Home Made Cheerios

Why yes, those are home made Cheery O's

I had a post half-written, and it was a long one. The history of why I started this blog, why I write about the things I write about, and where I'm going from here. It was a lot of self-indulgent navel-gazing, blah blah blah that no one would care about except me.

I can boil it down to something shorter. I blog about what's fun. What I'm excited about. What I'm eating. What I'm amused by. I cook things I like to eat, and I sometimes I create recipes just for the challenge involved.

That's how it's always been, and it's pretty much going to stay the same. So, nothing new, really.

Speaking of FUN, the nice folks at General Mills recently invited me to go on a trip to Winnipeg, Canada to learn about oats. They paid for the trip (let's face it - I couldn't have afforded it otherwise!) and they made sure all the participants had plenty to eat and a comfy place to sleep.

This guy followed us everywhere!

And there was a photographer who documented the whole adventure.

If you don't immediately get the connection between General Mills and oats, I can sum it up in one word: Cheerios.

Okay, they have other cereals and products that use oats, but I'm awfully fond of Cheerios.

A year ago, I wouldn't have gone on the trip. Ten years ago, I might have gone, but I wouldn't have been invited. This year, all the puzzle pieces fit, so I flew off to Winnipeg. I met farmers, artisans, and grain-storage gurus. There were also people from General Mills, who all seem to love their jobs a lot.

I learned more about oats than a normal person wants to know. I saw oats in the field and I saw wild oats and some invasive wheat and barley.

That's an oat.

I found out that oats are sort of an orphan crop. On my way home from the trip, the random stranger sitting next to me on the plane was a retired farmer who had nothing to do with General Mills or Cheerios. He said that many years ago, he used to grow oats on his farm, but it wasn't very profitable. It was mostly sold as horse feed.

I mean, people have been eating oatmeal for quite some time. But not enough, I guess.

So anyway, given the lack of excitement about oats in past years, the seeds have become sort of an open-source, school-project, crowd-sourcedw item. The varieties of oats that were in the fields we visited weren't owned and patented by companies. Instead, research is done in universities, and no one really owns the rights to those varieties. Anyone can grow the plants, harvest the seeds, and grow them again or sell to other farmers. It's like the Linux of the plant world.

Oats, almost ready for harvest.

Now, I don't know if that's true of every single oat being grown everywhere, but let's just say that there are a lot of freely available oat varieties out there.

On the trip, I saw where oats grew, and I saw where they were stored. And I found out that General Mills buys a lot of oats, and a lot of them come from the area we visited. Which is why we were there. Out standing in a field.

When we were there, the oat crop was a week or two away from the harvest. The farmer said that while there are tools to tell when the oats have dried enough to be harvested, he could tell by simply pressing into an oat with his thumbnail to see how much of an indent he could make. The oats need to have under a certain percentage of moisture in order to be milled.

After I got home, just for the fun of it, I decided to see if I could make my own Cheerios.

Yes, sometimes I have an odd idea of fun.

These won't look exactly like Cheerios, since they'll be flat on the side that's on the baking sheet, so feel free to use a decorative pastry tip, or pipe in shapes other than O's, if you want to. I used a tip that created ridges.

These don't taste exactly like Cheerios, either, but they're pretty tasty as a snack. I didn't eat mine with milk in a bowl, I just snacked on them until they were all gone. The fun thing about making these is that you could add flavors if you wanted to, or pipe whatever shapes you want. The not-fun thing is that it's a LOT of piping of little O's to make a small bowl of O's.

Home Made Cheerios
Just for the fun of it

Lots and lots of piped O's, ready for baking.

1 cup oat berries
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Water, as needed

Heat the oven to 325 degrees and like a baking sheet with parchment paper

Toast the oat berries in a dry skillet until they smell fragrant and begin to brown slightly. Let them cool before grinding in a grain mill. Or, if you have a capable blender, grind the oats in your blender, until you have flour.

Combine the oat flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Add water. Start with a cup of water, then add more as needed to create a soft dough that you'll be able to squeeze through a piping tip. Mix with a spoon, or you can use the paddle attachment on your stand mixer. How much water the dough will absorb depends on how dry the flour is.

Cheerios, and baby Cheerios. Okay, they're oat seeds.

