Vegan Baked Banana Bread Oatmeal

I've had a couple requests for this recipe, so I thought I'd dust off the blog for a minute and post it. I've been pretty in love with baked oatmeals for years, but for some reason I've never posted one of my recipes. Or if I have, it was so long ago, I don't remember it. Anyways, let's talk about the recipe.

This recipe is a descendant in some ways of Thug Kitchen's Quinoa Oatmeal. I like their recipes, but they always tend to leave out one step that breaks the recipe. For this one, it's cooking the oats and quinoa in water instead of the milk. That just gives you bland, flavorless oatmeal. Cook in the milk instead of adding it later. Gah.  The other issue with stovetop oatmeal is you have to stand there and stir it or it sticks to the pan. It's kind of a pain. That's honestly why I like baked oatmeals. It's so very low maintenance. The other key to this recipe is toasting the oats before cooking. Every time I try to skip this step, I dislike the results. I'll frequently do this step the night before and even assemble the whole thing before I go to bed, just so I can be lazier in the morning.


1 cup steel cut oats
1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed (optional)
1 tablespoon oil
1 can low fat coconut milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-3 very rip bananas, smashed
2 tablespoons brown sugar (optional)
chopped walnuts


In a small pan, heat up the oil. Toast the oats in the oil until fragrant. Combine oats, coconut milk, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and bananas. If you are adding quinoa, you may need an extra half cup of water. I think mine is plenty sweet without the extra sugar, but if you want to add some brown sugar, go far it. Combine everything well in a casserole dish with a lid and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until all the liquid is absorbed. Top with walnuts, which can also be toasted.

I'm fuzzy on the exact time in the oven because I usually go back to bed while it's cooking. Hey, mornings are cold and husbands are warm.

Award Winning Peach Blue Berry Pie

So I won a baking contest...

My award winning pie awaits judgement. 

I've always wanted to enter a baking contest. I'm just a wee bit competitive. Not because I need to be the best at everything (though that would be nice), but because I want to know how I rank against other people and what I can do to improve. I'm the nice kind of competitive. But there just hasn't been a good time for me to enter any kind of cooking contest until this summer, when the Roswell Farmers and Artisans Market decided to host a pie baking contest. Perfect.

I wouldn't consider pie to be a specialty of mine, because I don't get a chance to make them very often. (I also don't own a rolling pie, so I used an empty wine bottle to roll this out....) But I have a tried and true recipe for crust and no filling is simpler than fresh fruit. I knew I could enter this contest. I didn't think I would win, but I knew I wouldn't embarrass myself either.

So now I had to think about what kind of pie to make. The rules of the contest said that your pie had to feature at least one local ingredient. It didn't have to be in season, so if you had put up some peaches or pumpkin or something, you could use that. But it had to be local. Well, the peaches are especially fine this year, so I knew I wanted to feature those. But I had to assume mine wouldn't be the only peach pie on the table. I needed a hook.

My first thought was a peach jalapeño pie with oatmeal crumble topping. I love the combo of sweet and spicy and jalapeño and peaches are both good right now. I wanted to be sure of it though, so I made a "practice pie" with peaches from the grocery store. Big mistake. Those peaches were flavorless and watery. They drowned out my jalapeño.  It wasn't tasty at all. So I went back to the drawing board.

This tasted of failure. 

I was pretty turned off on the idea of a peach jalapeño pie after that. I also didn't quite have enough peaches on my counter for a pie. But I did have some blueberries left from the market, and I always think things that grow in the same season are meant to be together. My other change was to toss my fruit with a little cornstarch before it went in the pie shell as insurance against wateriness.

The only thing I kept was the oatmeal crumble topping. I am not good at making things pretty, so I didn't want to mess around with fancy lattice tops or cute shapes cut from pie dough. I just wanted an attractive, tasty top that still allowed you to see the pretty fruit inside the pie. It also meant my pie might still standout against any other potential peach or blueberry pies. (Also, oatmeal crumble anything automatically means butter and lots of it. Nothing is tastier than an entire stick of melted butter, and this pie has one in the crust and one in the topping. You're welcome.)

Spectators had a chance to sample all the pies. 

When the Market Manager started announcing the winners, I still didn't think I'd win. My pie looked pretty good next to all the others, but there was a tomato goat cheese pie that was just mind blowing. I was sure that was the winner. The manager announce third and second and my heart sank a bit, because I didn't think I'd placed at all. Then she said my pie! I was very excited.

My award winning pie earned me $20 in vouchers for the farmers market and an invitation to compete in the Tri-County Farmers Market Championship next month. I'll have to check my calendar to see if I can do that.

But anyways, enough jibba jabba. Here is the recipe to Award Winning Peach Blueberry Pie.

Peach Blueberry Pie

Crust

6 ounces all purpose flour

4 ounces unsalted butter

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 pinch salt

2 ounces ice water

Filling

4 peaches, peeled and sliced

2 cups blueberries

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Oat topping

1 cup rolled oats

2 tablespoons brown sugar

4 ounces unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon Penzey’s Cake Spice

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 425.

