Soaking and Drying Oats

I soak and then dry my rolled oats for making granola bars like these here and granola breakfast cereal. Read here for more info on why I like to soak my oats.

I don't have a dehydrator so I use my oven. I can't do huge batches because to dry the oats they have to be spread on one layer like the picture. I sometimes do two or three cookie sheets but I learned the hard way never to over populate the cookie sheet. Here is the process.

1 cup oats
2 tablespoons yogurt or lemon juice
2 cups water
butter for cookie sheet
salt to taste

Pour the oats, yogurt (or lemon juice), and water in a bowl. Cover and let sit on the countertop overnight. Lightly butter a cookie sheet and preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Drain the oats in a colander and run water over them. I mix them around with my fingers to rinse off the yogurt. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet and lightly salt. Put in the oven for an hour or until the oats are dry. Mix them around and fold them over halfway through the drying time. Now they're ready for bars or granola cereal.

Egg Muffins, just eggs!

I serve eggs about every third morning. Sometimes I like to make them a little different. Here I bake them in a muffin pan. I used a mini-muffin pan but the big ones work well too. It's as easy as scrambling eggs. Now as you can see from the picture, I wouldn't serve these to Martha Stewart. They sunk a bit in the middle (maybe I could fill the middle with something and then serve them to Martha). Anyway, these are for families not restaurant chefs. The only ingredient in these muffins is eggs. Imagine that! The idea is 1 egg per muffin hole or 1/2 egg per mini-muffin hole. So, that means eight eggs per muffin tin. If I have cheese, scallions, or herbs on hand I'll throw them into the egg mixture sometimes.

butter for muffin holes
8 eggs
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter muffin tin and put a little bit of butter on the bottom of every hole. Stick muffin tin in the oven to melt the butter before adding the eggs. Beat eight eggs in a bowl or mixer and season with salt and pepper. I get the feeling that the more I beat the eggs, the better they rise. I add other ingredients (cheese) at this point if I am feeling adventurous. Cook at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Eat hot or cold.

Crepes

In France crepes are a dessert, but I love them for breakfast. Believe it or not, they are easier to make than pancakes. I have no problem eating these without any maple syrup. For whatever reason, I really need maple syrup with my pancakes. Contrary to the bread-like taste of pancakes, crepes are light and airy. I love to roll them up into a cylinder and eat them with my hands. And of course Mikey loves them. He uses the two handed shovel to get them into his mouth quickly.

(enough for two adults and one 22 month old; however we do fight over the last one)
1 egg
1 1/4 cup milk
1 cup flour (spelt or whole wheat)

Butter a fry pan. A stainless steel one works best. I didn't like the results with a non-stick nor an iron skillet. Mix egg, milk and flour into a bowl. Pour batter into the fry pan and swish around to the edges. If the dough doesn't drip or move easily and the crepe is cooking more like a pancake, add a little more milk. After one or two minutes, flip the crepe. Cook for another minute until crisp and move to a 200 degree oven to keep warm while the others cook. Serve the crepes as is or with butter, jam, bananas, Nutella, honey, maple syrup, or anything else the strikes your fancy.

Granola: the dirt on granola

Mikey loves granola so much that I have to spell it when it comes up in conversation. Unfortunately, granola is unhealthy for some of the same reasons that Cheerios is unhealthy. Read my post about Cheerios here. Granola is a little better than Cheerios because the grains are not puffed; however, a typical granola that you buy at the store is only subject to dry heat. Granola in the bulk bins at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco are steamed. So, the grains are absorbing some water.

Eating grains made with only dry heat makes them extremely hard to digest. If I give Mikey too many foods that tax his digestive system, he is more likely to have health issues later in life. It is best to soak grains before eating them. Read about soaking oatmeal here and flour here. One of my next goals is to make my own granola; although now that I know that the granola at Rainbow is steamed, I am not sure it's worth the effort. I'll of course post when I do. Until then, I still feed Mikey granola about once or twice a week because I am soaking his oatmeal, rice, and whole wheat flour the other days. Plus, I love to watch him chow down on the stuff, it's so cute!

Try these homemade granola bars!

Pancakes: not just for Sunday brunch!

I use this healthy recipe for making pancakes and feel no guilt feeding Mikey these cakes more than once a week. Soaking the whole wheat pastry flour in yogurt is similar to making bread with yeast. The yogurt acts as a leavener by reacting with the baking soda to release carbon dioxide which rises the dough. If I use baking soda with yogurt or another biological leavener, I don't need to use baking powder. Baking powder can contain sodium aluminum phosphate and other chemicals. For example, Bisquick uses chemicals like sodium aluminum phosphate and monocalcium phosphate to rise the dough. Sodium aluminum phosphate gets absorbed by the brain and has been linked to Alzheimer's Disease. Yogurt and other biological leaveners are a safer choice.