Let the dough sit for at least five minutes to hydrate. Check it again and add more water if it stiffened up. Make sure it's evenly mixed, because if you have tiny bits of denser dough, it will be harder to pipe. Trust me, I know.

Use a pastry bag fitted with a small tip to pipe Cheerio-sized circles on the prepared baking sheet. I used a tip that had ridges rather than a round one. Just for fun, you know.

These won't rise or spread, so you can pipe them pretty close to each other, but you don't want to let them touch.

Use a second baking sheet for more O's if you need it.

Bake at 325 until the O's are completely dry and crisp. If the ones around the outside of the sheet start to brown while the ones in the center of the sheet are still pale and uncooked, move them around so they bake more evenly.

When they're baked through, allow them to cool, then store. Or eat!

In case you missed it, General Mills paid for and hosted my trip to an oat farm in Canada. I was not required to re-engineer Cheerios or to even post about the trip.

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Oatmeal Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies - allergen-free

I don't have any food allergies that I know about, but I'm always interested in trying recipes designed for restricted diets, because I think it's interesting to see how people work around the restrictions.

So, when my buddies at 37 Cooks tossed a copy of Sweet Debbie's Organic Treats at me, I knew I'd find something fun to make.

Besides focusing on organic, the recipes are also allergen-free and vegan. So, no gluten, nuts, dairy ... all those things that I bake with all the time.

Many of the recipes used coconut oil and coconut nectar, including the one I chose. I happened to have a jar of coconut oil, so that was good. I didn't have coconut nectar, and after some shopping, I couldn't find it anywhere. I did some reading and found that agave nectar and honey were both acceptable substitutes.

I had plenty of honey, so I chose to use that. Afterwards, I remembered that honey isn't a vegan product. But I wasn't planning on feeding any vegans, so I figured it would be fine - at least from a "will this recipe work" standpoint.

The recipe also called for 3/8 teaspoon of stevia powder, which I also didn't have. Since stevia is a sweetener and I had plenty of honey in the recipe, I decided to skip it. Many sources I looked at said that honey was sweeter than coconut nectar, so I figured I would be fine.

I didn't have guar gum and couldn't find it when I went shopping, but the book suggested that xanthan gum is an acceptable alternative, so I used that.

I was pretty happy with these cookies. I'm not a big fan of coconut, so I wasn't shoveling these into my mouth with wild abandon, but the chocolate flavor was definitely prominent.

For the gluten-free flour mix, I used the all purpose baking mix from King Arthur Flour; the book also has a recipe from making your own flour mix. For the chips, I used Nestle's, even though I'm pretty sure they're not organic.

You might be wondering about the gluten free oats. Here's the deal. Oats themselves don't have any gluten, but many oats are processed in facilities that process other grain products that do contain gluten. Because of that, they can't be labeled gluten free. So if you're cooking for someone who needs to avoid all gluten, you need to buy oats that are processed in a facility that's gluten free.

The book has recipes for making your own dark chocolate chips, if you prefer to do that, and you need to control absolutely every ingredient in your baking.

Oatmeal Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Sweet Debbie's Organic Treats by Debbie Adler

1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour mix
1 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup coconut nectar (I used honey)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/8 teaspoon stevia powder (I omitted this)
1/2 cup water
1 1/4 cups gluten-free rolled oats (I used Hodgson Mill)
3/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line one or two baking sheets with parchment paper. These don't spread much, so you might be able to squeeze all the cookies on one sheet, but I found it was easier to just use a second sheet.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour mix, cocoa powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt.

Put the coconut oil and nectar (or honey or agave) in a microwave-safe measuring cup or small bowl and heat for 20-30 seconds. Add the vanilla extract and the stevia (if you're using it) and stir well. The coconut oil should melt.

Add the coconut oil mixture to the flour mixture, along with the water. Stir until all the liquid is absorbed and the mixture is evenly wet. Add the oats and the chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Portion the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets. I made about 20 cookies. Flatten the cookies with your palm or with the bottom of a measuring cup or glass.

Bake at 325 degrees until the cookies are set and the oats look dry, about 13 minutes. If you're baking more than one sheet at a time, or if your oven doesn't bake evenly, rotate the pans in the oven partway through the baking time.

Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let the cookies cool for about 10 mintues before removing them from the pan and letting them cool completely on a rack.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher through 37 Cooks.

