Baked Oatmeal!

First for something completely unrelated: The Zoo finally called me this morning with a job offer! This means that when the next person inevitably asks, "Have you heard from the zoo yet?" I can give them the "Yes!" that everyone's been waiting for! I have a physical scheduled for Friday, so hopefully it won't be too long after that before I am working!

Now, back to the weekend. Saturday and Sunday were very busy as we celebrated Aunt Doris's birthday. Saturday we went out for lunch with some friends, and on Sunday a few other people came over for cake. My Aunt Barbara was staying with us for the occasion, and I saw it as a great opportunity to break out the Baked Oatmeal recipe from Super Natural Every Day. The recipe is supposed to serve a hearty breakfast for 6, so making it for just 1 seemed absolutely crazy! Knowing that we'd be 3 for breakfast on Sunday, I decided I would put it together for myself and the ladies. I'll admit, I was skeptical. While I often eat oatmeal for breakfast, there's something about the texture that doesn't really appeal to me. This baked oatmeal, however, is wonderfully different than the sometimes soupy bowl of oats that your microwave can produce.

To begin, mix together the dry ingredients: 2 cups old fashioned oatmeal, 1/4 cup toasted walnut pieces, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Prepare your greased 8x8 baking dish: 2 bananas, sliced 1/2 inch thick make the bottom layer and 2/3 to 3/4 cup blueberries scattered on top of the banana. You then spread the oat mixture over the fruit, making a nice even layer. I found that the sugar and cinnamon were at the bottom of the bowl, and the oats on top, so I did my best to make sure that I spread everything evenly instead of dumping cinnamon and sugar on one side of the dish and oats on the other. The oat mixture is then topped with about 1/2 cup of blueberries and 1/4 cup toasted walnut pieces.You then pour over the liquid.

The liquid mix is 2 cups milk, 1 egg, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and 1/5 teaspoons melted butter. Heidi's recipe says to give the dish a bang on the counter to make sure the milk gets into all the little nooks and crannies. While I wasn't sure this would help, it seemed to, as a few bubbles did escape from the oats when I did my counter tap.

Then the whole concoction gets baked at 375 F for 35 to 45 minutes--mine went closer to 45.

 

Serve it up in individual bowls and enjoy! I'm very happy to say this one was a success for me. When I first told Aunt Doris I wanted to make baked oatmeal her eyes bugged out a little as she looked at me in what appeared to be disbelief. Really, she had no idea what she was in for. When the oatmeal she was served was sweet and embellished with plenty of fruit, it became clear that this wasn't the plain bowl of oatmeal that she'd been expecting. This was oatmeal done right!

Zucchini Pasta

Tonight I made a delicious bowl of pasta for myself. I picked up a couple of zucchini on sale at Henry's, intent on coming up with something to do with them. In trying to think a little more outside the box than stir fry I came across a perfect recipe in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day. The Summer Linguine recipe (p. 137) yielded inspiration for my take on summer squash-laden pasta. According to Heidi's notes on her recipe, it was the first to be set aside for the cookbook, and I can kind of see why. With just a few ingredients, the usually bland zucchini becomes a good companion for a bowl of pasta noodles. I only had about half of the ingredients that the original recipe called for, so I improvised with some of my own additions, and made it in a much smaller portion since I was only cooking for one.

The fun begins with grating a small-medium zucchini into a colander and sprinkling it with salt so it'll release some of its moisture. You let it drain for at least 10 minutes, which is about as long as boiling the water for the pasta takes, so things work out perfectly. Every few minutes I'd give the grated zucchini a squish with a fork to press some water out.

Rummaging through the kitchen produced a package of pretty little angel hair nests. The one I used tonight contained beet, giving it a nice pink color when cooked. This is only about 1 ounce of noodles.

Shortly before putting the pasta in the boiling water that I had prepared for it I sauteed a thinly sliced mushroom. When the mushroom was pretty well cooked, I added the shredded zucchini and a little bit of oil. This mix needs to cook until the zucchini is tender, which doesn't take too long. When it was getting close to done I dropped the pasta into the boiling water--it only took 2 minutes to cook.

And voila, the finished product! After draining the pasta I added it to the pan that the zucchini had been cooking in, mixed everything together, and added a little bit of butter. Once it was in my bowl I topped the pasta with a sprinkle of caramelized onions left over from this morning and some feta cheese. It was so good!

Zucchini Pasta

1 small-medium zucchini, grated

1 tsp salt

1 mushroom, halved and thinly sliced.

oil as needed

1 ounce angel hair pasta

butter

feta cheese

1. Begin by grating the zucchini into a colander. Sprinkle with salt and allow to drain for 10+ minutes, pressing moisture out.

2. Bring water to a boil, heat up a pan to saute mushroom in.

3. Cook mushroom to desired tenderness on medium heat, then add shredded zucchini and 1 tsp oil to pan.

4. A couple of minutes into the zucchini cooking, add angel hair pasta to boiling water. If using a thicker pasta, plan accordingly so that your pasta is finished cooking before zucchini is tender.

5. When pasta is al dente, drain and add to pan with zucchini. Mix everything together, adding a little bit of butter if desired.

6. Transfer to serving bowl, top with feta cheese.