You are browsing the Blog for NaBloPoMo.

← Previous Entries

Vanilla Spice Oatmeal

November 27, 2009 in breakfast, CEiMB

So… I’m totally cheating. This week for CEiMB we were given the opportunity to choose whatever recipe we wanted and were asked to serve it at our Thanksgiving meal if at all possible. Well, after being told numerous times that I’m not allowed to bring anything to Thanksgiving, I decided to be a cheater. (I’m not cheating by posting late though, I promise. We’re allowed to this week!)

Today I bring you Ellie’s vanilla spice oatmeal. I’m a huge oatmeal fan, I have it probably 4 mornings out of the week. You just can’t beat it when it comes to nutrition AND taste. Normally I cook it with a banana and a tiny bit of brown sugar so I found Ellie’s Vanilla Spice Oatmeal to be a little sweet as it contained raisins, vanilla, and brown sugar. The sweetness was a nice change though and I gobbled it up.

I’ve adapted the recipe for 1 serving and made a few small changes but otherwise, a very good oatmeal recipe.

Vanilla Spice Oatmeal
Print
Ingredients
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt, optional
  • 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
  • 1 tablespoon raisins
  • 1 tablespoons walnuts, coarsely chopped, optional
  • 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Pinch nutmeg
  • 1 tablespoons dark brown sugar, plus more, to taste
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
  1. In a small saucepan, bring the water and salt to a boil. Stir in the oats and raisins, reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
  2. In the meantime, place nuts, if using, in a dry skillet over a medium-high flame, and toast, stirring frequently, until golden and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set aside.
  3. When the oats are cooked remove pan from the flame and stir in the vanilla and nutmeg. Swirl in the brown sugar and place the oatmeal in serving bowls. Top with toasted nuts and a sprinkle of cinnamon.


adapted from foodnetwork.com

Pin It
ShareSubmit to StumbleUpon

Tags: , ,
2 Comments »

CEiMB – Blueberry French Toast Bake

November 19, 2009 in breakfast, CEiMB

After taking a couple weeks off, I’m back with this week’s CEiMB. The recipe was chosen by The Not So Skinny Kitchen and she chose Ellie’s Peach Blueberry French Toast Bake.

I was excited for this one because breakfast is my favorite meal to cook. I, however, couldn’t find any fresh peaches so I went with blueberries. The blueberries were good but I think peaches would’ve been better. The berries were super juicy and turned the bread (and later the syrup) blue which wasn’t really the look I was going for.

Can’t complain too much though… my kid ate 3 pieces and was asking for more after it was all gone! It was definitely a winner in his book!

The Not So Skinny Kitchen will have the recipe for you if you’re interested!

ShareSubmit to StumbleUpon

Tags: , ,
4 Comments »

French Bread Croutons

November 17, 2009 in breads

I mentioned in my French bread post that I had turned a good portion of my bread into croutons. I always forget how much better homemade croutons really are and they seriously take no effort at all. If you have time to slice bread, you can make croutons!

With less than a week to go before kid #2 pops into our lives, I’ve been trying to clean out the kitchen so I found myself without garlic when I went to make these. I used garlic powder which turned out good but if you have the fresh stuff, use that instead.

French Bread Croutons
Print
Ingredients
  • 3 cups cubed French bread
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder (or 1-2 cloves fresh garlic, minced)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Melt butter in a large saucepan. Stir in garlic powder (or fresh garlic). Toss cubed bread in butter mixture and spread out on greased baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, stir gently, and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes or until golden brown and dried out.


Pin It
ShareSubmit to StumbleUpon

Tags: ,
1 Comment »

Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge – French Bread

November 16, 2009 in BBA, breads

It’s days like this when I question why I participate in the BBA challenge. And by “days like this” I mean days where I’ve got 3 loaves of fresh baked French bread sitting on my counter and haven’t a clue what to do with them. I’m just not a bread person. None of us in my household are really.

I definitely love making bread though. (And the crowd says “Duh!”) It’s not fair. I should be one of those people who love making cookies that way nothing would ever go to waste.

I do have to give this bread credit though. It’s good bread, especially for a 2 day’er. I have a French bread recipe that was given to me from a friend that’s instructions are literally “stir with wooden spoon, rest, stir again” and from that, you get awesome French bread in about an hour and a half. So I was especially harsh on this one.

There was nothing difficult about it, except I really hate spraying the oven with water and using a steam pan. I don’t know why since it’s not a whole lot of work, it just annoys me. It just seems like I could’ve gotten the same result without all the steam.

It reminded me a lot of Panera’s bread. Almost too chewy but you eat it anyway because it’s that good, you know? I don’t know if I’ll ever make it again but it was a fun recipe and I think it would be good for an event that called for a whole lot of bread.

So what did I do with the bread? Two loaves have become croutons (which caused my husband to say “Well, isn’t that a lot of work for something that you could’ve bought for a buck?”) and the 3rd went wonderfully with a big pot of spaghetti sauce.

As always, check out Peter Reinhart’s book if you are interested in any of the breads I post about. And check out the BBA blogroll to see where everyone else is in the book.

ShareSubmit to StumbleUpon

Tags: , ,
3 Comments »

Peppermint Bark Buns

November 13, 2009 in breakfast

Ridiculous. That’s what these are. Pure, chocolaty ridiculousness.

Last weekend I went to the store for one thing. And as usual, I wandered down the Christmas aisles where I found these guys:

I had no idea that I even liked peppermint bark until that day, in the Walgreens parking lot, where I inhaled 5 of these without shame. When I finally stopped stuffing my face, I knew what they were destined for.

Nope, not cinnamon rolls. That would be a chocolate filling. And then you know what I did? I made a white chocolate cream cheese frosting for the top. And then I chopped up the last 3 pieces of Dove Peppermint Bark (that I had to hide from both my boys) and sprinkled them on top.

I don’t think these babies will last until breakfast tomorrow morning.

Peppermint Bark Buns
Print
Ingredients
  • For the dough:
  • 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup butter melted
  • 4 1/2 cups bread flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 packet dry active yeast
  • For the filling:
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 4 tablespoons butter, softened
  • For the icing:
  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, melted
  • 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • peppermint bark candy, roughly chopped
Instructions
  1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk in a large mixing bowl. Mix in sugar, butter, salt and eggs. Add flour slowly until combined. Knead dough until smooth and elastic. Place dough in a large greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled in size.
  2. Once dough has doubled in size, combine sugar and cocoa powder in small bowl. Set aside.
  3. Preheat over to 350. Roll out dough to a 16 by 21 inch rectangle. Spread butter evenly over dough and sprinkle with cocoa powder mixture. Roll up dough jelly roll style and divide into 12 rolls (I used dental floss for pretty cuts.) Cover and let rise until doubled.
  4. Bake rolls in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. While rolls are baking combine white chocolate, cream cheese, and powdered sugar. Spread frosting over warm rolls before serving. Sprinkle with peppermint bark candy.


Pin It
ShareSubmit to StumbleUpon

Tags: ,
15 Comments »

← Previous Entries

Switch to our mobile site