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Peanut Butter, Oatmeal, Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies don't need a whole lot of explanation. A big glass of milk, maybe. Or a mug of coffee, if you like dunking.

Words, though, they don't need. I mean, you've got the dark chocolate chips studded in the cookies. And the flavor of peanut butter. And the texture and chew from the oats.

For these, I used Thick-Cut Rolled Oats from Hodgson Mill. They emailed me a while back, and said, hey, ya want some healthy stuff? And I said, sure, I'll try some.

I go through a lot of rolled oats around here, which is sort of weird considering I never use it for breakfast oatmeal. But I use it a lot in bread, cookies, muffins, and other baked goods.

So I embarked upon making these cookies, combining some of my favorite things in a single cookie.

Peanut Butter, Oatmeal, and Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 4 dozen cookies

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup Thick-Cut Rolled Oats
1 10-ounce package dark chocolate chips

Cream the butter, peanut butter, white sugar, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder in a bowl with your electric mixer or in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

Add the vanilla and beat until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until well-blended. Scrape down the bowl a needed. Add the flour and oats and mix well.

Mix in the chocolate chips.

Cover the bowl or put the dough in a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least a few hours or up to several days.

When you're ready to bake, heat the oven to 350 degrees and use a small scoop to portion the dough into tablespoon sized portions, leaving some space between them.

These don't spread a lot on their own, so if you want flatter cookies, press the dough down as much as you like.

Bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned along the edges, about 14 minutes.

Remove the cookies from the pan and let them cool completely on a rack.

Disclaimer: I received the oats (along with other products) from Hodgson Mill, but was not required to write this post.

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Oat and Yogurt Bread Machine Loaf

Some days I have no yogurt at all. Other days I have way too much. And then I start getting creative about using it. I mean, I like eating it plain, but I also like using it in cooking. And baking. And sauces, dips, dressings ... all sorts of things.

This time around, I decided to use just a little bit of my recent yogurt richness in bread. And then I decided to add some whole grain goodness in the form of rolled oat.

Then, since I was being just a teeny bit lazy, I used my bread machine.

Have I mentioned how convenient this machine is? As much as I love making bread by hand (and I'm working on a few very interesting variations) sometimes I just need to have a loaf of bread that I can use for toast in the morning. So I can toss ingredients into the machine and just let it go until it beeps.

Did I mention that we're going through a lot more bread since Bob came home from the hospital? Yeah, we are. He's been busy eating and trying to gain some weight.

Oat and Yogurt Bread

1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon cane sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Greek-style yogurt (I used Wallaby 0%)
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup water

Put all of the ingredients in your bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer (in general, the differences are about when the yeast is added, and when the water is added. It might not make a huge difference, but if your manufacturer has a recommendation, go for it.

Set the machine for a medium loaf, light crust.

Press appropriate buttons.

When the bread is done, remove it from the machine and let it cool on a rack before slicing.

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Whole Foods Friday: Oatmeal Bread

It's pretty amazing that uncooked rolled oats completely disappear when baked into bread but that's exactly what happens. You see little flecks of color, but that's about it. The flavor of the oats in the bread is also very mild - it adds a bit of character to the bread, but no one's going to tell you the bread tastes like granola.

This bread has a nice crunchy crust coming out of the oven, but if you want a soft crust, place a clean kitchen towel over the top of the bread as it's cooling. After you store it in a plastic bag, the crust will soften, anyway. So if you like that crunchy crust, enjoy it on that first day.

I kneaded this bread using my stand mixer, but you can also knead it by hand if you prefer. Hold back some of the flour from the recipe to flour your work surface, otherwise you risk adding too much during kneading.

Oatmeal Bread

1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups (9 ounces) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Put the oats, water, yeast, and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and let it stand for 10 minutes to let the oats soften a bit. Add the bread flour and salt and knead with the dough hook until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Add the butter and knead until it is completely incorporated. If you have room temperature butter, that's good, but the stand mixer will have no trouble incorporating refrigerator-cold butter, so don't worry about that.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside until the dough has doubled in size, about 50 minutes.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Flour your work surface and turn out the dough. Knead briefly, then form into your preferred shape - round or oval. Place the dough on the prepared baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size - about 25 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

When the dough has doubled, remove the plastic wrap Slash the top of the loaf as desired. Bake at 350 degrees until the loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped in the bottom - about 30 minutes.

