Apple Baked Oatmeal

I made this delightful baked oatmeal one morning when we had a surplus of apples around. I believe my mom got the recipe from one of her cousins. It is really easy and tasty. The sweetness comes from the pure, natural maple syrup. No processed white or brown sugars! The downside is that you have to get up early and make it before you actually want to serve/eat it. This is problematic for me because I pretty much want to have my coffee and eat breakfast the minute I wake up. For this reason (and because I forgot to do it the night before) the nuts didn't get toasted before going in. Still tasted great. It does reheat, so theoretically you could make it ahead... However, I think it's better fresh out of the oven. The recipe serves about four people...or three really hungry people!


Apple Baked Oatmeal

Ingredients:
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup nuts, lightly toasted (optional) and divided (I used pecans)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 cup organic milk (I used 1%)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 TBSP coconut oil, melted
1 tsp natural vanilla
2-3 cored, sliced apples 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a 2-quart baking dish.
• In a medium bowl, combine oats, half the nuts, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir with fork to combine.
• In a liquid measuring cup, combine maple syrup, milk, egg, melted coconut oil and vanilla. 
• Spread 1/2 of the apples in a single layer over bottom of baking dish. Sprinkle dry oat mixture over. Pour over the liquid ingredients. Sprinkle remaining nuts and fruit over the top. Push fruit into liquid. 
• Baked 35-45 minutes. Let cool a couple minutes so you don't burn your mouth. Enjoy! 

{Grain & Refined Sugar Free} PB Cookies

These are the other (somewhat healthier) peanut butter cookies I made this past weekend. First of all, the dough is incredible. Seriously, seriously incredible. The texture is like a fluffy frosting. Really, if you wanted, you could omit the egg and baking soda and use it as a peanut butter frosting. Or fruit dip. Or just eat it with a spoon... However, the cookies themselves have a really weird texture. They don't taste bad, in fact, they're kind of addicting. It's difficult to describe. They're moist and have this amazing peanut butter flavor. I have found that the texture is better if the cookies are frozen. (The cookies are still soft when frozen.) A little Nutella adds a nice touch. 


PB Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup natural peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
8 oz plain Greek yogurt (I used Fage 2%)
1/2 cup local honey
1 tsp natural vanilla
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and your choice of grease.
• Mix everything up in a bowl or use your stand mixer. Like I said, the texture will resemble a fluffy frosting. 
• Use a cookie scoop (about 2 tsp), placing the drops of dough about 2" apart on the cookie sheet--they will spread!
• Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden.
• Let cool for a couple minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Makes about 36 cookies. Enjoy!

PB Nutella Cookies

Peanut Butter. Nutella. What more does a person need? Kidding! Kind of... I pinned this recipe a while back. Probably during class sometime... I was excited to have a reason to finally make them! I'm kind of loving all of the brother's senior festivities because I am getting to bake a lot. I like it when I can bake it, try it, and give the rest away. The dough for these babies was great. The cookies themselves were also pretty great. The brother said, "These are the best peanut butter cookies you've made." A big deal, considering he doesn't generally like peanut butter. Shame. Although, he claims, "It's not that I don't like peanut butter. It's just overused." I don't believe that it's possible to overuse peanut butter, but I'm kind of an addict. Either way, the cookies were tasty! They're pretty soft, not too dry like some PB cookies. And the Nutella is a great touch. 

I didn't mess with these, so you can click here to get the recipe from The Sisters Cafe.

Giant Gooey Cinnamon Biscuits

I made some giant gooey cinnamon biscuits for Mother's Day breakfast yesterday. My inspiration for these tasty treats came from The Kitchn, via Pinterest. However, I couldn't get over putting two cups of heavy cream in what was going to be four biscuits. Then, I discovered what all went into cinnamon chips. I did some serious revamping. I swapped ingredients and eliminated some steps. The result was great! They were delicious, and everyone enjoyed them. I'll admit that I did go ahead and pour on a mixture of organic milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Live a little, right? However, I think that the biscuits would still be tasty without that. Maybe some homemade jam instead? You could probably also make eight smaller biscuits. Here's the recipe---


Giant Gooey Cinnamon Biscuits
Original recipe from The Kitchn, with modification help from Alaska from Scratch

Ingredients:
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP baking powder
1/4 tsp cream of tartar 
1 TBSP natural honey
1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt (I used Fage 2%)
1/4 cup reduced fat organic milk
4 TBSP cinnamon chips (see recipe below)

Topping (optional):
Reduced fat organic milk and powdered sugar to desired consistency. I went with more of a "soak-y"glaze than icing. Add vanilla to taste. 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease an 8x8 baking dish. 
• Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk together. Add honey, yogurt, and just enough milk to make a fairly sticky dough. Mix until combined.
• Dump the dough onto a floured surface and pat or roll out into a square. Cut into quarters. 
• Place about 1 TBSP on cinnamon chips in the middle of each square. Fold the edges over, making sure the cinnamon chips are covered and there are no holes. 
• Place the biscuits into the baking dish. Bake for about 16 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. 
• Pour glaze/icing on and serve warm. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Chips

Ingredients:
3 TBSP ground cinnamon
2 TBSP unrefined coconut oil (in place of vegetable shortening)
2 TBSP honey (in place of corn syrup)
1/4 tsp vanilla

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet and grease well. 
• Mix everything together.
• Dump the mixture onto the parchment paper and flatten it out to a 1/4" thick or so. 
• Bake until the mixture has completely melted and is somewhat bubbly.
• Cool completely before cutting.

