Tag Archive: Oats

1. Cookies and Angels

   December 15, 2012 9:33 pm 37 Comments

   

   My favorite view in Colorado can be seen through our North-facing upstairs bathroom window. In the morning, when it has snowed overnight, I sit on the counter and press my left cheek against the cold pane to watch the colors change to the East as the sun rises over white roofs and lawns. Snow, I have discovered recently, has the same sort of reverent, sweeping effect on my spirit that the ocean once had. It is snowing now as I write this from the bathroom and if I’m lucky it will stick through the morning. Shaun is on a work trip  for a few days and seeing that I have the day off tomorrow, and to myself, I will make a pilgrammage to the park and make snow angels again along the running path for the walkers and runners and lovers. They are strangers whose lives I will never know yet somehow always know. For the beautiful, radiant young souls who were taken from this earthplane too soon, I will lay my head back in the snow, next to my angels, your sweet too young angels, and look to the sky to say thank-you a million times for my full and undeserving life. I will blow out my candles for each of you next week with tears in my eyes for every painful, awkward, surprising, perfect moment I have been given and you have been robbed.

   “I closed the box and put it in a closet.
   There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.”
   ― Joan Didion, Where I Was From

   

   Persimmon Oatmeal Cookies

   From Margie, the mother of my childhood friend, Kelly, who grew persimmons and made the most marvelous and memorable cookies. Thank you, Margie, for graciously sharing this recipe with me and the world. Adapted from “Use and Enjoy the California Persimmon” University of California Cooperative Extension, El Dorado County.
   
   1 ½ cups Whole Wheat Flour
   1 cup Brown Sugar
   ½ Teaspoon Baking soda
   1 Teaspoon Salt
   ¼ Teaspoon Nutmeg
   ¾ Teaspoon Cinnamon
   ½ Teaspoon Cloves
   ¾ cup butter
   1 Egg
   1 Cup Hachiya Persimmon chunks
   1 ¾ cup Rolled Oats
   ½ cup chopped pecans

   Sift together flour, sugar, soda, salt, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon into mixing bowl.  Cut in butter.  Add egg, persimmon pulp, rolled oats, and nuts.  Beat until thoroughly blended.Drop by teaspoonfuls, about 1 ½ inches apart on ungreased cookie pans.  Bake in a moderately hot oven (350F) about 15 minutes.

   

2. Banana Hemp Granola

   August 2, 2012 6:26 pm 44 Comments

   

   Dear Universe,

   I am in constant awe of your timing and how you always seem to bring people into (and out of) my life with such explicit purpose. I feel moved and changed and inspired by so many souls in ways that I cannot yet put into words. Thank you. 

   That’s all for now.

   Kelsey

   

   Banana Hemp Granola 

   • 3-4 ish cups thick-cut, old-fashioned oats
   • 1 cup hemp seeds
   • 2 ripe bananas
   • 1/2 cup coconut oil
   • 1/3 cup grade b maple syrup
   • 1/2 tsp vanilla
   • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
   • pinch of sea salt

   Here’s a quick and dirty way to make ultra-clumpy granola: stand mixer. I discovered the technique on a rushed morning while juggling fifteen balls before for a camping trip to the mountains. Mix together all wet ingredients and bananas until you get a thick, chunky liquid. Add oats and let the machine run on medium-high for a few minutes before adding the hemp seeds. Scrape the sides as needed until everything is well-coated and clumping.

   Turn out and spread granola onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes at 400′ F. Check at around 20 minutes and turn over with a spatula or wooden spoon to evenly brown everything up. Let cool for 30 minutes before storing. We enjoyed it camping fireside with greek yogurt the next day.

   

3. Burning

   March 11, 2012 7:54 pm 34 Comments

   

   “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

   Jack Kerouac, On The Road

   
   These ginger cookies are for you, you with the fire in your belly. For you who has a burning thing inside your being that says “you must create, you must go, you must love, you must dive head first, you must stand up, you must be brave, you must not be afraid to fail.”

   Feed and surround yourself with the fuel that lights up your soul. People. Places. Things. Thoughts. Torch it all. It’s the one true thing you really have to offer this world. Don’t let others put it out. But more importantly, don’t get in your own way by worrying what others will think of that brain you were given, that heart that beats loudly in your chest, that burning thing you’ve cultivated and believed in. Throw it out and set it all aflame. Watch it glow. Watch it spread. Watch it change this world.

   

   Ginger Oat Cookies 

   slightly adapted from Jude Blereau

   • 1/2 cup dried dates, chopped
   • 3 cups rolled oats
   • 3/4 cup cooked oatmeal
   • 1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
   • 1/2 cup glacé (crystalized) ginger, chopped
   • 1/2 cup coconut oil
   • 1/4 cup brown rice syrup
   • 1 tsp vanilla
   • 2 eggs

   Preheat the oven for 350.’ Cook the oatmeal on a stovetop first 1/2 cup of oats to 1 cup water. Set aside, let cool. Soak the dates in 1/4 of extra hot water, and mash with a fork. Add the vanilla to the date paste when room temp.

   In a large bowl, combine oats, oatmeal, nuts, and ginger. Add mashed up dates/vanilla as well as the coconut oil, brown rice syrup, and eggs. Mix together with your hands until well combined and coated. Mixture will feel wet and not overly sticky. Shape into balls and place onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned on the edges and top.