Remove the loaf from the oven and let cool completely on a rack before slicing.

This has been submitted to Yeastspotting.

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Whole Foods Friday: Blueberry, Cherry, and Oat Muffins

We all know that more fiber is good for us, right? When it comes to baking, usually that fiber comes from whole wheat. But oats are a good alternative, and sometimes they're a better alternative. They're lighter in color in baked goods, and the flavor is milder, so they can be more appealing to people who haven't fully embraced the idea of whole grains.

I made these muffins with a combination of dried blueberries and dried cherries - about 2/3 blueberries and 1/3 cherries - but you can use any proportion, or any dried fruit that you like. I've recently decided that I like dried fruits better than fresh in muffins. The flavor is more concentrated and they're sturdy, so you don't end up with squished fruit in the muffins.

Some recipes call for hydrating dried fruits before baking. I might do something like that for a more delicate baked good, like a cake. But muffins are more robust, and they can handle the more dense fruit. Of course, if your dried fruit has been sitting around for a while and it is too chewy, you can certainly opt to hydrate the fruit before baking.

These muffins were only tested at high altitude - if you're cooking at sea level, you might need an extra teaspoon of baking powder beyond what's provided from using self-rising flour. Up here (gasp, gasp) at about a mile high, these rose nicely, but didn't over-rise, which is always a worry. And the texture was perfect.

Blueberry, Cherry, and Oat Muffins

1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup (4 1/2 ounces) self-rising flour
1 pinch salt
1 cup dried blueberries and cherries (any combination you like)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup creme fraiche*
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray a muffin pan (with 12 regular-sized muffins, not the giant ones) with baking spray. Or, if you prefer, line with cupcake papers.

Obliterate the oats in your food processor until you have a fine powder. It's fine if there are a few bits, but it should be mostly powder.

Combine the obliterated oats, self-rising flour, salt, and dried fruit in a medium bowl.

In a separate bowl whisk together the sugar, creme fraiche, oil, and egg. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients, and stir until it's combined.

Portion the batter into the 12 muffin cups in the pan.

If the oven hasn't quite come up to temperature at this point, no worries. Just wait for it.

Bake at 375 degrees until the muffins are golden brown on top, they spring back when gently touched in the center, and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean - about 18-20 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the muffins to a rack to cool.

*Home made creme fraiche is easy. Here's my method.

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Oatmeal Date Cookies

My husband called from the hospital on Thursday night. I didn't make the drive to visit him that day because I had a few things I needed to do to prepare for him coming home on Saturday.

"Are you busy?" he said.

I was thinking he was asking whether I had time to talk for a while. But no, he wasn't being chatty. He wanted me to make cookies to bring to the staff.

Duh! I should have thought of it!

Of course I should bring goodies to the staff.

Instead of creating a new cookie recipe (because, seriously, I couldn't risk a failure) I thought it was wiser to use a tested recipe. Or at least adapt one.

So I started thinking about what I had on hand. Flour, of course. I had chocolate chips, but I didn't think it was enough for a big batch of cookies. So what else... oatmeal! I knew I had plenty of oatmeal on hand. And I have plenty of dried fruit. I thought about adding cherries, but then changed my mind and went with dates.

I figured that a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies would be perfect. I'd just substitute the dates for the raisins.

I pulled out one of my trusty cookie books, 1001 Cookie Recipes by Gregg R. Gillespie. The great thing about this book is that no matter what type of cookie you're looking for, you'll probably find several versions. And there are photos of the cookies, so you can choose by that rather than reading ingredients and descriptions.

I wanted a bumpy oatmeal cookie. And - hey - I found one that actually called for dates. How weird is that? Of course, I changed a few things. Because that's how I am.

Oatmeal Date Cookies
Adapted from 1001 Cookie Recipes by Gregg R. Gillespie

1 cup (4 1/2 ounces) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon butter vanilla emulsion (or vanilla extract)
3 cups rolled oats
1 8-ounce package chopped dates

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Or, four cookie sheets, if you have them and you don't want to wait for the first cookie sheets to cool between batches.

Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir well.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the shortening, brown sugar, and sugar. (You can also do this in a bowl with a hand mixer.)

Beat in the egg, then beat in the sour cream and vanilla emulsion or extract.

