just want to make sure everything is well-combined and the sugar is melted.

This will smell awesome.

Then pour the peanut butter mixture over the dry ingredients and stir everything together really well. Lightly grease a 9×9 baking pan (I used non-stick spray) and pour all the bar mixture into the pan and press it down to an even layer. They should be pretty thick. If you wanted them thinner, you could use a 9×13 inch pan.

In the pan!

If you don’t mind room temperature bars, these are good to go now! They’ll be best if you let them chill for a few hours in the fridge. The nice thing about these is that they don’t need to be refrigerated really. There’s not anything perishable in them so they can sit out for a few days without a problem. They might get a bit gooey, but gooey can be delicious.

But the most important thing about these energy bars is that they’re packed with lots of stuff that’ll help your brain recover from hard multiple choice questions and essays!

Spicy! And don't forget the egg!

I’m not entirely sure where this idea came from. It kind of just crept into my brain and wouldn’t leave until I tried it. I also really like alliterative titles.

The idea for the dish is very loosely based on the traditional Congee breakfast dish which is a rice porridge that can be loaded with all kinds of toppings.

I had some oats that I thought might work nice for the porridge base so I used those instead of rice. Instead of making a bland porridge base and loading it with toppings, I decided to make a spicy porridge base and then go light on the toppings. For some reason I like spicy things in the summer so I thought this would be a good breakfast!

This was really savory and I liked it a lot. I served it with a poached egg which chills out the heat from the pepper a bit. It was actually a really filling breakfast!

Peppered Porridge

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2/3 Cup rolled oats
1 1/3 Cups milk
1 1/3 Cups water
1 Tablespoon butter
1 Teaspoon black pepper
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
Chives for garnish
Hot sauce

Poached Eggs:
2 large eggs
White vinegar

Directions:

1) Soak oats in milk for at least 20 minutes, but you could also do overnight.

2) After soaking, add the oats and milk with the water, butter, and whatever peppers you are using (dried, or crushed red pepper, or black pepper) to a medium saucepan.

3) Bring the porridge to a simmer and then reduce the heat to low and stir for 15-20 minutes until it's thick.

4) To poach the eggs, add a few Tablespoons of white vinegar to a medium pan filled half-way with water. Bring mixture to a simmer, but not boiling. Boiling will break up the eggs.

5) Crack eggs individually in separate bowls to make sure you have no shells. Then gently roll the eggs into the simmering water. Stir gently with a slotted spoon. Cook eggs for 2-3 minutes for a runny center.

6) Remove eggs with a slotted spoon and drain them briefly on a paper towel.

7) Add eggs to porridge bowl and garnish with hot sauce, chives, cheese, or more salt and pepper. Serve immediately!

Making the Porridge

So let me start with a warning: I’m not a porridge expert. My plan was soak the oats for awhile to let them dissolve a bit and then cook them with a fair amount of liquid. I didn’t want the porridge to be too liquidy, but I definitely wanted it more soupy than a standard oatmeal.

I started by soaking my oats in milk for about 20 minutes. Honestly, if you were in a time crunch I bet you could soak these overnight. After all, the whole goal is to get them to break down a bit.

Oats in milk = Boring.

I think if I made this again, the one change I would make is to use real dried chile peppers. Maybe an ancho pepper with some arbol peppers for heat. I just used a combination of black pepper and crushed red pepper. It was definitely spicy but I think I could’ve gotten some better pepper flavors with whole peppers.

Spicy!

Once your oats are done soaking, add them and the left over milk to a small saucepan with the water, a nub of butter, the salt and sugar, and the peppers.

At this point, I was thinking this was maybe not going to work!

I was a bit worried at this point.

Bring this mixture to a simmer, stirring often. After about 15-20 minutes on low heat, it should thicken into a very nice porridge consistency.

Just for the record, if you don’t want the spicy version, you can leave out the peppers and add some brown sugar and maybe some dried fruit for a really awesome sweet variety also.

But this was my finished pepper porridge!

Secretly spicy.

