waffles!

I modified this waffle recipe from Cathy Fisher, and it is super easy to make--I make the batter up in the blender.  We had house guests three times this week, and twice we made waffles. Housemate makes traditional waffles only a few times a year, when we have house guests. So she did that for the first set of guests, and I did Cathy Fisher's recipe for myself.  It was good but I found the corn meal a little too crunchy for my tastes (I used polenta which is coarse ground).  I thought I could modify it to make it better for my tastes and easier.  I tried it out today on the kids we had over. We didn't bother with housemate's waffles because we wanted to play more instead of taking time in the kitchen.  So I made mine and everyone loved them. This is great news because my recipe is easier than housemate's and we can all enjoy them.  So here's my recipe.

Ingredients for 3 or more people (halve the recipe for 1-2 people):
2 cups non-dairy milk, or water and 1 ripe banana (haven't tried the latter but want to)
3 medjool dates
2 cups rolled oats
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1.  Add 1/2 of the milk or water to the blender with the dates let soak for 15 minutes.
2.  Turn on the waffle iron.  I use this one, the same as Cathy Fisher.  It seems to work great.  I put it on the middle setting, following her recommendation.
2.  Blend up the stuff in the blender.
3. Add 1/2 the oats and blend
4.  Add the rest of the liquid and the rest of the oats and blend
5.  add the cinnamon, vanilla and baking powder, and do a final mix (very quick blend at low power, just to mix)
6.  Transfer to a bowl if you wish for easier scooping into the waffle iron.
7.  When the waffle iron is ready, pour 1/2 cup into the center, cook until ready (you have to experiment for your iron).  The longer you cook, the less the waffles will stick.  I find that wooden chopsticks work great for getting the waffles out.
8.  Serve immediately.  I top with warmed frozen berries (heat until they release lots of juice), and maybe some soy yogurt and bananas.

favorite oatmeal

not the favorite but one of my favorites:

oats, curry powder and spinach.   easy to make in your hotel room but good enough to eat at home too.   Tomorrow's will be oats, strawberry, bananas, blueberries, and cinnamon.

My breakfasts of late

Fruit and nuts:

Favorites were an orange, blueberries and nuts.  or grapefruit, blueberries, and nuts.  or bananas, blueberries and nuts.  or apple, blueberries, and nuts.   But I ran out of nuts today so I'll move on to something else for a while.

Zeb's waffles with no sugar!

This is the first time I ate waffles or pancakes without maple syrup and it was great! I made a mini-version of Zeb's waffles from "My Beef with Meat". I used a generous 1/2 cup oats, 1 tsp flax seeds, a few walnuts halves (1/4 oz), some orange zest, and 1/2 banana. I ground the flaxseed and walnuts and some of the oats, combined all the dry ingredients. I blended the banana with 1/2 cup water to make "banana milk". Then combined everything and made two waffles out of them. I topped them with 1/2 large fresh peach. It was delicious!

If you are avoiding the nuts,  you probably wouldn't even notice if you left out the walnuts. I'm so proud of myself for not adding sweetener. I didn't miss it at all! What a surprise!

Zeb's Waffles

Now that the E2X Captain's Challenge is over, I had my Zeb's waffles from "My Beef with Meat" and I wasn't disappointed! Here is a picture of our waffle iron from the 1950s!

I was worried it wouldn't be up to the task because it doesn't have a modern day non-stick surface. Well, it turns out the 1950s no-stick surface works just as good. It's probably iron for all I know.  But the real reason these turned out is because this baby gets really hot! Here is one of the waffles:

I made a half-recipe which made 3 waffles and I ate them all!  (yes I am a pig, yes I am the only plant-strong person in the house). Another thing that thrills me is that this is the first time I didn't OD (overdose) on maple syrup with waffles or pancakes. I had this clever idea to heat up frozen sour cherries and blueberries in the microwave until nice and hot. They release a lot of juice and taste mighty fine too. I added 1 Tbsp of maple syrup and it made a nice fruit topping, enough for all three waffles. I was most pleased.  

Now I have an even better idea for next time using a recipe from Ann Esselstyn (not posted, just word of mouth--it's just banana, oats, water and cinnamon).  I'll post that whenever I make it.   