Gradually add the flour mixture, scraping down the bowl as needed. Stir in the oatmeal and dates (You can do this with the stand mixer on low speed. If you used a hand mixer, you'll probably need to stir in the oats and dates by hand.)

Using a tablespoon-sized scoop or a spoon, portion dough onto the cookie sheets, leaving room between them to spread.

Bake at 350 degrees for 14-18 minutes (depending on the size of the cookies) until they are lightly browned.

Let them cool for a minute on the cookie sheet, then move them to racks to cool. Bake the remaining cookies the same way.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

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Mushroom Ris-Oat-O

Yes, I'm back on the savory oatmeal bandwagon again. Last time, I made a fairly simple preparation with some parmesan cheese on top. This time, I decided to amp up the flavors a little bit, and go even a little further into savory land with mushrooms.

This could be made with chicken stock, but I decided to use one of my pantry staples, instead - Better than Bouillon. It's a thick paste rather than a powder, and it comes in a lot of stock-like flavors. I use the chicken most often. Like regular bouillon, it's salty, so you need to watch that. You'll note that I didn't add much salt to this.

As usual, I made this in my rice cooker.

This reheats well, but you'll need to add a bit of water when you reheat to thin the ris-oat-o a little bit.

Mushroom Ris-Oat-O

1 rice-cooker-cup steel cut oats (I used Flahavan's)
Water to "porridge" line on rice cooker
1 teaspoon Better than Bouillon chicken flavor
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of saffron
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
Cheese, grated, as needed - I suggest parmesan or Gruyere
Creme Fraiche

Put the oats in the rice cooker, then add the water to the proper line. Add the Better than Bouillon, salt, and saffron.

Melt the butter in a small saute pan. Cook the mushrooms until the lose their water, then reabsorb it, and then the mushrooms brown a little bit. Add the mushrooms to the rice cooker pot and give the mixture a stir.

Set the rice cooker for brown rice, soft. Press the button and wait, tapping toe impatiently.

Serve with the grated cheese on top, as desired. A dollop of creme fraiche is also very nice, if you like. Some chopped fresh herbs would also be nice, in season. I'd choose thyme or chives.

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#TopChef Quickfire: Apple Pie Inspired Oatmeal

Last week on Top Chef, the quickfire challenge was to make something sweet and savory. The first thing I thought of was this recipe.

Okay, if this was actually a quickfire challenge, I'd be out of luck, because steel cut oatmeal doesn't actually cook very quickly in a rice cooker. I'd either have to use a magical rice cooker that could cook the oatmeal in a shorter time, or I'd be serving the judges some mighty crunchy porridge.

And second, the challenge was for a dish that's both sweet and savory. This isn't all that sweet. Sure, it's inspired by apple pie, but there's no sugar added, and if you use a tart apple, like I did, this is more tart than sweet.

Right now, though, savory oatmeal is a bit of an obsession, and I added to the savory element with walnuts and ... well, you'll see.

Apple Pie Inspired Oatmeal

1 rice cooker measure of steel cut Irish oatmeal (3/4 cup)
Water to the "porridge" line on the rice cooker
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Granny Smith or other tart, pie-worthy apple
Walnuts, to taste
Cheddar cheese, shredded, to taste

Put the rice, water, salt. vanilla and butter into your rice cooker. Peel, core, and dice the apple and add it to the rice cooker.

Set the rice cooker to for brown rice and the "soft" texture (if you rice cooker has those settings. Otherwise, you'll need to figure out how to adjust for your machine or cook the oatmeal on the stove in a pan. But seriously, when you use the rice cooker, you don't have to stir, and it's not going to burn.

When the oatmeal is done, stir it, then serve. Add walnuts as desired and top with shredded cheddar cheese.

Of course, if I was really thinking straight during the competition, at the last minute I'd run to the pantry for some maple syrup, which would work really well with the apples. And then the judges would be astonished at my creativity and I'd win the Quickfire.

Me, personally, I like it more savory than sweet. But you can add maple syrup, if you want to.

Here's a Top Chef clip for ya!

Content and/or other value provided by our partner, Bravo.

If you're watching the show, you can help keep your favorite chef in the competition. Check out the Save a Chef competition where you can vote via Twitter or by texting. Easy peasy!

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Ris-Oat-O

This is the post where you'll probably think I'm crazy, but bear with me.

