MITCH IN THE KITCHEN

whole-wheat oatmeal pancakes

You may be suspicious about how delicious these pancakes actually are because they seem kind of brown and fiber-ful. But the recipe is a trusted one I’ve used over and over, and believe me, I am unlikely to repeat things that were just kind of “meh” the first time around. I like to mix in nuts, dried fruit, pureed fruit (like apple and/or pear sauce, or mashed bananas), or chocolate chips. And I usually substitute a mix of yogurt and milk for buttermilk. If you use some kind of fruit sauce in the batter, make sure to use a little less milk so that it doesn’t get too runny.

weekend oatmeal, revisited

I’ve posted about oatmeal in the past, but this topic deserves an update. I’ve done savory oatmeal here and there, but my favorite is still my (almost) weekly bowl of steel-cut oats with fresh fruit. My current combination of toppings is a spoonful of almond butter, some plain yogurt, apples or pears cooked in brown sugar and cinnamon, and a big drizzle of maple syrup. Delicious enough to get me out of bed on chilly mornings.

eleven madison park granola

This granola is fantastic and I will probably make it over and over, especially because the recipe is easy and so very straightforward. It’s unconventionally salty and crisps up in olive oil instead of butter, but I eat it in the most conventional of ways: sprinkled heavy handedly on top of plain yogurt or shoved straight into my mouth by the fistful. I never thought I’d say this about something as… granola as granola, but this stuff has upgraded my weekday breakfasts to something a little more alluring than usual.

apple gouda oatmeal cookies

One glimpse at this recipe and I knew I had to try it. Are these cookies supposed to be eaten for dessert? Breakfast? Late-night snack?

Who cares, they’re delicious. I want to start carrying them around in my pockets so I can eat them whenever I want.

A few notes: I didn’t peel the apples and I finely chopped them instead of grating them. I ran out of golden raisins so I added dried cranberries. Chill the dough before baking to get chewy, tall cookies. Best when fresh and gooey and crisp on the outside, in my opinion.

oatmeal muffins with fresh apricots

Lazy weekends are meant for baking sweet things for breakfast while sipping hot coffee and catching up on music podcasts. I found this recipe on 101 Cookbooks (an ever-reliable source for healthy-but-not-boring food). The muffins are sweet but not too sweet, and you can add whatever fruits (dried or otherwise) and nuts you’d like. I halved the recipe and gently folded in about a 1/2 cup of chopped fresh, tart-sweet apricots (4-5 small apricots) at the very end. The muffins ended up being very moist (even though I used a little bit less yogurt), so next time I might try tossing the fruit pieces with a bit of flour before mixing them into the batter.

homemade granola bars

I may never buy packaged granola bars at a grocery store ever again. (Unless you count the plastic-wrapped ones priced by weight in the Whole Foods bakery section.) These do not taste like cardboard. Or pure sugar. And they don’t contain any freaky ingredients like soy protein isolate. The other best thing about homemade granola bars is that you can have exactly the types of mix-ins you like, in exactly the right proportion. I added dried cranberries, dried apples, sliced almonds, wheat germ, and flax seeds. They are so good that they’ve crossed over into “healthy dessert”/hungry daydream territory. Recipe and inspiration here (I’ve had this bookmarked for a long, long time).

(white) chocolate chip cherry oatmeal cookies

If you’ve hung out with John (yes, he is coming up in all of these posts now) in the past few months, you’ve probably heard about how we’re planning to install wood laminate flooring in our apartment, as a couple of hapless, decorating-challenged newlyweds would. After a solid day of moving furniture around, Asian-squatting over and over, and sawing and pounding on many many planks of stuff that looks like wood but is much cheaper, we were dead tired and wanted only greasy Thai takeout and cold beer for dinner.

Luckily I planned ahead for dessert by making some cookie dough the night before. I will be baking small batches at a time throughout the week (unless I end up just freezing it for later). I meant to use brown chocolate chips but found only white chocolate chunks in the kitchen. These were a huge improvement from the failed apricot cookies I made a few weeks back. Chewy and moist and maybe a little bit sweeter than I usually like stuff, but perfect with a glass of cold milk in the late evening. Ok fine, or for breakfast.

Sift together and set aside:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Cream together for 3 minutes using an electric mixer:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, left out at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup (lightly packed) light brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix into butter and sugar mixture:
1 large egg

Then add the flour mixture while the mixer is still going on low speed.