Breakfasts

This is what I've been eating for breakfasts lately:  some grains, maybe some beans, and fruit or veggies.    For example,

Here was a "mango salad":   oat groats, beans, mango, lime juice and cilantro.  I had this for 3-4 days:

Here was a "savory" breakfast.  I cooked up a batch of rice of different kinds (brown, wild, forbidden).   I store that in the fridge and have a serving each morning so can make a quick meal out of it.  Here I cooked up some onion and spinach and garlic, and some spice (don't remember, but some good ones are tandoori seasoning, singapore seasoning, cumin, curry, or nothing at all--it's quite good all by itself).   At left is some teeccino (chicory barley drink), top are a few frozen blueberries, top right, a few gulps leftover after making housemate's smoothie (usually just a few Tbs are left):

Next day it's the same rice mixture, cooked up with spinach and onion (probably some garlic too) and red bell pepper.   I also accidentally got to enjoy part of a potato.  When you bake a potato, if you forget to punch holes in it with a fork first, then it's best not to handle it just after it's done cooking; if you grab it a little too forcefully, it can explode like this one did.  so I enjoyed what was left after it exploded in the oven.  Along with that is a bit of frozen mango and the leftover gulp from housemate's smoothie.

Here's more of the same.  You start to see the picture.  This day I was in a hurry.  I just added frozen peas to my grains (heated up), and cooked up some spinach in the orange bowl (I love cooked spinach just plain).  There's a few frozen mangos and blueberries, a few gulps from the smoothie, and some teeccino.

This day I cooked up some oatmeal, cooked up and onion, red bell pepper, and spinach, combined them with some curry and nutritional yeast---it was very good.  with the usual suspects on the side:

For the last few days, my grains were kamut, barley and rye.  I had them with a banana for a couple of days (and cinnamon), with the usual suspects on the side (cooked spinach, blueberries, etc).  Oh, and I like to read a blessing from this book before I eat:

Today I was in the mood for beans with my grains, so I had beans, grains, strawberry and banana, and the usual suspects on the side.

This is a filling and satisfying breakfast.  I love it!

my favorite breakfast now

This breakfast is comfort food to me.  I have southern roots and I used to love grits and cream of wheat.  This is reminiscent of both.  Ahead of time, I mix equal parts of buckwheat (medium cut), corn grits, and oat bran into a bowl and mix that up and store it in the fridge.

Then each morning I take out 1/4-1/3 cup depending on how hungry I am, add 1/4 cup soy or almond milk (unsweetened) and twice the amount of water as the cereal.  I also add 1 tsp of chia seeds and, occasionally, 1 tsp of maple syrup.  It's delicious without them also.   Note:  I just bought some almond milk and will probably start using that instead of soy milk since I use soy milk in my soy yogurt and want some variety.

 I stir everything up in my bowl, microwave for 2 minutes, stir again, and then go do something else for 10 or more minutes.  I usually make house-mate's smoothie and go get the paper and nibble on spinach since I use that in the smoothie.  Then I probably will add a little more water, microwave for another minute, add a little fruit if you want (1/2 banana, or 1/4 cup blueberries); let cool some, and then enjoy eating it.

Today I tried an experiment by trying to make waffles out of this.  It was a pretty hilarious disaster because I don't know how to use a waffle iron, but I think there is hope for this.  I will keep experimenting and report when I get something good.  I also tried adding a tsp of cocoa powder to this and it was very good too!

breakfast!

I have very simple tastes I think.  So this may not appeal to others as much as me but this was just what I like:  corn grits, buckwheat and fruit:

I used 1/8 cup corn grits, 1/8 cup buckwheat, added 3/4 cup water, cooked in the microwave for 2 minutes; stirred, let cool while I heated up my frozen fruit (fresh Wisconsin fruit from the farmer's market).   Cooked the cereal for another minute.  added the fruit; let stand for another 10 minutes or so to cool and cook a little more.    This is my favorite breakfast so far.   I ordered some oat bran and when that arrives I might try a mixture of all three, but it's hard to imagine I will like it more than this.  I've always loved grits.

freezing fruit

I don't know why I never thought of this before.  It's only for a short time of the year when we get a lot of fresh local fruit in Wisconsin.  Today the farmer's market had watermelon (seedless yellow dal), cantaloupe, blueberries and peaches.  And they were all as good as it gets.   Tonight I was concerned that I would either have to eat a lot of fruit the next 2 days or it would go bad.  Then I realized I could freeze it.  So I cut it up into a big bowl.  There was a lot of liquid so I realized freezing it into one big bag would make it hard to chop off an individual serving so I dished it out into single serving bowls.   I'll put these in my morning cereal every morning!   My morning cereal has been buckwheat lately.  I'm thinking of trying oat bran and corn grits this week.

oatmeal

I've tried different ways of making oat breakfasts and this is one I like (which also means it's pretty easy).  