Based on the Nourishing Traditions pancake recipe.
Mix and soak overnight on the counter
2 cups whole wheat pastry dough
2 cups whole milk yogurt

In the morning, mix into dough
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup water or a little more or less. The water is used to thin the dough to a desired consistency.

These pancakes keep Mikey full until lunch because they aren't made with bleached white flour, which is sugar with a toxin on top. Bisquick uses bleached white flour. If you must use white flour, buy unbleached. I make pancakes with whole wheat pastry flour or spelt because Mikey needs a substantial breakfast not just a sugar rush.

Use this recipe and cook pancakes any day of the week!

Overnight Oatmeal: eat it the old fashion way!

Soaking Mikey's oatmeal is another huge change in the way that I prepare food. I now soak the morning's oatmeal the night before. This method was the standard way of preparing all grains during my great grandmother's era. Soaking grains, like I soak beans today, is a more healthy way to prepare them. I guess that in our fast paced world this tradition got lost.

Grains contain phytic acid that blocks the absorption of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron, and zinc. By soaking Mikey's oats overnight, I am neutralizing the phytic acid. Now with the phytic acid out of play, Mikey's body (and mine and my husband's!) can benefit from the nutrients in rolled oats! (Nourishing Traditions )

For a family of three (2 adults, 1 child):

2 cups rolled oats
3 cups warm water for soaking, plus 1 1/2 cups for cooking
4 tablespoons yogurt or lemon juice
dash of salt

The night before I want oatmeal, I put the oats in the pot that I'll use for cooking them. Then I add 3 cups water plus the yogurt or lemon juice for sprouting the oats. Cover and soak overnight on the counter top.

The next morning, I rinse and drain the oats in a colander. Then I dump them back into the pot and add 1 1/2 cups water. Leave the pot uncovered and bring the water and oats to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat to the lowest simmer possible until the water is absorbed, about 10 minutes.

To cool Mikey's oatmeal, I add a little milk. Milk also provides the fat that the body uses to absorb the oatmeal's nutrients. I also like to add maple syrup and mashed bananas to sweeten it up a bit.

I buy my oats and maple syrup from the bulk section at Rainbow Grocery so there is no waste with these items. I refill the same container over and over again.

I tried this recipe thinking that I wouldn't do it all the time, but now soaking oats is part of my routine and the oatmeal is so much better!

Cheerios: I'm all puffed up about cereal

Since Cheerios are a whole wheat cereal, I would think that they are fine to feed to our little ones. However, I have come to learn from a fabulous book, Nourishing Traditions, that the problem is the puff! Yes! I never thought to consider exactly the affects of the process of getting Cheerios to look the way that they do.

Cheerios are formed at high pressure and temperatures. This process is called the extrusion process. It destroys many valuable nutrients in grains, causes fragile oils to become rancid, and renders certain proteins toxic (Nourishing Traditions).

Beware of puffed cereal; they may look good but they aren't as nutritious as oatmeal, eggs, whole wheat or spelt pancakes, oat bran muffins, and other favorite breakfast foods.

Easy Oat Bran Muffins: they make super snacks!

Finding a healthful snack can be tough. For me, giving my child white cheddar corn puffs, Goldfish, and Graham Crackers is out of the question. Fresh fruit, dried fruit, slices of bread and cheese are quick and easy snacks, but what if I want to give Mikey something more substantial? These oat bran muffins are the perfect answer.

These muffins are a great "on the go" snack too. I can even eat one while pushing the stroller! Just recently, Mikey and I were taking a walk - he munching on a muffin in the stroller, and me munching on a muffin while pushing him. A man passed us on the sidewalk and said, "Hmmm! That muffin looks good!"

(P.S. I am a huge advocate of eating while stationary. It's only infrequently that I feed Mikey a snack while pushing the stroller.)

These muffins have no refined white sugar. For sweetener, they contain 1/2 cup of all natural honey and 1/3 cup of molasses. I can't believe how easy they are to make and how moist and yummy they turned out!

I used spelt flour in this recipe instead of whole wheat flour. Spelt has twice as much protein and fiber as whole wheat and is the only grain that contains an immune system stimulate called mucopolysaccharides. Read more about why I am trying to balance out my family's wheat consumption here and here.

This recipe is a variation of Ruth Yaron's Easy Bran Muffins (p.327):

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix these dry ingredients in a large bowl:

2 cups spelt flour
1 cup oat bran
2 tablespoons baking powder
Dash of salt

In a separate bowl, beat together these wet ingredients:
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup blackstrap molasses

Combine wet and dry ingredients. Mix in a handful of raisins. Pour into 8 greased or lined muffin tins until 3/4 full and bake 15 minutes, until nicely browned.

What is blackstrap molasses? It's a sweetener that's actually good for you! Read more about it here.

I used to blindly follow recipes without knowing what each ingredient is doing for my body or the recipe. In this recipe, what is the role of the baking powder? It makes these muffins rise without yeast. To learn more about how baking powder works, read here.