Store what is leftover in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer. Coconut oil has a lower melting point than vegetable shortening so the cinnamon chips will soften quickly if you leave them out.

Healthy Banana Bread

We literally had a bunch of bananas go from green to overripe. There was no yellow. Seriously. It's kind of like how Oklahoma usually goes from winter to summer without any spring. I have several recipes pinned that call for overripe bananas. I REALLY wanted to make these banana bread brownies, but I didn't think I really needed a pan of those sitting around the house. The brother had mentioned he wanted banana bread, so I decided to make that instead. I got my recipe from "8 Weeks to a Better You" via Pinterest. First of all, this was WAY simple and fast to whip together. Just 7 ingredients. Secondly, I think it tastes great (and the mother agrees). It does have the whole wheat "healthy" texture. In the brother's words, "Oh, banana bread....Ah, it's healthy! What have you done?!" I guess the healthy taste doesn't bother me anymore. At this point, I have a harder time with the more processed, not-so-healthy taste. Judge me. If the whole wheat texture really bothers you, you could easily do a half-and-half mixture of whole wheat and all-purpose flour. Bottom line, I definitely recommend this recipe for a healthier, more natural banana bread! It's good plain and with natural peanut butter. 


Healthy Banana Bread

Ingredients:
3 overripe bananas
1/2 cup unsweetened natural applesauce
3/4 cup natural honey
2 eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan.
• Put bananas in a large bowl and beat/mash (I used a KitchenAid stand mixer). Add applesauce and honey, mix well. Add eggs, beat until combined. Combine dry ingredients in another bowl, whisk together. Pour dry mixture into the wet mixture, mix just until combined. 
• Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 
• Let cool for 10 minutes in pan before turning it out onto a wire cooling rack. Enjoy!

Leftover Oatmeal Muffins

When we had family in for graduation, I made some slow cooker overnight oatmeal. I got that recipe from The Gracious Pantry, which is probably my new favorite place to find "clean" recipes. The oatmeal wasn't too bad, and it was nice having something ready to eat in the morning. I would recommend not adding the raisins in until the morning though. The definitely soaked up a lot of the liquid, so they looked pretty funky...and the brother couldn't handle it. Anyways, we had a little over 2 cups left, so I went on a quest to find a recipe for leftover oatmeal muffins. I found a recipe that I liked the basic concept of from Full Tummies. As I was reading comments, someone else had made some suggestions...so I took things I liked from both recipes and made my own! The muffins turned out really well. They kind of remind me of a very moist bran muffin. (You could probably add more flour, if you want a dryer texture. I like things pretty moist. Then, I don't need condiments.) They got eaten up pretty quickly, and even the brother liked them! (Little did he know I had used the oatmeal he didn't like to make them.) 


Leftover Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cooked oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 TBSP coconut oil (melted)
2 TBSP unsweetened applesauce
2 TBSP honey
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

(If your leftover oatmeal is plain, you may consider adding cinnamon, vanilla, or whatever you like!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease your muffin pan (the recipe makes 12 good sized muffins). I pretty much just threw it all in our KitchenAid stand mixer and mixed it up. Then, divide the batter between each muffin cup. Bake for 25-ish minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy! 

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

I have basically taken over dinner since coming back home from school. The last week has been fairly simple though. I did a venison roast in the slow cooker on Sunday, and it has reappeared as pot pie and soup. I did a really basic "brinner" one night. This particular night, all I had to do was roast some cherry tomatoes that we had leftover from my graduation party and heat up this couscous stuff and leftover porketta. As a general rule, I try to eat pretty fresh and pretty clean. Granted, I bake a lot...but from "scratch" so it's still pretty decent. Anyways, I don't like to eat a whole lot of preprepared/prepackaged stuff. However, I am pretty impressed with Birds Eye and their "Steam Fresh Lightly Sauced Couscous Pasta and Spinach." It's super easy, tasty, and preservative free! Now, "porketta" is a special kind of pork roast that we get when we go to Minnesota. It's delicious and not available in Oklahoma. Mom had cooked one in the slow cooker last week, so I shredded what was left (it's very juicy and tender) and used it in this meal. Now, roasting cherry tomatoes is really simple:

• Preheat the oven to about 375
• Mix up your tomatoes with some EVOO (enough to coat) and season to taste. I used garlic and parsley here, but you could easily use basil, Italian seasoning, really whatever you like.
• Place in a single layer in your baking dish
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until done

It's a really easy way to make them a little fancier and super tasty!