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup soymilk

1 prune

a small piece of fruit (or half a large one).  e.g., peach, apricot (in season right now), banana.

cinnamon

two methods to make this:

1)   chop the prune.  soak the oats and prune in the water and soy milk overnight.  heat in microwave for a couple minutes until hot, (time depends on your power setting).  Chop the fruit and add, along with cinnamon  If it's a hot summer say, you don't have to heat it much.

2)  chop the prune.  combine the oats, prune, water and soy milk.  heat in microwave for a few minutes until very hot.  wait about 5-10 minutes.  heat again.  Chop the fruit and add, along with cinnamon.

Here's this morning's with a peach:

My current breakfast

I've blogged about a similar breakfast before, but since then I've tried other breakfasts and I think this is still my favorite:

It's rice, fruit and soy milk.  The rice is half brown, half forbidden rice.  I cook up a large batch every few days.  The fruit I buy fresh and freeze in a big bag:

I buy whatever looks good.  Lately it's been strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and bananas.  The soy milk is organic unsweetened non-GMO, e.g.,

A serving for me is about 1/2 cup rice, 1 cup fruit, 1/2 cup soy milk.  It's more on days when I think I need more, and less on days when I think I need less (depends on what follows breakfast).   

I tried oatmeal with fruit and didn't like it as much as this.  This is my version of cereal and milk I guess.   I like the chewy of the rice and the moisture of the milk and all the flavors.  Maybe I'm Chinese and just never knew it until now. :)

buckwheat berry breakfast

This breakfast has staying power for me; and it tastes good too.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup buckwheat groats, uncooked; note: substitute any favorite grain or pseudo-grain (e.g.,  oat groats, oats, steel-cut oats, quinoa, even brown or black rice)
• berries or another fruit, about 1/2 lb 
• few spoonfuls of homemade soy yogurt or 1 spoon of WholeSoy plain unsweetened soy yogurt (it's stronger than home-made);  this is optional
• ceylon cinnamon or other favorite spice
• small amount of sweetener if you feel you need it

I soaked the buckwheat groats overnight, rinsed them, add the cinnamon, and then microwaved in water for 1 minute or 2.  I let that cool while prepping everything else.  If you are using rice, you would have to cook that.  You could always cook a batch ahead of time, refrigerate and take out 1/2 cup for this meal.  I'd cook steel-cut oats and oat groats, but would prep regular oats like the buckwheat.   Add the cinnamon while cooking.

For the fruit, I used 1/2 lb of strawberries and 1/2 box of blackberries (3 oz).   I cut up the strawberries.

 Here's what mine looked like:

Stir and eat!   I enjoyed it.

Nutritional info:  Calories 300;  protein 11 g (12%),  fat 4 g (11%), carbs 63 g (77%).

fun Oatmeal recipes

This is from Healthy girl's kitchen ,who I believe is joining our 6-week challenge, yea!
http://healthygirlskitchen.blogspot.com/2011/08/breakfast-duel-green-smoothie-vs.html

fruity oatmeal

I had this today and tomorrow.  Then I'll run out of oatmeal and will do some experimentation with kamut berries and oat groats.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup long-cooking oats
2 small figs or 1 medium fig, chopped (optional)
3-5 fresh sweet cherries, chopped
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 banana, sliced
note:  substitute any fruit available:  strawberries, blueberries (can be frozen), dates, raisins, mango, etc.
1/2 cup water
1/2-1 Tbsp seed mixture (optional)

Combine and soak overnight in fridge (except for the blueberries).  Heat in the microwave for a minute or 2 (until hot).  Let sit for a few minutes.  Add the blueberries and heat up until they are warm.  enjoy!

If you didn't think of this idea until breakfast time (like me this morning), heat everything except the blueberries and bananas in the microwave for a minute or 2; let sit while you do some other things; heat again; let sit.   do this until it's the consistency you like.

Here's tomorrow's breakfast, soaking in the fridge:

Here was today's breakfast:

oat groats!

