Fall is finally here!

It is my favorite time of year in Northern California! The mornings are cool, crisp, and sometimes foggy. The afternoons are still warm and clinging to the last bits of summer's heat. The leaves are beginning to turn colors, and the houses in our neighborhood are decorated with pumpkins in anticipation of Halloween. It's time for jeans, and boots, and light weight sweaters. It's time for soups, and apples, and the flavors of pumpkin pie spices.

This weekend I tried out a new baked oatmeal recipe. There are three reasons I love this recipe, (1) you make it the night before and bake it in the morning, (2) the house smells spicy and delicious when it is baking, and (3) it has a crispy sugary caramely topping like creme brûlée! Plus it's heart healthy oats! Can't go wrong with that!

INGREDIENTS:

2 eggs

1/4 cup raw honey

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 can pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 small apple, grated

1 1/4 cups coconut milk

3 cups old-fashioned oats

brown sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1) Grease a square baking pan. I like to use my Anchor Hocking 9 x 9 covered glass casserole dish.

2) In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients in order except the brown sugar until thoroughly combined.

3) Poor mixture in your baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

4) In the morning, pull it out of the fridge and preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

5) Bake for 25 -30 minutes or until light golden brown. Remove from oven, sprinkle brown sugar evenly over top of the oatmeal and place back in the oven under the broiler. Broil for one minute, or until sugar melts and begins to caramelize.

6) We like it served warm with a drizzle of more coconut milk. And it reheats in the microwave beautifully! 

Crunchy Granola!

A few weeks ago I made a double batch of granola and I honestly remember blogging about it, but either it wasn't saved or I dreamt it. I even told a friend who tried it a few days ago that the recipe was posted on my blog. And guess what?!? She couldn't find it. And neither could I. So... ANYWHO!! Here it is now!

This is truthfully the best granola - and not because I made it.  It has the right balance. It is a lovely concoction of toasty, salty, sweetness that is quite addicting. We've been eating it sprinkled on Greek yogurt, as a topping with fresh fruit on hot oatmeal, in a big bowl with milk, or just as a snack straight out of the jar. My husband says this is the best batch yet and THIS time I actually wrote down the recipe! Yay me!

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups old fashioned oats

1 cup slivered Almonds 

1 cup Pecan pieces  

1/2 sesame seeds (flax seeds would be good too!)

3/4 cup unsweetened Coconut 

1 tsp salt  Kosher salt

1 tsp Cinnamon  

 1 cup Honey 

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/3 cup Peanut butter

DIRECTIONS:

1) Preheat oven to 300* and lightly grease a deep 9 x 13 baking dish.

2) Mix all the dry ingredients - oats, nuts, coconut, seeds, salt, spices -  in a LARGE bowl.

3) In a separate bowl mix the honey oil, and peanut butter until combined.  4) Pour over the dry ingredients and stir until everything is coated and spread evenly in your prepared baking pan.

5) Bake for a total of 50 - 55 minutes, stir at 25 minutes, and again at 40. You'll know it's done when it is a lovely golden brown and  smells heavenly!

NOTE: The granola WILL NOT be crunchy at first. Let it cool and harden completely in the pan. Then transfer & store in an airtight container.

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Shhh! They are good for you!

My cousin brought me three zucchini from her garden. 3 GIANT foot long baseball bat thick zucchini!! What to do? What to do? Muffins!! And how about Chocolate in them too?!? YES!!

The first thing I did was grate all of the zucchini. I discovered through looking at over a dozen recipes that you can freeze grated zucchini to use at another time. I ended up with almost 12 cups grated zucchini! Woohoo!!

I mentioned in previous posts that I've been trying cut down on the amount of refined and processed foods we eat. And I am moving our family towards a more gluten free diet (I'm not quite ready to give up bread though!)  So I did an online search and looked at recipe after recipe. I found a bunch of great recipes, but most were complicated or had unusual ingredients. Here is the recipe I ended up creating based on what I have in the house:

Cocolicious Zucchini Muffins
DRY INGREDIENTS:

1 cup old fashioned oats

1 cup almond meal

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp cinnamon 

1 Tbsp cocoa powder

WET INGREDIENTS:

2 cups shredded zucchini (squeezed dry)

3 Tbsp flax meal + 9 Tbsp water (or 3 eggs)

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup raw honey (or use agave if you are looking to make these vegan)

Non- stick cooking spray

Chocolate chips (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1) Preheat oven to 350* and grease your muffin tin (makes 12 muffins)

2) In a food processor, pulse oats & almond meal until a fine flour is achieved.

3) In a medium sized bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients making sure there are no lumps & everything is combined. Set aside.

4) In a large bowl, combine all the wet ingredients. Then stir in the dry.

5) Divide the batter evenly to achieve 12 muffins. The cups will be 2/3 to 3/4 full.

6) Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted cones out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.

And here are the coco zucchini muffins in all their dense cocoa good for you tasty glory. You'll notice I decided to pile some up with chocolate chips - I put them on right out of the oven so that they are nice and gooey. Try them, I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU! 

Healthy green breakfast...

I'm kind of obsessed with two things right now. Spinach and dates. Both are crazy nutritious! Go ahead, Google the nutrition facts! Crazy good for you, right?

Here is a breakfast smoothie that showcases both. And boy is it TASTY and filling! My picky 4 year old sucked it down! This makes 2 generous adult sized smoothies or in my case, 1 adult smoothie and 2 kiddo smoothies.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup cold cooked oatmeal (I had some left over from yesterday's breakfast)
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 cup date paste (recipe)
1 cup frozen strawberries
2 handfuls baby spinach

Blend until combined and smooth... This is a smoothie after all ;-)  Enjoy!

Please let me know what you think! Do you have a favorite breakfast smoothie? Post it in the comments below, I'd love to try it!

Steel Cut Overnight Oats!

Ok, confession time... I love canning jars! and I like anything that saves me from thinking too hard before I've consumed my morning cup of coffee. So what could be better than this recipe?!?!!

These can be eaten cold, straight from the jar, but I prefer them hot. They can also me made several days in advance & make a fast, healthy breakfast! Below is the basic recipe. You can change it up to suit your tastes and what you have on hand- use regular milk instead of coconut milk, flavored yogurt, rolled oats instead of steel cut, flax seed meal instead of chia seeds... And you can stir in anything that floats your boat... Nut butters, honey or jam instead of date paste, chocolate chips, dried fruit... The possibilities are endless! I hope you'll try it and let me know what you think!

STEEL CUT OVERNIGHT OATS
(Single serving)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup steel cut oats
1/4 plain NF Greek yogurt
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 T. chia seeds

Toppings:
1 T. date paste
1 T. Unsweetened shredded coconut
1 T. papitas
1/2 cup fresh blackberries

1) Measure oats, yogurt, coconut milk, & chia seeds into your container.

2) Stir to combine. Pop the lid on and refrigerate overnight.

3) In the morning, give the oats a stir and pop the jar into the microwave for approximately 90 seconds.

4) Stir in your toppings, and enjoy! How easy is that?

Doesn't this look yummy?