Leftover Soaked Morning Oats

Frying up in some coconut oil.  Baby Brother has his
own cast iron pan and silicone spatula to avoid cross-contamination

A bowl of hot oatmeal is a favorite breakfast in my house.  While we prefer it on colder mornings, it is still enjoyed on warmer days.  Are there even "colder" mornings in Houston?  It's all relative coming from Toronto and being from New England! Do you ever have any leftover porridge?  Would you like to turn that leftover porridge into oatmeal cakes without much effort?  I know that you don't ever want to throw out any of your leftover overnight soaked oats!  Here is a trick: stir in a tablespoon or so of coconut oil into your leftovers and leave in fridge.  When the oats cool down in the fridge you can cook up some oatmeal "cakes" since the coconut oil will solidify when cold.  Then it's easy to roll into balls and flatten in a cast iron pan.  Baby Brother is a big fan, at least for now; he ate 3 whole cakes with a big smile the first time I made them.  No other flavors were needed to be devoured, the coconut gives the perfect sweetness.  If there are leftovers for me, I sprinkle some cinnamon on top.  I love such simple, warming breakfasts and snacks.  Try it, tell me what you think!  You can also blend up the leftover oats with some coconut milk and spices and make a yummy cold, non-dairy oat pudding.  Do you soak your oats overnight?  Check out how and why to soak oats and make oatcakes here.  This blog post came to the rescue as I was scratching my head about how to continue to serve oats as a new and interesting food for my Baby Brother.  

While they don't necesarily brown up for me at this point,
I did get a crisp "chip" which Baby Brother adored.

Carrot Cake Overnight Soaked Oatcakes.  Baby Brother ate 3 today
for morning snack.  That's homemade coconut milk with "boo berries"
Baby Brother likes to play with his coconut milk rather than
actually drink it.

Oatmeal Rusks

We recently introduced Baby Brother to oatmeal: "hello, Baby Brother, please be able to eat me without a reaction!"  We started this introduction process with a skin test with his allergist using both the serum and natural oat: no reaction.  I was nervous to introduce oats and barley after reacting to the wheat skin test.  The first way I made oats was a simple porridge using just oats and water.  Then I mixed in a little homemade coconut milk.  He ate a few bites for a few days,  but wasn't very interested after that.  I did make some leftover soaked porridge pan fried cakes that were successful.  I will be posting that next.  From there I wanted to make two ingredient oat cookies; something to nibble on really. I found this recipe and gave it a go.  They are actually made similarly as these oat biscuits I used to make a few years ago. These particular rusks are cooked for some time, yielding a very hard biscotti-like log biscuit.  I like that they are shaped perfectly for little hands.  I didn't intend for Big Brother to like them them more than Baby Brother.  Then again, Baby Brother is at a toddler stage that makes introducing new foods even more challenging. More than actually eating the rusks, Baby Brother reaches for one like he wants it and then just leaves it or throws it at my head.  I'll keep trying, but hopefully not for long before I can try our family oatmeal breakfast cookies with egg.  One thing I'd like to do to improve this recipe is to soak the oat flour overnight before baking.  Do I need to add something acidic like lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, or do you think that water is enough to help with digestibility and nutrition? 

What you need:
250 grams oat 
100-200 grams of boiled water, cooled.

What to do:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
3. Blitz oats in TM, speed 9 for 30 seconds. Scrape down. Repeat
4. Add 100 grams of water
5. Blitz speed 5
6. Drizzle more water until you form a dough. It should feel a little sticky and hold its shape when rolled into a ball
7. Shape into logs, I make around 12-14
8. Make dents with your finger so that it's easier for toddler to hold on to.
9. Bake for 30 minutes
10. Turn down oven to 300 degrees
11. Bake until hard: 45-60 minutes
12. Store in brown paper bag.  I like these.  They stay dry stored this way, even in humid Houston :)

Pumpkin

I love pumpkin and butternut squash and find a way to put them in everything.  I have been enjoying the process of roasting them, scooping out the flesh and blending in my Thermomix  Here are some of the treats I use it in.  I also buy this canned pumpkin on vitacost when they go on sale: $1.90 this week!


pumpkin chai bars
crustless pumpkin pie
pumpkin muffin donuts
persimon pumpkin smoothie
pumpkin gingerbread bars
quinoa pumpkin cookies
chocolate pumpkin bars
morning pumpkin pie oat and buckwheat porridge
pumpkin pie amaranth porridge
pumpkin pie millet porridge

Baby's First Foods: Butternut Squash

perfect puree

Great timing! we got a small butternut squash in this week's CSA basket.  It is super simple to turn the squash into puree with my Thermomix.  I have a few sets of instructions for purees.  I will be posting a simple guide, "Comidas Infantiles", in English that I made from my mother-in-law's Thermomix book in Spanish. Her Thermomix is the previous model. Basically, [20 minutes/100 degrees/speed3] and then [puree 20 seconds speed 6] Today, I followed how to make simple purees from What Caroline Cooked. See here: http://whatcarolinecooked.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/baby-food-6-8-months.html

What you need:

350g organic fruit or vegetable of your choice, peeled, seeds removed and roughly chopped

1 MC water

What to do:

Place fruit or vegetable into TM bowl and chop for 5 seconds/speed 4.

Scrape down sides and add water

Cook for 10 minutes/varoma/speed 1  (I ended up adding more water and cooking 5 minutes longer!)

Puree for 20 seconds by slowly turning dial to speed 9

Place into serving dish, cool slightly and serve.

                    

Perfectly Cute CSA Squash

Cleaning your Thermomix: avoiding cross-contamination

all clean and ready to puree!

Tomorrow I will prepare butternut squash as my baby's first food.  I want to make sure that no traces of this morning's oatmeal remain.  I know that his rashes could be an indication of true food intolerance or allergy.  So, I best be careful and avoid any cross-contamination with thorough cleaning.



I learned these methods here:
http://tickofyum.webs.com/apps/blog/show/17146017-cleaning-your-tmx-bowl

Basic Cleaning:  Put 50-100g of vinegar and 500g of water into your TM bowl, and cook on 100oC for 10 minutes, speed 4.  

Super Cleaning: Put 500ml of white vinegar and 5 g of dish soap into your thermomix bowl and cook on 100oC for 6 minutes on speed 4.  This will FROTH up amazingly - it's meant to.  LEAVE IT sitting in the froth until it all cools down. Then, add a good dose of baking soda and rub down with a clean sponge.  Now do the same to the blade, scrubbing with your little blade brush, which you will find at: http://thermomix.superkitchenmachine.com/collections/all/products/thermomix-silicone-spatula