What are oat groats? They are whole oat grains. They look a lot like brown rice. This article describes a little more about them, and how to cook them. I didn't bother to find out before making them. I soaked 1/4 cup overnight in 1/2 cup water, then cooked them in the microwave for about 10 minutes over all. I'd separate 2 minutes with several minutes of soaking, then repeat 3-4 times. I wasn't in a hurry. This saves dirtying a pot. This seemed to work fine. Then I added some frozen blueberries, mango, and sliced banana. I microwaved some more to thaw the fruit. I enjoyed it. If you want it sweeter, you can add chopped dates or raisins or date syrup. You can also add chopped nuts.

today's breakfast

It's taken me a while but I finally got tired of my orange blended salad for breakfast. Maybe it's because we had our first batch of local spinach at the co-op yesterday, and strawberries from California were still on special. And I generally prefer to chew my food and taste the flavor of the fruit separate from the greens. However, it did take longer to prepare and eat, and cut into my work day as a result! Here's what went into it:

5.5 oz fresh spinach, chopped

16 oz box strawberries, sliced

1 banana, sliced

1/2 cup edamame (frozen, thawed in microwave for 45 sec)

1 Tbsp flaxseed, ground (I use a coffee grinder)

1 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar

Total calories was 446; protein 18 g (13%); carbs 81 g (66%); fat 10 g (20%); a hearty breakfast for me!

oatmeal #2

This tasted perfect to me.   I don't think I want to change it for a while.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup steel cut oats

0.5 oz raw walnuts, chopped

1.5 oz spinach, chopped

1 Tbsp goji berries

1 dried fig, chopped

1 small apple with skin, chopped

I added about 3/4 cup water, and the berries and chopped fig to the oats, heated it up to boiling and then let it sit for a while.  Then I came back and added the other stuff, heated it up to boiling and let it sit for a while (so I didn't have to watch it).  I think I ended up adding another 1/4 cup water.   It ended up sitting for more than an hour.  Of course, you can just cook it all at once.  It probably takes 20-30 minutes.  Add the spinach  in the last few minutes.  I also had some fresh local sorrel which I chopped and added.  That is really good stuff--very lemony.

hmm, I should try frozen blueberries too...

Total calories 395, protein 10 g (10%), carbs 62 g (61%), fat 12 g (29%).

oatmeal #1

1/4 cup steel cut oats

1/4 cup quinoa

1 prune chopped

1 Tbsp goji berries

1/2 oz chopped raw walnuts

Rinse the quinoa, soak everything in 1 cup water, or start cooking.  Mine needed 30 minutes cooking even after soaking for an hour or so.    it was yummy

total calories:  465.  protein 14 g (12%), carbs 67 g (59%), fat 15 g (29%).  

This is pretty high-calorie and filling so if you want less, you can oats or quinoa instead of oats and quinoa.  I'll try that next time.

housemate's smoothie

Edited Aug. 29, 2009, still tweaking.

Since housemate was told she has a little bit of macular degeneration in her eyes, she is willing to let me put spinach in her smoothie as long as she doesn't taste it and it doesn't have a green color--the solution to the latter is that I put foil over the top so she doesn't see it (see picture below). I also want it to be sweet and appetizing.

Ingredients for 4 18 oz (I think--large glass) servings:

2 Tbsp hemp seeds

2 Tbsp sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds

1/3 cup raw walnuts or cashews

2 Tbsp date sugar (optional)

vitamins and vitamin D

DHA supplement

16 oz fresh squeezed orange juice

1-2 bananas, fresh or frozen (peel before freezing, break up and put into individual bags)

2-3 bags frozen berries (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, or mixed berries)

4-8 oz fresh spinach

water as needed

Put the nuts, seeds, date sugar, vitamins, DHA, and some of the orange juice (8 oz to start) in the blender. Add the spinach on top. Start blending, letting the bottom stuff blend first. Then smash down the spinach with the plunger and let it all blend together. Then add the berries and bananas and rest of liquid and blend until smooth. This 4 ~16-oz servings. Freeze the ones you don't drink. Take out one each night and put in fridge. It thaws overnight. Here they are ready to put in the freezer:

other morning smoothie

Used to be called my small morning smoothie but it's grown a bit, so I renamed it.   This is what I have most days.

Ingredients:

1 large banana

2 10 oz packages frozen berries (going for mixed right now)

16 oz pomegranate juice and/or water mixture

2 Tbsp flaxseeds

2 Tbsp sunflower seeds

1 5-oz bag of spinach

Blend the juice, seeds, and spinach.  Add the fruit and blend some more.  Divide into 3 servings (it's about 16 oz each).  Freeze.  Take one out the night before and refrigerate.  may need to microwave for 15-30 seconds in the morning to help it thaw.  

Total calories per serving:  300.   Protein:  6 g (6%).   Carbs:  61 g (72%).   fat:  7 g (21%)