Are you sitting down? Because I have some news that just might change your life. I think it may have changed mine. Or at least my mornings. And that’s something.
All this time I thought that granola was something you made in Very Large Batches, to portion out into glass jars and ziplock bags for storage. Turns out you can make a quick batch in a skillet, just like jam, and it takes approximately five minutes. You can make enough to last the week, or a day if you have lots of granola lovers in your house, and you can eat it warm, straight from the pan. And this granola I’m talking about? Costs hardly anything. And it’s fantastic.
I wouldn’t have thought of it. But today I grabbed a magazine off the stack in the corner – the one almost as tall as me that Mike warns one day will just suddenly wind up in recycling – and flipped through it, and saw this. I ditched some of the butter (the granola I typically make doesn’t even have any) and added some hemp seeds, just because I had them. Theoretically you could make this with any combination of oats, nuts and seeds, and even add raisins or other dried fruit at the end, just like I did. But the plain old combination of oats and seeds with a handful of raisins at the end was surprisingly yummy.
So I made this – I made granola – while they boys sat at the kitchen table doing whatever it is they do, and my granola from scratch was done faster than a pot of oatmeal would have been. See? Totally life (or at least breakfast) changing.
Quick Skillet Granola
adapted from the June 2001 issue of Gourmet
1 cup old-fashioned (large flake) oats
1/4 cup sesame seeds, and/or hemp seeds, and/or flax seeds
1 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. honey or golden syrup (such as Roger’s or Lyle’s)
a shake of cinnamon
a pinch of salt (optional)
a handful of raisins or dried fruit (optional)
Put everything into a large, heavy skillet (cast iron is perfect) set over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes, or until the granola is well coated and golden. Set aside to cool and stir in raisins or dried fruit.
I was going to wait for fall to bring back Free Stuff Fridays with a flourish, but this granola calls for the brand new cast iron pan I bought just to give away to one of you. If you hang around here on a semi-regular basis you know what a fan I am of cast iron, and I think everyone should have one on their stovetop. This is a true cast iron, not a newfangled pre-seasoned one, which are far better if you can commit that little bit of extra effort to get it going. I’ll walk you through it. I sense a cast iron PSA coming up…
I also just can’t wait to hear what you’ve all been cooking. Don’t limit your answers to dinner last night (unless it was something particularly worthy of reporting) – what has been the most delicious thing you’ve eaten over the summer? Where have you found inspiration? What else is up in your world? As always I’ll make a random draw from all the comments next Tuesday.
August 27 2010 | breakfast | 138 Comments »
It’s one of those things you come across and can’t rightly not make. It’s also the sort of thing a kitchenookful of 5-7 year old boys might prompt you to make early on a Saturday morning. They’re my excuse.
Considering the ratio of flour to oil it makes sense that these would be insanely great. (But I use canola oil, which is the lowest in saturated fat and mostly heart-healthy mono and polyunsaturated fat, with omega 3s, even.) I did knock it down to 1/4 cup, which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but that one-and-a-third tablespoons of oil is about 160 calories and 18 grams of fat, so why not? They were still pretty great. And I love that I don’t have to separate the eggs and beat the whites. Who has the gumption for that first thing in the morning?
Waffles of Insane Greatness
Adapted from Food Network by way of Orangette.
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the milk, oil, egg and vanilla and mix well. Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.
Preheat a waffle iron but don’t spray it with nonstick spray; the oil in the batter will allow the waffle to release easily. Cook them according to the waffle maker’s directions, and serve warm. Makes about 6 waffles.
August 22 2010 | breakfast | 13 Comments »
Remember that little basket of blackberries that came from Nanoose Bay? I managed to hold a few back to bake into scones this morning. Yes, I thought it was a good idea too.
Any fresh (or frozen – don’t thaw them) berry would work here – blackberries are probably the most fragile, coming apart into their individual drupelets as you stir them into thick batter – but I love them, and that they remind me of our years living in Vancouver, where blackberries were free for the picking everywhere. I looked forward to those late August days of blackberry hunting like almost no other, and would suit up in long sleeves (I’d have worn chain mail if I had access to some) and gardening gloves with their fingertips cut off, and drag Mike along with pails, although he was nowhere near as enthusiastic as I. So I don’t mind their frailty – swaths of purple are most welcome in my scones. I did try to add them gingerly, tipping them in, then stirring only once or twice with my spatula, then gathering up spoonfuls with the help of my fingers to drop onto the buttered baking sheets. They don’t have to be all the way inside – as long as they’re hanging on, the dough will bake around them a bit. They look good that way, too.
Lemon Blackberry Drop Scones
You don’t need lemon for these – they’d be as delicious without – we just happened to have a lemon sitting on the countertop that needed using before we leave tomorrow.
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup butter, cut into pieces
grated zest of a lemon (optional)
1 large egg
3/4 cup (ish) milk
a big handful of berries (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries…)
coarse sugar, for sprinkling (optional)
Preheat oven to 425F. In a bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the butter and blend it with a fork, whisk, pastry blender or your fingers (or do it all in the food processor, if you have one), leaving some lumps no bigger than a pea.
Crack the egg into a measuring cup and add milk to make it a cup. Stir it together with a fork and add to the flour mixture; stir with a spatula until just barely combined. Add the berries and stir a couple more times, then drop the sticky dough in large spoonfuls onto a buttered or parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar, if you like.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or less if you made small scones, until golden. Makes 6 good-sized scones.