The story starts a looooong time ago. Where, in my childhood, my mother wasn't very interested in making any sort of breakfast. Oh, let's be truthful. She was usually hung over and didn't get up in time to deal with breakfast before I went to school.

So pancakes, waffles, oatmeal .. none of the warm breakfasts were ever on the menu. When I finally experienced oatmeal as an adult, I didn't like it much.

Over the years, I tried it multiple times - with milk, with cream, with maple syrup. And I just didn't like it. As far as I was concerned, oatmeal was for cookies or bread or baking, but not for breakfast.

Then I discovered steel cut oats. (Cue angelic singing)

Oh yeah. That's the good stuff!

But here's the deal. I never liked my oatmeal sweetened. I liked it best cooked with just a pinch of salt and a dab of butter. Savory, not sweet.

Steel cut oats.

I mean, oats are just another grain. Like rice or barley or corn or wheat ... So why not cook them in a savory way? Like grits. Or ....

(wait for it ...)

Like risotto, maybe. Sure, risotto is all about rice, but I've seen recipes for barley risotto. So why not OAT risotto?

Yes, I said it. Oat risotto. Ris-Oat-O.

This is so simple, but it's so freakishly good. It's not too savory for breakfast (I mean, grits are savory, right?)  but I also ate this as a side dish with a garlicky pork dish.

I've been eating this A LOT. It's sooooo good.

And now I'm thinking of all sorts of other add-ins I want to try. There will be recipes coming soon, if my plans work out. But this one will have to be my classic ris-oat-o recipe. The one that I'm going to make over and over again. Because it's easy. And good.

I'll bet that if you served these oats to someone who had only ever eaten rolled or quick oats, they might not recognize them. Particularly with the cheese.

I love making oatmeal in my rice cooker. If you don't have a rice cooker, of course you can cook your oatmeal on the stove.

Ris-Oat-O

1 rice-cooker-cup of steel cut oats
Water, to "porridge" level in rice cooker
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1-2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Parmesan cheese, grated

Put the oats, water, salt, and butter in the rice cooker.

Set the rice cooker to the brown rice setting, and "soft."

Press the start button. Wait, tapping toe, while oats cook. Or walk away and come back when it's done. (See, that's the beauty of a rice cooker. You walk away and do something else. No stirring, no burning.)

The oatmeal might seem soupy but when you stir it up, you should have nicely cooked oats in a thick sauce.

Serve with a generous snow of grated parmesan cheese.

If you're going to go really crazy with the cheese, you might want to cut back just a bit on the salt, since the cheese is salty. I'll leave that up to you.

You can make this in large batches (this is enough for about 3-4 servings for me, depending on how hungry I am) and it reheats well in the microwave. It thickens up as it cools, though, so you'l want to add a bit of water to it when you reheat, so you get that creamy texture back again.

Did I mention ...

That the oats were provided by the Irish Food Board? I didn't know there was such an organization until they contacted me, and of course I was interested in finding out more about what we get from Ireland. For starters, four different brands of oats, McCanns, Flahavan's, Macroom, and Kilbeggan. That's a lot of oat companies.

For this recipe, I used the Flahavan's, and I have to say that I like them a heck of a lot more than my usual non-branded bulk bin oats. Go figure, huh?

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Oat-Wheat Loaf

Now that the holidays are over, many people are on their way to vowing to eat better. What that means depends on what kind of bad eating has been going on. For me, sometimes my "be good" vow includes an effort to eat something in the morning instead of just slurping a cup of coffee.

The problem is that I'm not much of a morning person. I don't want a meal. If something is easy - cold pizza for instance - I might be tempted. But I don't like typical breakfast foods in the morning, and even more than that, I don't have any interest in cooking anything resembling a meal in the morning.

Around the holidays I get even busier than usual, and my non-breakfast sometimes turns into non-lunch. So when I think about improving my eating habits, I start considering ways to eat something simple in the mornings. 

Of course, there's always some kind of bread around. But not every bread inspires me to make toast. And not every bread I make fits my criteria for reasonably healthy breakfast. This one does. White whole wheat and oatmeal add enough fiber and flavor. If I want a little protein, peanut butter isn't far away.

Another benefit to this bread is that making it is designed to work around your schedule. There are plenty of times when the dough rests, and you can stretch that time to fit your schedule.

