Oats, glorious oats.

The title is a quote from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. Oats are good for horses, but they're also very good for people too! Not to mention very tasty.

Awhile back, I ran out of whole wheat flour and wouldn't have a chance to get to the store for a couple days. I had plenty of all purpose flour but to me, baking with only all purpose flour in a recipe is inconceivable. Even when I make cookies or brownies I'll substitute part of the all purpose flour for whole wheat. Well, I decided I simply wouldn't bake for a couple days, not until I had some whole wheat flour. Probably not possible for me. I'm a baker, I bake. Moreover, I have a reputation for being a baker. Our friend called and asked if I could make some bread for Bible study's dinner (she was making soup). I agreed, though unsure of how I could possibly make a loaf of bread without whole wheat...Then I thought of it! Oats!

I ground the oats a bit in my food processor so that they were of the consistency of very coarse flour and I used about two cups of them in place of all purpose flour in my french baguette recipe. That night at Bible study I received more compliments on my bread than usual. I was very pleased with the outcome.

The next morning, being Saturday, I fancied pancakes for breakfast. This time, I didn't hesitate but pulled out my oats and made some delicious, hearty banana walnut oat pancakes. And that night, when for dinner I felt like making biscuits with our stew, oat biscuits was a no-brainer.

Here are my modified recipes:

This recipe is adapted from Local Breads by Daniel Leader. I have greatly simplified the directions, but if you are very into baking bread then I highly recommend this book. He goes into the science and the art of  baking bread, everything from starters to how to knead, shape and bake dozens of recipes. And there are lots of beautiful photographs as well.
The oats and beer are my additions, feel free to make them any shape you want if you don't prefer baguettes.
 Parisian Daily Bread (with oats)
1.5 c. water, room temperature
1/4 c. beer, room temperature
1 tsp. yeast
1.5 cups ground oats
2 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tsp salt

Combine water and yeast in a large bowl. Add everything else and stir until water is absorbed and a shaggy, clumpy dough is formed. Cover bowl and allow to sit for 20 minutes. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for several minutes until it is a smooth elastic-y dough. Add more flour if necessary but try not to add too much. Let the dough rest for about two minutes and then knead again for a few more minutes. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and allow to rise about an hour. Give the dough a light turn and let rest another 45 minutes to an hour. Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle some cornmeal onto it  Turn out dough onto floured surface and divide into 3 equal parts. Shape each lump into a long baguette and place on cooking sheet. Preheat oven to 450. Allow to rise for 30-40  minutes, the baguettes will rise a bit but not quite double. Give them three slashes each and set into the oven along with a cake pan full of water, bake 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

The pancake recipe is from memory, so use with care. If you're okay with tweaking recipes to make them fit your style, feel free to go for it. If you are an exact recipe person, you might not want to use this one until I have a chance to double test it. You can, of course, do whatever you want, but don't say I didn't warn you!
Oatmeal Banana Walnut Pancakes
1.5 c. all purpose flour
1 c. ground oats
1/2 c. rolled oats
1.5 tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 and 3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 tbs vinegar
2 tbs molasses
2 mashed bananas
1 egg
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, mash the bananas and add the milk, oil, vinegar, molasses and egg (tip: if you measure the oil first and then use the same utensil to measure the molasses, it will allow the sticky stuff to slide right out.) Combine wet and dry ingredients and add walnuts, stir until just combined. Add milk or flour as necessary to gain your desired pancake consistency. Cook as you would any pancake recipe. (sorry, haha, I'm getting lazy)

This recipe is straight out of Joy of Cooking, I only replaced 3/4 cups of all purpose flour with ground oats. If you prefer to use one of their other biscuit recipes, you can probably make the same substitution with good results.
Oat Biscuits
1 c. all purpose flour
3/4 c. ground oats
1 tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4-6 tbs cold butter
3/4 c. milk
Blend dry ingredients. Cut butter into flour until the size of small peas add milk. Stir until a dough forms and then turn out onto a floured surface. Knead 8-10 times. Roll out with a rolling pin to about 1/2 to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter. Place rounds onto a greased baking sheet and bake at 450 for 12 - 15 minutes.