One Year Ago: Blueberry Galette
Over at Family Kitchen: Nanking Cherry Lemonade
August 02 2010 | bread and breakfast | 9 Comments »
The power of suggestion is strong with me. Plant an idea and it sits there, taking up space that could very well be used for something far more useful, until I do something with it. Case in point: the St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake.
All the cool kids are making it. It was, in fact, on my decades-old to-make list, but the version I had utilized a sugary, buttery goo poured over a particular brand of (stale) packaged coffee cakes that aren’t available in Canada. Which is why it sat there for eons on my to-make list. Now most of the versions making the rounds are made entirely from scratch, with either a cake or sweet yeasted bread base, but the crazy high butter-sugar content kept me from making it. Mostly out of fear for my thighs.
But the large-batch amalgamation of butter, sugar and flour (exactly the sort of thing that makes me want to reorganize my life so that I can be a professional athlete or mountain climber or someone who needs to pack as many calories into a day as possible in order to keep up with my high calorie output) is a perfectly suitable thing to make when you have 9 people under one roof, including teenagers and ravenous boys who have spent the bulk of their day surfing, running, kayaking and jumping in the waves. Also – there is sufficient competition to keep me from eating the lion’s share of it myself.
Still – it seemed too plain – too straight-up – on its own, like something was missing between the butter-sugar-egg-flour base and (altogether different) butter-sugar-egg-flour topping. I figured it would make the perfect ballast to tart, juicy fruit like plums, which cut nicely through the richness of butter and sugar. (Of which, by the way, I cut the quantities down a bit.)
As I puttered around making it, everyone asked what it was going to be. To tell them it was a coffee cake seemed too meh – and in fact it isn’t really a cake at all, with a yeasted, sweetbreadlike base, but then again it can’t really be labeled bread, as it’s cut into wedges and eaten much more like a cake than any sort of loaf. I suppose it should retain its rightful name – St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake – but with the streamlining and the layer of tart fruit that transformed it into something far more summery, the barefooted sandy-haired kids helping me arrange wedges of plum on the base before it went into the oven, who then ate it warm, straight from the pan, before heading out to fish from the rowboat, it didn’t seem right to be named for a city in Missouri. This cake belongs in Tofino.
I imagine it would go just as well with juicy apricots or sour cherries, and as she stood at the counter eating a wedge, my mom said, “this seems like it needs to have rhubarb in it.”
Tofino Gooey Plum Butter Cake
adapted from a few sources (with thanks)
Cake:
3 Tbsp. milk
1 3/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
3 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
Topping:
3-6 plums, thickly sliced
3 Tbsp. honey, light corn syrup or maple syrup
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large egg
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Make the cake dough: In a small bowl, mix milk with 2 tablespoons hot water (this will make the lot lukewarm – easier, I think, than bringing your milk to room temperature); stir in the yeast and let it sit until it foams a bit.
Beat together the butter, sugar and salt, then beat in the egg. Add flour and milk mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Stir until you have a sticky dough, then turn it out onto the countertop (resist the urge to add more flour) and knead for a few minutes, until soft and smooth.
Pat, press, stretch and nudge the dough into a buttered baking dish that is around 9″x13″ and at least 2 inches deep. Cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel, and let it rise while you go to the beach – 2-3 hours.
Preheat oven to 350F. Lay the slices of plum in rows over the surface of the dough, which really won’t have risen that much. In a small bowl, stir the honey, 2 tablespoons water and the vanilla together with a fork. In a larger bowl beat the butter, sugar and salt until smooth and light, then beat in the egg. Add half the flour, then the honey mixture, then the rest of the flour, scraping down sides of bowl between each addition and stirring just until blended.
Spoon the topping in large dollops over the plums and gently spread overtop with a spatula. Bake for about an hour, until golden; it will still be slightly soft (gooey) in the middle. Cool completely before serving – really, do – plums hold onto their heat and you won’t be able to taste it properly until it’s cooled. Serves 10-12.
July 26 2010 | breakfast and cake | 9 Comments »
Just thought I’d pop in for a quick hello, and offer you a muffin.
I’m still determined to plow through the ridiculous excess of food stacked three layers deep on my shelves. Did I know I had Red River cereal back there? I did not. Nor did I realize I never finished that box of All Bran that I purchased in an impulsive act of grown-up health-consciousness, then ate maybe three bowls of. And if you’ve been hanging around here a lot, you may know that I hate to waste stuff. Especially food.
And so I snooped around at a few cereal-based recipes, and looked up Sue’s not-a-crap-muffin recipe, and made these, and they turned out really well. I imagine they’d work out just fine using any grainy cereal-turned-mush. I added a peach, cut into chunks; you could add blueberries, or raspberries, or fresh apricots. They aren’t too hard-core, in comparison to others in the realm of bran muffins – not overly grainy in the sort of way that makes it seem like it might have come out of a horse.
Fresh Peach Bran Muffins
2 cups All Bran cereal
1 3/4 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt, thinned with milk
1/2 cup sugar (white or brown)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
pinch salt
1 peach, chopped
In a large bowl stir together the cereal and buttermilk; let stand for 10 minutes, until soft. Preheat the oven to 375F.
Stir the sugar, oil and egg into the bran mixture. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and stir until almost combined; add the peach and stir just until blended.
Divide the batter among 12 muffin cups that have been lined with paper liners or sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 25 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch. Makes a dozen muffins.
One Year Ago: Roasted Plum Ice Cream and Mascarpone Ice Cream with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
July 12 2010 | bread and breakfast | 10 Comments »
