Leftover Oatmeal Bread

I've played around with several recipes that use up leftover oatmeal, googled it more times than I care to think about, and yet, the whole time I had sitting in my old recipe box the perfect oatmeal bread recipe. I'm pretty sure I got it at some food storage/self-reliance night at church, and apparently it took me more than a decade to actually try the recipe out. First go at it was back in December (and it was a success), but I found it again because I had unearthed in the freezer some leftover oat groats with apples that - let's face it - were never going to be consumed in their original form again.

This recipe makes a nice, fluffy bread and if your oatmeal is already pre-sweetened, you can just cut down on the honey/molasses in the recipe.

Oatmeal Bread (provenance unknown)
Makes 2 loaves

 1/2 cup warm water
2 tbs. dry yeast
3/4 cup water, boiling
3/4 cup rolled oats [or, just 1 1/2 cups of cooked oatmeal]
1 cup buttermilk [or fake buttermilk - i.e. 1 scant cup milk with 1 tbs lemon juice or vinegar]
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey or molasses [I used golden syrup, 'cause that's what they have here in South Africa]
2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbs salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 - 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

In small bowl, stir yeast into 1/2 cup warm water; allow to stand until yeast dissolves and bubbles up (also known as proofing). In medium saucepan bring 3/4 cup water to boiling, stir in oatmeal and cook several minutes (or dig your leftover oatmeal out of the fridge). Remove from heat; add buttermilk, oil, and honey or molasses (in case you're wondering, I did not re-heat my oatmeal and it turned out okay).
Stir flour, salt, and soda into a large mixing bowl. Add yeast mixture and oats mixture and beat with wire whip or spoon (I used my hand mixer with beaters); let stand 65 minutes. Gradually add enough of remaining flour until dough is stiff enough for kneading. Turn out onto floured surface and knead for 8 to 10 minutes or until a soft, elastic ball form. Place dough in clean greased bowl, cover and let rise until double. Punch down dough, divide into two portions, cover and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
Form into loaves and place in greased 8x4 in pans. Cover and let rise until double again. Bake at 350 (or 375 - the recipe says somewhere in that range) for 45 to 50 minutes or until done. Remove from oven and turn out to cool on wire rack.

Thyme

New and Improved Squash Tea Bread

I just had an extreme yumminess moment. I made some Squash Tea Bread using pumpkin puree that I made up last fall and needed to use up. I used one of my favorite recipes from EatingWell. I made one big change though. Since I was out of honey, I used molasses. It was divine. Maybe it's because I'm pregnant (what, didn't I mention that before?), but I'm still reeling from it. So I thought I'd share. So follow the link, try the recipe with any squash puree that you like, and try it with molasses or honey. YUM!


http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/squash_tea_bread.html

Also, just a side note here, I doubled the recipe and used 2 eggs since that's all that I had and it turned out fine. I didn't use a plain ol' egg white like they ask for.

Rosemary

Pumpkin Pear Carrot Bread

I am a huge fan of quick breads. I think they're a great way to use up certain types of fruits and veggies that are going bad, they're generally pretty healthy, and yet they're just a touch sweet and, well, they're bread. So today we had half a can of pureed pumpkin, 3/4 of a pear that my son wasn't going to finish, and some carrots that are getting past their prime. And since we were off to a birthday party with no present, we wanted to have some kind of offering.

So, keeping in mind that all of these measurements are estimates (I don't think I actually measured anything), here goes:

8 oz canned pumpkin
3/4 c. grated carrots
1/2 c. grated pear (apple would work great too)
1 cup nonfat plain yogurt (vanilla works good, too)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg
walnuts

Stir it all together, put in two bread pans, bake at 350F for 50 minutes or so. Eat plain or with butter. You could also toss in craisins or raisins if you want.

-Thyme

Early Easter Dinner

Mint's parents are in town so we decided to have an Easter dinner this week instead of next week.

Grilled Pork Loin


Marinated in Mint's Mystery Marinade (I think this time he used grape juice, white vinegar, rosemary, basil, crushed garlic, kosher salt, black pepper, soy sauce) and then grilled to perfection on our little grill outside. It tasted way better than it looked. That's what was left after we ate our fill.

Fruit Salad


Chopped strawberries, apples, and tangelo segments with some plain yogurt and a little bit of vanilla extract.

Challah

From smittenkitchen (that's flax seeds on it)

Creamy Lemon Squares


From The Pioneer Woman. I didn't have a lemon, though. So I used orange zest, and about half lemon and half orange juice.


-Thyme

Sweet Potatoes: From moderate failure to triumphant success

So I, like most everyone, decided to make a sweet potato dish for my thanksgiving dinner last week. And, trying to be clever and make stuff up ahead of time, decided to peel, slice, coat in olive oil, and roast the sweet potatoes on Wednesday, toss it together into a casserole that night, and basically just have to heat it up on Thursday. Which I did. After slicing and roasting them for an hour or so, I tossed in some brown sugar and let them sit until I got around to them again. At which point, I added a bit of orange juice and nutmeg and tossed the potatoes again. I then made a topping with chopped walnuts, a bit of flour, some cinnamon and nutmeg, and poured some of the orange juice/olive oil liquid from the potatoes in with it, and then sprinkled all that on in a layer over the sweet potatoes. Put it in the oven with the turkey when there was about an hour or so left before lunch and then was served with dinner. Tasted great...except...the consistency of most of the sweet potatoes was a bit chewier than I would like. Only a few were actually soft, and I have no real words to describe how off they were. Everyone took a few polite bites, but they were not exactly the star of the meal.

Faced with a nearly full pan of sweet potato "casserole" I decided to get inventive with my leftovers. I tossed the potatoes (it was generally easy to separate out the nuts) into a food processor and pureed them as best I could. Then I used it to make sweet potato bread. I generally followed the recipe for pumpkin bread in the Betty Crocker cookbook, leaving out most of the spices (since the potatoes were already flavored), and trying to balance out the liquid to flour ratio. One loaf disappeared that very night and the other one made it to work but was gone by the end of the day. So I'd say that whether or not your sweet potatoes turn out right, it's pretty easy to turn your sweet potato casserole into sweet potato bread - nuts and all.

Thyme