   More on the cake-y side than in cookie camp. I think these would make excellent morning-0n-the-run bars if pressed into a 8×8 pan and cut into squares.

   

4. Zucchini Cobbler

   July 11, 2011 4:23 pm 38 Comments

   
   In my hometown, Summer didn’t start until Alice’s Fruit Stand opened. Trips to Alice’s on dry, hot California days with my Mom are among the highlights of my childhood food memories. Located just outside of town down a gravel road near the high school, a little white stand with a red roof and a giant orange peach atop was home to fresh from the garden summer produce.

   I remember the dirty ceiling fans and the misters spewing sticky warm water across the foyer; I remember how the counters were littered with crates of cherries, apricots, heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn, and Alice’s infamous loaves of zucchini bread. We never left without ambrosia melon, and pounds upon pounds of summer sqaush, despite the fact that we had it coming out of our ears at home.

   The woman who owned Alice’s (her name was not, surprisingly, Alice) and grew all of the produce nearby was warm, soft, and full of love and light. Wispy gray strands of hair escaped her braid matching her no-fuss, minimalist personality. Her hugs smelled like butter, and her enthusiasm kept people coming back summer after summer. She kept a wicker basket of recipe cards near the cashbox, and as customers paid for their produce she would encourage her renditions for whatever we happened to be buying.

   Nobody left Alice’s without the Zucchini Cobbler pitch. Vegetables for dessert are a hard sell for most people, let alone an eight-year-old like me. “Trust me,” she’d say, “It tastes just like apple cobbler, and you won’t even know the difference.”

   My mom had faith. She always has faith. With some added pressure to alleviate the stockpile of summer squash, we peeled, we chopped, and “cobbler-ed” our zucchini, just as Alice’s had ordered. The result? Perfection. The little card for this recipe remains a keepsake in my Mom’s recipe books.

   I’ve given the original recipe a bit of a makeover with edits to the fat, amount of sugar, and grains. In short, Alice’s version is basically a 1:1:1 ratio of butter, flour, and zucchini. It was good, but… oh boy.

    Zucchini Cobbler

   •  12 cups zucchini, peeled and chopped into quarters
   • 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
   • ¾ cup brown rice syrup (or raw sugar)
   • 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
   • 1 tsp nutmeg

   • 3 cups of gluten free oats, ground to a course flour in a food processor (or organic bakers flour)
   • ¾ cup raw sugar
   • 1 cup raw coconut oil (or cold butter)
   • 1 tsp cinnamon

   

   Preheat the oven to 375’. In large saucepan over medium heat, cook chopped zucchini in the lemon juice for 10-15 minutes. Add brown rice syrup, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and simmer for 1 minute longer.

    

   For the crust: combine oats and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the oats become coarse flour. Pour into a large bowl, and stir in cinnamon. If you’re using coconut, crumble the oil and oat mixture with your hands. If you’re using butter, cut in until mixture resembles course crumbs.

    

   Stir in 1/2 cup of crust into the zucchini mixture. Press 1/2 of remaining crust mixture into greased baking pan, spread zucchini over top, and crumble crust to just cover the zucchini. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

   Bake for 35 minutes. Enjoy à la mode fresh from the oven, or allow to cool and fridge it for at least an hour. When I was a kid I loved it cold, and turns out I still do.

   

5. Oats, meet Figs

   July 14, 2010 4:27 pm Leave a Comment

   I didn’t know how much I loved figs until I impulsively bought a pound of them at the farmers market on Sunday. Figs have made friends with a lot of other ingredients since then, but oats and figs bonded more than the rest. This cookie recipe is healthy, delicious, and a perfect mid-day pick me up. They remind me a little of the classic “Fig Newton” that we all grew up on, but are considerably more sophisticated and wholesome. I snagged the ingredient list of the original “Fig Newton” straight from the Nabisco website:

   Enriched Flour (Wheat flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate {Vitamin B1}Riboflavin {Vitamin B2}Folic Acid)Figs Preserved with Sulfur Dioxide, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Soybean Oil, Whey (from Milk) Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil (Adds a Trivial Amount of Saturated Fat)Salt, Baking Soda, Calcium Lactate, Malic Acid, Soy Lecithin (Emulsifier)Potassium Sorbate Added to Preserve Freshness, Artifical Flavor.

   Let’s get rid of the nasty, and focus on the beautiful and delicate fruit of the season. These are so easy to make, please do, and enjoy!

   • 2/3 cups Real Maple Syrup or Brown Rice Syrup
   • 1/4 cup Olive oil
   • 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
   • 1 1/2 cup Kamut Flour (or any other gluten free flour of choice)
   • 1 cup Rolled oats
   • 1/4 cup Chia seeds
   • 1/4 teaspoon Baking soda
   • 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
   • 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
   • 1 pinch salt
   • 1 splash Almond Milk
   • 6 Raw figs, halved

   Directions:

   1. Mix olive oil, syrup, and vanilla together in a large bowl
   2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, spices, seeds, and salt.
   3. Slowly combine dry ingredients to wet ingredients, the mixture will be on the drier side. Add just a little almond milk.
   4. Let mixture set for 10-15 min while you preheat the oven to 350 and cut the fresh figs in half.
   5. Roll out dough into 12 medium sized balls and press gently to flatten a bit. Set figs atop the cookie platform, sprinkle with a little cinnamon-sugar and bake for 12-14 minutes.
   6. Enjoy and be grateful for this beautiful life!