Do you bake with oats a lot? Have you ever ground oats in a food processor to make oat "flour"? Let me know if you try any of my recipes, I'd love to hear feedback!

Also! Of great import: Tomorrow, my husband and I are departing for Key West. We'll be gone for a little over a week. I'll take many pictures and post when I get back. See you later!

Bananas for dinner (and breakfast and dessert.)

Last night I made an amazingly delicious dish. Banana Spaghetti. I have had a dish called Banana Spaghetti before made by my culinary talented brother-in-law Terence. But when I decided I wanted to put bananas in my pasta last night, it was a bit different than what I remembered eating for an Independence Day Dinner a few years ago. From what I remember of Terence's it had bell peppers, roasted bananas and no red sauce (probably had other stuff too, I just can't remember, but it WAS good.) Mine had peas, corn, carrots, peppers, onions, garlic and cayenne pepper all sauteed along with bananas (which got mushy with the frying and only lent flavour and no actual banana chunks) and since I knew my husband would balk if there was no sauce, I put a can of tomato sauce in there too. And it was gooooood. Sweet, spicy, flavourful. Both John and I really enjoyed it (and the leftovers were fantastic too.)
So I thought I'd share a bit of a recipe with you. Mind, I didn't measure anything and you can mix and match with vegetables and spices. This is how I normally cook, think of what I have, think of a basic dish and make it up as I go. So be creative and I hope it works for anyone who wants to try.
As a side note, prepared pasta will be a given in this recipe, so I guess its really more of a sauce recipe.
Banana Spaghetti
Onions, chopped
red, green, yellow bell peppers, chopped
a carrot, chopped
a handful of frozen peas
a handful of frozen corn
one or two sliced bananas
sea salt
cayenne pepper
crushed garlic
a pinch of rosemary (I like to grind rosemary in my mortar, so it's less pine-needle-y)
a pinch of sage
a dash of cinnamon (in hindsight, I don't know that the scanzy amount of cinnamon I added did anything for the overall dish, I couldn't taste it, but it may have done it's part, I don't know.)
dash of allspice (I believe a little more allspice would have been nice. I like allspice in tropical-like savoury dishes.)
one can of tomato sauce (if I wasn't compromising for my husband's sake, I would have put a can of diced tomatoes instead, or better, chopped fresh tomatoes, of which I had none, so therefore, could not add)
But while we're on the wish list-I bet fresh basil would have done wonders to this dish.
Annny way, I basically sauteed all this together in my cast iron pan until the onions were translucent, the carrots tender and the banana good and mashed up and then mixed it into my prepared pasta. It was tasty and rather different.

Funny thing, on the banana theme, I woke up today and made banana pancakes (sorry, no recipe) and then after dinner tonight, I made a delicious banana chocolate pudding/mousse.
Basic recipe is as follows (I'm trying for some measurements here, but bear with me as I'm estimating, feel free to tweak if needed):
Banana Chocolate pudding/mousse/pie filling (frosting?)
3Tbs coconut oil
4 tbs cocoa powder
1 or two bananas mashed with a fork
4-5 tbs honey
Combine all in a shallow pan and turn heat to low (just enough to melt the coconut oil and dissolve the honey, basically) Once the oil is basically softened, turn the heat off and whisk with a fork (or if you have one of those awesome tiny whisks, I'm majorly jealous.) You can eat it while warm, if you like your pudding warm and slightly runny, or let cool to room temp for a nice thick pudding. I ate it at room temp, but I imagine if you put it into the fridge, you'd get a nice solid silk-pie texture. This was good, and incredibly easy, and not too unhealthy (it seems to me). Plus, I usually have these ingredients!

As an awesome close to this post, John just asked me on a date. Heck yes. :D