Oat-Wheat Loaf

1 cup (4 1/2 ounces) white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup (1 3/4 ounces) quick oats
1 1/2 cups water, divided
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/4  teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups (9 ounces) bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

The night before you want to bake, put the white whole wheat flour and the oats into a bowl (use the bowl of your stand mixer if you will be kneading by machine, or use any medium sized bowl if you will knead by hand. Add 1 cup of very warm tap water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter overnight.

In the morning, put mix the remaining 1/2 cup of water (lukewarm this time) with the sugar and yeast in a small bowl, and let it sit until it is foamy, about ten minutes.

Add the yeast mixture and the bread flour to the bowl with the white whole wheat and oats, and mix until combined. Then knead (with the dough hook, or by hand on your counter) until it begins to become elastic. Add the salt and oil and continue kneading until completely incorporated.

Drizzle a little olive oil into a plastic bag and transfer the dough to the bag. Seal the bag and place it in the refrigerator.

In the afternoon or evening - or the next day, if that's better for you - take the bag out of the refrigerator and leave it on the counter to come to room temperature, about two hours.

Prepare an 8-inch loaf pan - spray with baking spray if you want extra insurance that it will release easily, and sprinkle cornmeal on the bottom of the pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly flour your work surface and turn out the dough. Knead briefly, then shape the dough to fit the pan, and place it, seam-side down in the pan. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled - about an hour.

Remove the plastic wrap and bake the loaf at 350 degrees until nicely browned, about 40 minutes. Let it cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove it and let it cool completely before slicing.

This has been submitted to Yeastspotting.

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Sunny Oatmeal Bread

Yeast must be very conflicted. It eats sugar, but it thrives in an acidic environment. Sort of like me, loving the Colorado environment, but wanting to eat Chicago pizza.

I can't have both, but it's a lot easier for the yeast. In this case, buttermilk adds that extra acidity that makes the yeast giddy and bubbly.

As far as sugar for the yeast's dinner, this recipe includes some rich brown sugar along with the starch in the flour and oats. It's a happy yeast that makes lovely bubbles.

This dough is a little drier than most bread doughs that I make, but the yeast can handle it.

It's also a smaller loaf than I usually make. But that's fine. With all the seeds, it's a pretty rich bread, so it will last a while.

Sunny Oatmeal Bread

1 cup buttermilk, warmed to lukewarm

2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1/2 cup quick-cooking rolled oats

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) bread flour

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Mix the buttermilk, yeast, sugar, and oats in the bowl of your stand mixer and set aside for 10 minutes so the oats can hydrate and the yeast can make the mixture light and bubbly.

Add the salt and bread flour and knead until the mixture forms a ball that cleans the sides of the bowl and starts becoming elastic.

Add the olive oil and sunflower seeds and knead at slow speed until the olive oil is incorporated and the seeds are distributed throughout the dough. You don't want to increase speed until the seeds are mostly inside the dough, or they'll be leaping out of the bowl.

Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the dough, cover the bowl with plastic wrap. and set aside until it doubles in size, a bit less than an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal.

When the dough has doubled, take it out of the bowl and knead it a bit. You might need a little flour on your work surface, but maybe not.

Form the dough into your preferred shape - I went for an oval - and put it on your prepared baking sheet. Cover it with plastic wrap and set it aside until it has doubled in size.

When the dough has doubled, slash as desired, and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, until the loaf is nicely browned.

Let it cool completely on a rack before slicing.

This has been submitted to Yeastspotting.

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Maple White-Wheat Oatmeal Bread

I’ve been on a bit of a maple binge lately. That happens a lot. I get stuck on an ingredient and I start putting it in everything, until I move on to something else.

This bread is hearty, with a nice sweetness from the maple, which helps to counteract some of the bitterness that some people detect in whole wheat products.

This bread takes quite a lot of kneading to get it to the shiny and elastic stage, but it does get there. It’s also a bit slow rising; don’t rush it. This loaf is worth waiting for.

Maple Oatmeal White Wheat Bread

1 cup lukewarm water
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant yeast
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 cup instant oats
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 cups white wheat flour
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil (plus more for drizzling)
Cornmeal

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine water, yeast, maple syrup and oats. Let sit for 10 minutes until the oats hydrate the liquid starts bubbling, indicating that the yeast is alive.