Fold in:
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup chopped pecans, lightly toasted in a dry pan (more is ok)
1/2 cup chocolate chips or white chocolate chips (this is also a pretty conservative amount)

Chill dough for several hours, or overnight. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Scoop tablespoon-size balls of cold dough on to a parchment-lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Bottoms of the cookies should be barely golden and the centers should still be gooey. Let cool for 5 minutes, then dig in. Makes about 60 1 1/2-inch cookies.

weekend oatmeal

I used to hate oatmeal. It was bland and mushy, and cold cereal with milk was fine by me. In college, John insisted that oatmeal was delicious if you put fruit and nuts and honey all over it. I tried many bites of his breakfast of choice, but I still hated it.

Then, at the age of 25, a revelation: steel-cut oats. Unlike the rolled (or gasp, instant) oats of my experiences past, this stuff is chewy, like little grains of rice. Sure, they take awhile to cook, but that’s why they’ve become a cool-weather weekend ritual. We patiently stir our oats and brew some coffee while we slowly wake up.

In short, oats are really good for you. They’re a whole grain, so the vitamins and fiber from the bran and germ are all there. The fiber in whole grains helps you stay full longer than, say, white bread would. Oatmeal can also help some people lower their LDL (“bad” cholesterol) levels; the soluble fiber in oatmeal (the gummy gelatinous stuff that forms a film around the edges of the pot) binds to cholesterol and reduces the amount that is absorbed by the intestines.

And finally, steel cut oats are just whole oat grains (groats) that have been cut into a few pieces, while rolled oats are groats that have been flattened out to reduce their cooking time.

3/4 cup steel-cut oats
2 1/2 cups water
dash of salt
1/2 cup milk

Toast oats in a pot, over medium heat. Add water and salt, and bring to a boil, partially covering with a lid. Once it’s boiling, remove the lid and stir frequently, until oats are cooked through but still a little chewy. This should take about 20 to 25 minutes. Add milk and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.

1 1/2 apples or pears (or both), diced
small dab of butter
dash of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Heat a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add butter, fruit, cinnamon, and sugar. Stir to coat. Cook, covered, until soft (about 15-20 minutes).

Top oatmeal with cinnamon apples and/or pears, walnuts, real maple syrup, and brown sugar.

Update
Something I liked so much that I’m moving it out of the comments section. Ashwin writes:

“I get up in the morning, I make myself a bowl of instant oatmeal, and then I don’t do anything for an hour, which makes me wonder why I need the instant oatmeal. I could get the regular oatmeal and feel productive.”  - the other Mitch in the kitchen, Mr. Hedberg.

whole wheat scones with fresh currants

It’s been said (particularly by me) that I am not very good at baking. I find it difficult to suppress the urge to improvise in favor of precise measuring and timing. So to accompany my recent foray into “science” (in the form of nutrition-related courses), I’ve started baking here and there. John is around for quality control (“No Mitch, you can’t eyeball 1 1/2 cups of flour”), which, I’ll admit, leads to things like perfectly tender scones.

Some of you probably think whole wheat baked goods are too dry and too dense. I kind of agree, so I usually blend whole wheat with regular flour when baking. These scones, however, are pretty delicious the way they are (as long as you’re not a whole-wheat hater). Pastry flour has less gluten (the protein component of wheat that makes dough elastic and bread chewy) than regular flour, making the final product less tough and more tender.

These scones aren’t too sweet, so you won’t feel like you’re having dessert for breakfast. The steel-cut oats get a little chewy, and the currants are really tart (in a good way). You (and I!) can also substitute other small juicy berries or dried fruit for the less readily available fresh currants. (Read a current article about currants here.)

(adapted from cook.eat.think.)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup steel cut oats
6 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
10 Tbsp chilled unsalted butter
1 cup fresh currants
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine flour with oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut butter into the mixture using a pastry blender or fork, until the mixture is crumbly. Gently fold in currants, and add buttermilk. Mix gently, just until combined. The dough should be very soft.

On a lightly floured surface, shape the dough into a long rectangle, about 3 inches wide and 1.5 inches thick. Cut into triangles, and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Brush tops of scones with heavy cream and sprinkle coarse sugar on top (optional). Bake for 22 minutes.