Baked Peanut Butter Oatmeal: June Secret Recipe Club

Baked Peanut Butter Oatmeal in an all edges brownie pan

It's time for Group D's Secret Recipe Club June reveal! I have to admit I was quite intimidated this month! I was assigned the woman who just became SRC's head honcho! Yikes. But it's all good. I love April's style of cooking: “While you wont find any gourmet recipes here, you WILL find yummy, down-home cooking, that is easy to prepare and taste great.” Now that's a cooking philosophy I can get behind.

I scoured the Recipe page of Angel's Homestead looking for something I could make from pantry ingredients. It was so hot today that I couldn't bare the thought of getting out of the house and driving to the grocery store for extra ingredients. I'm also on a quest to find more breakfast stuff that I might actually be willing to eat. I kind of abhor cereal. My friends think I'm a freak, but I just can't stand soggy cereal. I can definitely go for a crunchy granola with Greek yogurt and blueberries, but a girl can only eat that so many mornings. And the option at work is an egg and cheese biscuit. I admit, I go for that way too many days out of the work week. So, I decided to try out one of April's baked oatmeals.

I had to make a few changes because I only had steel cut oats in the house. My changes were made purely to accommodate the extra liquid and extra cooking time required for the steel cut oats.

The all edge pan was not a brilliant stroke of genius, but I've had
it for six months and decided it was high time to use it!

Baked Peanut Butter Oatmeal
adapted from Angel's Homestead, originally from Tidy Mom

Ingredients:

¾ cup steel cut oats

¼ cup brown sugar (can use more if you like it sweeter)

2 ½ cups milk (pick your favorite)
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
½ cup peanut butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray an 8x8 pan with cooking spray.

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and stir well. Pour into pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until set.

THOUGHTS:

I actually used 3 cups of milk instead of 2 ½, but found the liquid to be a bit too much. I hadn't thought about accounting for the liquid of the egg when I decided how much milk to use. Tastewise though, I thought the oatmeal was spot on. I enjoyed the texture of the oats (I'm a steel-cut-newbie). As long as I thought of the oatmeal as oatmeal instead of a cookie, I found that I quite enjoyed it. Bender was expecting dessert when he tried it, so he thought it was a fail. But I disagree!

VERDICT:

A-great-alternative-to-instant-oatmeal: 1 vote!

Eww: 1 vote

Breakfast is served!

Daring Cooks February Challenge: Cold Soba Salad and Tempura

This challenge made me very happy. I finally had an excuse to use purple potatoes!

Today is February 22, not February 14. Oops. I’m a little late posting this challenge, but it just seemed easier to make this one when Bender was out of town. I tried making it twice when he was in town, but my tasters kept bailing on me at the last minute (for very good reasons, not because they were averse to tasting it) and I wasn’t about to make this one for me and Bender only. So I decided to wait an extra week and make it for myself only when Bender was away at a conference. And boy, am I glad I did.

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl.  She challenged

Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com.

Double Take: Ham-and-Cheese Omelets

I picked out this recipe for one simple reason: I wanted something other than bacon and eggs for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Apparently, I was more than willing to replace bacon and eggs with ham and eggs.

I went to gather the ingredients. After looking through the list, I knew locating havarti cheese might be problematic. That is one is difficult to find around here, and I’ve never seen it in block form. However, we do have butter cheese here and the cookbook described havarti as buttery, so I decided that would be a simple sub. But when I got to the store, I actually found havarti. I was so excited to find it that I didn’t look at the package closely or check the expiration date. Oops.

I set out my ingredients the next morning. Our plans for canoeing that day had been cancelled because the river was so high, so we opted to go visit the castles we would have looked at from the river instead. It was raining when we got moving that morning, so it looked like we wouldn’t even get to go hiking either. I gathered my ingredients that morning and decided first things first: grate the cheese. The swiss grated, I turned to the havarti. I opened the package and was hit with a foul smell. I closely inspected the cheese: it was slimy. Into the trash went the havarti. Swiss only it was.

Double Take: Croissant French Toast with Fresh Strawberry Syrup

This recipe jumped out at me the first time I read it, but I know that Hubby doesn't exactly love French toast. I also knew that I'd be seeing Momma in a couple months, so I bookmarked this recipe to make "with" her when I went to visit. I wasn't disappointed.

You can find the recipe for Croissant French Toast with Fresh Strawberry Syrup on page 122 of your all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook.

Start by making your Fresh Strawberry Syrup. Slice some strawberries, add some sugar, orange juice or orange liqueur (we used Triple Sec), and orange zest. Let stand until sugar dissolves (I stirred it every few minutes just to check on it, though I'm not certain it sped things along), then cook until warmed through. If you are accustomed to the ridiculously thick corn-based syrups, syrup will seem like a bit of a misnomer as it was quite runny, but it was delicious nonetheless. Whilst the sugar is disolving, make your whipped cream.

Double Take: Italian Sausage Brunch Casserole

This week's Double Take is a little late, so I hope you will forgive us (well, I hope you will forgive me, it's my fault it's late). I got my days of the week confused and thought Thursday was the 14th instead of the 13th, and the 14th is Daring Cooks post date, so I didn't want two posts on the same date. But this also means I didn't have to think about making something new and creative to post this week since my normal post date is Sunday. And isn't it always nice to get a surprise on a blog? Instead of a regular post, you get a Double Take! You can find this week's Double Take recipe in the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook on page 118.

I've generally avoided bready breakfast casseroles, but the ingredients were simple and flavorful, so I thought I'd give this one a try. Plus, how can you go wrong with Italian sausage?

Double Take: Caramel Sticky Buns

I'm not a candy maker. I've never made candy before. I've watched my mom make her fudge icing a bajillion times, but I never watched for the purpose of learning, only to get the soft ball of caramel when the fudge hit the soft ball stage. But that is the entirety of my candy making experience.

I figured it was my turn to pick a recipe for the Double Take series. Thus far, we've made a sandwich and pork chops. So I wanted something completely different. I went to the breakfast/brunch section, and picked out Caramel Sticky Buns because I was 90% certain Hubby and Tabitha would like them even if I didn't get excited about them (I have rather strange feelings about cinnamon). Hubby and Tabitha approved, and we were off.