Poaching the Eggs

Poaching eggs is really simple and one of my favorite things for breakfast (or lunch or dinner). All you really need is a large pot, water, a big spoon (slotted is best), some white vinegar, and eggs obviously.

The only thing you need!

Poaching an egg is as simple as bringing a large pot of water to boil and adding about 1/2 Cup of vinegar for every gallon of water. I usually just eyeball it. The vinegar helps the egg stay together so it doesn’t just spread out when it goes in the water.

Once your water is simmering (not boiling – that’ll just rip the egg apart as it cooks), crack your egg in a small bowl and then slowly slip it into the simmering water. The egg will take about 2-3 minutes to cook for a runny yolk. If you want some photos of this process, I did some more thorough photos when I made this warmed green salad.

While your egg is cooking, you could chop up some chives for a nice garnish and a bit of onion flavor!

Just for some color.

Once your egg is done, drain it using the spoon and add it straight to your porridge. I added my chives, a few dashes of hot sauce, and served it with some crusty bread!

Everything together!

Of course, the bread is for dipping!

The best part...

I can definitely see why Congee is such a hit. I can imagine a ton of toppings that would be great on this dish. You could do a number of meats (pulled chicken, bacon, or maybe even shrimp). Pickled vegetables would be nice. Or I think you could even go the sweet route with some brown sugar or honey. Sweet and heat go great together!

If you’re up for something a little different, try this out! I really enjoyed it.

Anyone else a fan of breakfast dishes like this? What other toppings do you think might work?

I changed my tune because I recently happened to have all the fixings for some muesli so I thought I’d whip some up before I left for work one day. I very loosely followed a recipe from Bon Appétit, but there is barely a need for a recipe.

This was my resulting bowl of health!

Kind of a humble thing.

You know why I think this stuff rocks and is perfect for a weekday breakfast? You don’t have to watch it! It’s not like normal oatmeal or eggs where you have to hover over the stove. Just throw some things in a bowl and then come back in a few minutes after a shower or something and breakfast is ready!

Fruit and Honey Muesli

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/4 Cup rolled oats
3/4 Cup milk
3/4 Cup lowfat yogurt
1 Teaspoon vanilla
3/4 Cup orange juice
1/3 Cup honey (or adjust for your sweetness desires)
1 apple, peeled, cored, chopped
1/2 cup dried fruit (cranberries, blueberries, raisins, etc.)
Pinch of salt
Sunflower seeds or some other nut (optional topping)

Directions:

1) Toss your oats, yogurt, milk, and vanilla in a bowl and stir it up really well.

2) Let this sit for at least 5 minutes

3) In a separate bowl, mix together your orange juice and honey. Add your apples and dried fruit.

4) Let that sit for about 5 minutes to let the apples absorb some flavor.

5) Toss everything together, let it sit for 5 minutes, then enjoy!

Preparing the Oats

To make a good muesli, you’ll need these things. You could leave out the vanilla if you were in a crunch, but it adds a wonderful flavor to the bowl.

Oats are cheap! Vanilla... not so much.

Basically, just toss your oats, yogurt, milk, and vanilla in a bowl! Stir it up really well. It will look pretty liquidy, but your oats will absorb a good amount of liquid.

Not pictured: My skeptical glances.

Let this sit for at least 5 minutes, but you could let it sit longer if you’re doing something else. This was mine after about 5 minutes. All the milk was basically absorbed and the oats were pretty soft.

Just after 5 minutes!

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix together your orange juice and honey to make sure the honey is completely dissolved. Then add your apples and dried fruit. You could sub out any fruit that you want honestly.

Kind of like sangria!

Let that sit for about 5 minutes to let the apples absorb some flavor and then toss everything together!

Kind of a mess.

The longer this sits the softer the oats will get and the less moisture there will be. I let mine sit for another 5 minutes or so before digging in!

The sunflower seeds add some good texture to the dish. Totally optional though.

Coffee is the drink of choice.

Quick, simple, and healthy. And also delicious! Ok. Maybe not cheesy omelet delicious, but a different kind of delicious. The kind that leaves you feeling ready to tackle the day ahead.

Try this next time instead of your normal oatmeal. I think you’ll be happily suprised.