Freeze butter and flour over night. Pulse flour, sugar and salt in food processor until blended. Add butter and pulse until butter is incorporated. Drizzle in ice water until it becomes dough.  Remove from processor, shape into a wide disk and place in freezer bag. Place freezer bag in fridge for at least an hour or until ready to roll out.

Score four peaches lightly across the bottoms to form an X. Place in boiling water for about a minute to loosen skins. Quickly drain and add crushed ice and cold water to stop the cooking process. Once peaches are cool, you can easily remove the skins. Thinly slice peaches. Add two cups blueberries. Mix gently with 1 tablespoon cornstarch.

Combine oats, melted butter, brown sugar and spices.

Roll out pie crust. Add pie filling. Top with oat mixture. Bake at 425 for 45 minutes. Allow to cool for at least an hour before slicing.

Beans and Greens with Bacon

Brr! The winter weather is pretty bad lately. Not as bad as last year, when we all got stuck in our cars for hours and ate frozen pizza for dinner. (I spent five hours in mine, but made it home safely.) But still it's been bad enough to have a few school closures or late starts. I'm taking advantage of today's day off to do the things that make me happy, like baking and sleeping in.

The other thing making me happy right now is soup. Gallons upon gallons of delicious, warming healthy (and sometimes not...) soup. I've got a regular rotation right now between loaded baked potato, vegan minestrone, chili and this wonderful bean soup I've been dying for a chance to post about.

There's two ways to make this one. One is the lazy shortcut way, which still produces a delicious soup. The other is slightly harder and still produces a delicious soup. Hear that? No matter what, you will be eating delicious soup. The lazy way is to use canned beans. The harder way is to use dried and soak them before using. Which one you do is up to you. It's not difficult for me to leave a bowl of beans soaking on my counter before I leave for work, but other people may not have that luxury. I just like working with dried beans and they are cheaper to play with.

This soup uses some of my favorite ingredients, bacon and kale. It also benefits from my current obsession with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. I've taken to keeping these on hand to slide into soups, chilis and casseroles for extra flavor and warmth. They come in a can, but I only use one or two peppers at a time. The extras keep very well in a container in the fridge and make a very convent flavoring for whatever you are having. This soup is easy to make, if not very quick and makes delicious leftovers. I looked at several other recipes for pinto bean soups, but couldn't find one that incorporated much in the way of vegetables, so I had to make my own. They were mostly just slow cooked beans decorated with bacon or ham. I wanted more than that. This is especially delicious with a square of your favorite cornbread recipe.


2 cups dried pinto beans, soaked for eight hours OR two cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
2 slices bacon
2 cups carrots, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
About 3 cups of curly leafed kale, sliced thin
Vegetable broth (I make mine using Better than Bullion)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
salt to taste

If you are using dried beans, you want them to soak for at least six hours before using. I measure mine into a mixing bowl, then cover with cold water and leave them be while I am at work. If you decide to use canned beans, just rinse and drain them before using.

Cook the bacon until brown and crisp. Remove from pot and set aside. Add carrots, onion, celery and garlic to the pot. Cook over medium heat in the bacon grease until softened. Add beans and chipotle pepper. Cover with water or broth and salt heavily if using dried beans. Bring it up to a boil, then drop it back down to a simmer. Times get tetchy here, because it can take up to an hour for dried beans to cook. If using canned, expect about twenty minutes. When the beans are soft, add the sliced kale, reserved bacon and black pepper. Salt it again.  Seriously. It needs salt. When the greens are tender, your soup is done!

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Really Good Gumbo

I've been promising/threatening for years to post my gumbo recipe. By my standards, it's a long, complicated recipe. This is not a quick meal. But if you've got a Saturday to spend stirring roux, there's worse things you do with your time.

I usually make gumbo in the summer, when I'm off from school and the okra is fresh at the markets. But if you are craving a memory of summer, this is the soup to get you through the winter months. My version is heavy on veggies and lighter than most recipes. It's not quite broth based, because there is a roux, but just enough to give body and flavor. Because we need to watch carbs at our house, we skip the traditional rice that usually accompanies it. But if you don't have that problem, it goes great poured over white or brown rice.

The part that will tax your patience is the roux. Roux is a paste of cooked flour and fat. Cooked lightly, it's great for sauces. Cooked until brown, it's a base for gravy. Cooked until dark, it's base for gumbo. I'm a bit timid with my roux, since the dividing line between "perfect" and "horribly, horribly burned" is a thin one that jumps quickly. So I cook mine to a nice golden brown.


1 pound spicy sausage links (my preference is hot Italian turkey from Publix, but you can use whatever you prefer)
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/4 flour
1 cup onion, diced small
1 cup bell pepper, seeded and diced small
1 cup celery, diced small
1 pound okra, cleaned and sliced
1 14 ounce can of dice tomatoes
7 cups chicken broth
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1-2 teaspoons file powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Lightly coat the bottom of your pot with oil. Fry the sausages until brown, then remove. With a rubber scrapper, dig up all those little brown bits. Leave them in the pot, because they will make everything tasty. Over medium heat, add 1/4 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of flour. Stir together to remove lumps and continue stirring. Keep stirring. And stirring. How long you stir depends on your patience and willingness to take things to the edge. I keep mine going until it's a rich caramel color. When you've had enough, add the onion, peppers and celery and keep stirring. When those veggies are soft, add the okra, tomatoes and chicken broth. Simmer until the veggies are cooked through. Make sure to add salt.