Add salt and 3 cups white wheat flour and mix with stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until the dough comes together. Switch to the dough hook and knead on medium speed for 5 minutes. Add more flour 1/4 cup at a time, slowing or stopping the mixer while adding flour. Continue kneading at medium speed until the dough starts getting stretchy and is tacky but not sticky. You may not need all of the flour. Add olive oil and continue kneading until the dough becomes shiny and elastic.

Turn dough out of the bowl and form into a ball. Place the ball in a clean, large bowl, Drizzle with a little olive oil to coat the dough ball all over, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and sprinkle cornmeal on a baking sheet.

Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into desired shape. I tend to like oval loaves, but it’s up to you.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled.

Remove plastic wrap, slash top of loaf, and bake at 325 degrees for 40-50 minutes, until the bread is a rich brown.

Take out of the oven, put on a rack, and cool completely before cutting.

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Wheat, Oat and White Bread - a recipe-free visual recipe

Today, I decided I needed to bake some bread. Not for dinner, but it would be nice to have some for toast in the morning. Instead of following a recipe, I decided to eyeball everything. So you can recreate it, I've got photos of each step, so you can see what your dough should look like at each stage.

I started with the usual cup of flour, more-or-less tablespoon of raw sugar, and a yeast-spoon (equivalent of a package, or 2 1/4 teaspoons) of dry yeast, and a cup of water. Here it is in the mixer bowl:

I let the yeast rest there a bit, swirled it around and waited until it got bubbly, like this:

I added a cup of whole wheat flour. I usually let the yeast snuggle up to part of the flour I'm using, and if I'm using something other than white, I put that in first. Maybe no sense to it, but in my mind the wheat, rye or whatever might want a little extra time to drink up some of the water. Mostly I just scoop it out and don't measure, but here's a measuring cup with a rough measure of flour.

I mixed it up and let it sit a bit to get bubbly again. It's about the consistency of pancake batter:

Time to get serious with bread flour. Yes, it's a different measuring cup. I keep a one-cup measure in my bread flour for easy scooping, and I keep a half-cup measure in my AP flour. Here's a rough cup full:

I always add my salt with the second addition of flour. Here's the teaspoon of kosher salt about to meet with the ingredients in the mixer:

After some mixing, it's obvious that the dough is still too wet for what I want.

I dropped in another half-cup (ish) of flour, and then decided that I could use up the leftover cooked steel-cut oats I happened to have on hand. This looks to be about a half-cup or maybe a little less. It all went in.

The oatmeal added more liquid to the mix, so I ended up adding about another half-cup of flour. If you're keeping track, that's roughly one cup of whole wheat, two cups of white bread flour, and about a half-cup of cooked steel-cut oats.

Now the dough looks lumpy because of the oats, but its nearly correct as far as the flour. The dough is getting stretchy, but it's still way too sticky and loose.

I added about another quarter cup of flour and let it romp in the mixer for a while. Now, it's a more cohesive ball of dough. I added olive oil, again unmeaured, but I figure it's about a tablespoon or so. My attempt at an action shot of pouring the oil wasn't very successful, but here it is:

I covered it with plastic and let it have a nice rest while I wandered off to do other things.

I decided I had time for a second rise, so I removed it from the bowl, kneaded it and formed it into a nice ball, plopped it back into the bowl and ran off to take care of some errands. I drizzled a teeny bit of olive oil over it before I covered it the bowl with plastic wrap.

When I got back this is what it looked like. The yeast was obviously happy and active. And maybe I was gone a little longer than I planned on, but that's okay.

I took it out of the bowl, shaped it into a loaf, and put it onto a cookie sheet where I had sprinkled corn meal. Covered it with plastic wrap, and set the alarm for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, plus some time for fiddling around, I uncovered the bread, slashed it down the center and popped it into the oven at 350 degrees, convection on. I've found that bread can bake at a wide range of temperatures without fussing about it, and I've even got recipes that start in a cold oven. So the 350 was arbitrary. 

Higher temps will give you a darker brown, but browning is also affected by the ingredients. More sugary ingredients will get your bread to brown faster.

And here it is, fully baked. I wanted a softer crust this time, so I put a kitchen towel over it while it cooled. Hmmm...it looks a little flat in this photo, but it actually got a good rise.

That's it. Baked without a recipe. Easy, hmmmm?

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