While your soup is simmering, take a skillet. In about a a tablespoon of oil, sauté your shrimp. Give them a good shake of salt and the smoked paprika. I like to cook the shrimp separately so it doesn't overcook.

After the okra s cooked through, add the file powder and sliced sausage. Simmer another minute or two. Check for salt.

Serve gumbo poured over rice, or not and topped with the shrimp.

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Chowhound's Best Food Blog of 2014 is...

It looks like I won that award I mentioned last month. I can't decide if I should be embarrassed or thrilled. Even when I think I deserve recognition, I have a hard time accepting it. So I'll just say thank you to everyone who voted for me and promise to do my best at staying updated this year. I have, wonder of wonders, a weekend where I'm not grading papers, writing IEPs or preparing a training on Google Apps for Education. So once I'm done with my regular lesson planning, I'll get some posts in the queue for y'all.

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So I've been nominated for an award...

Chow.com is doing their annual awards and I was nominated for "Best Blogger". Let me explain.

This is not better than Smitten Kitchen.

See, I was browsing Chow a few weeks ago for recipes and ideas to try and I saw they were taking nominations for various categories of awards. One of them was for blogs. The rules said you could nominate yourself, as long as you were honest and said that's what you were doing. So I said, "What the hell?" and put myself down. I figured they get so many nominations for more popular blogs that mine would get pushed out and nothing would come of it. That did not happen. It looks as if they received very few nominations, so I didn't get filtered out as I anticipated. I am sitting there on the nomination list next to blogs written by professional chefs and people who I have bought cookbooks from. I didn't even know this until yesterday when I was browsing for recipes again and realized voting started a week ago.

So, while I really have no chance of winning this, I'd like my last place to be a respectable one. If you've got a minute between now and January 2, please head over to Chow and vote for me.

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My Thanksgiving Menu

Oh man. I've been so bad about posting here lately. I'm the Google Apps for Education coordinator at work this year. If you don't know what that means, just know this. Google is my kung fu. And it is strong. But yeah, doing computer stuff all day means I'm pretty sick of looking at one when I get home. So I haven't been around here as much as I'd like. But I'd be remiss if I didn't make at least one post about the Foodie High Holiday of Thanksgiving.

No knead rolls

Typically, I don't have much to say about cooking for Thanksgiving. I do have some recipes you are welcome to try, but usually I'm enjoying my in laws cooking in far off and distant Texas this time of year. But this year we aren't able to make the trip, so instead I'm cooking at home with my parents and siblings coming over.

It's an interesting mix to cook for. The big potential pitfalls are that my dad and husband are both Type II diabetics. And my youngest sister is a vegetarian. So in a large, argumentative family of picky eaters, those are really the only ones I'm going to attempt to please. So I put together a menu that's... well, not healthy. It is a holiday, after all. But it's heavy on vegetables and low on processed carbs and sugars. No sodium hangovers this year.

I've provided links to recipes when I have it. I'm digging out some of my old stand by, as well as introducing some new favorites.

Appetizers (Because I need you to get out from under my feet)

• Hot Crab Dip and crackers
• Hummus and raw veggies
• Cheese tray from Roswell Provisions

Main Event

• Smoked turkey (Ordering a smoked turkey from Greenberg's is a Liang family tradition that's grown on me. Picture this: A perfectly cooked, flavorful turkey that isn't taking up half your oven for five hours. It being delicious seems almost secondary.)
• Small roasted turkey breast, with butter and herbs tucked under the skin.
• Curry Roasted Acorn Squash (recipe here)

• 

  Curry roasted acorn squash

• Roasted brussel sprouts (done simply with oil, salt and pepper)
• Cauliflower cheese (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen)
• Slow cooker green beans with bell pepper and tomato (Oddly enough, I've never blogged this staple recipe. I'll have to fix that.)
• Chili Lime sweet potato wedges (Recipe here)
• No Knead rolls (recipe here)
• Salad (I had three heads of lettuce in my CSA this weekend. We are eating salad. Everyone is eating salad. Forever.)

Dessert

• Sour cream pumpkin pudding (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen)
• Apple crisp (The recipe I posted here several years ago is seriously out of date. I promise you a better one someday.)

The big appeal of many of these recipes is that I can do much of the prep work ahead of time. The sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts and acorn squash can be prepped ahead of time and kept in the fridge. The rolls are better if mixed a day or two ahead of time. The desserts can be made the morning of, with the apple crisp just needing to be popped into a warm oven to reheat while we eat dinner. The green beans will cook happily in my giant crockpot and not take up a burner or space in my oven at all. 

Anyways, thats my Thanksgiving plan. What's yours?

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