Back to School 2

 

 

I have a confession to make I hate cooking breakfast. I am too groggy in the morning and I not wanting to cook. But I do not want my family living on cereal, so I am always looking for shortcuts. Now my baked oatmeal is very different then the typical overnight baked oatmeal. The first time I made pan of the typical kind of baked oatmeal, my family hated it. It was too mushy. So I started playing with the recipe. First I baked it in a muffin tin, instead of a pan, that helped. Then I used regular rolled oats, instead of instant. This is more like a muffin, then oatmeal. On-time I forgot the butter and they were great. So now I make them without the butter and instead add a nice thick slice butter when I eat it ;-) 

This is one of the recipes I make and everyone loves, plus it is very healthy. I love that I make it the night before and then bake it off the next morning. I mix it in a bowl and put it in the fridge. Grease my pan and then in the morning fill and bake. You can do anything with theses, add orange zest, dried fruits, streusel topping, nuts. I even sometimes make them for tea time and add chocolate chips.

Overnight Oat Cakes

3 cups rolled regular or thick oats, but never instant

 2 egg

1/2 cup melted butter (optional, it is fine without it)

2 cups milk, you can also use soy or nut milk

1/2 cup sugar or evaported cain, honey, ect.

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg

Mix all in a bowl night before and refrigerate. Next morning fill to top pre-pared muffin tins. Bake 350 for 1/2 hour or till eggs mixture cooked. Let cool then lift muffin out of tin.

Susan sent me a lovely post about her back-to-school celebration. Thank you Susan for sharing. I am sure we will all be baking soon !!

Every fall we make chocolate chip pumpkin bread or pumpkin muffins off and on throughout the season. I guess you could say it's one of our fall traditions. Just last week, I made up a new recipe that is healthier than the ones I've made before, and we really like it! In fact, everyone keeps asking me to make it again.

Instead of having one or two cups of sugar in the batter, there's a bit less than 1/4 c., and it's still yummy (we think). This is not your overly sweet cupcake-style muffin they make in bakeries, but it's sweet enough, though, and made more sweet by the addition of chocolate chips. And the muffins are really moist! This is a good, homemade, tasty, healthy kind of recipe for those of us who care about this kind of thing occasionally! :-)

PUMPKIN-CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS
Makes 8, but you can easily double this.

3/4 c. whole wheat *pastry* flour
1/4 c. unbleached flour
3 T. - 1/4 c. sugar
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. chocolate chips

1 c. pumpkin (I use canned pumpkin/no spices)
3 T. - 1/4 c. canola oil
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Stir together dry ingredients and chocolate chips. Mix wet ingredients and stir into dry mixture. Bake in muffin/cupcake papers in muffin tin for 12-15 minutes.

I don't use spices in this because it's not overly sweet, but I suppose you could add them if you want. I like the plain pumpkin taste a lot and prefer to leave this as is.

Happy Back to School, Mrs. Lovedove!
Susan

Painting by Valorie Snyder

Comments

[Gina]

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy

I've been slowly catching up on everyones blog after taking a good need break and you have some wonderful things to show.

[Diana]

The oatmeal recipe caught my eye, but because I'm trying to get more vitamin A in my diet I made the pumpkin muffins first. They were so delicious I made them again the next day. Thanks for sharing!

[wendy]

Oh wow does that overnight oatmeal look good! Healthy and easy, just my kind of soon-to-be-treasured recipe : )

[Leigh Ann]

You are making my mouth water. I LOVE oatmeal and can't wait to try this out. I agree about saving time. You know how I love pumpkin and I was just thinking it was time to make bread. I'm going to try your recipe. I like that it has less sugar. Cheers! LA

[Renee]

Mmmmm... I'll have to try these!

I have done an overnight hot cereal in the crockpot with apples, brown rice, and steel cut oats that is very good. Email me if you'd like the recipe. We also did an overnight pumpkin oatmeal that was super yummy, and unfortunately I can't remember where I found the recipe, so we haven't had it since!

[Linda]

Yum, how about baked oatmeal with choc.chips and pumpkin. Love, Mom

[Ivonne]

This sounds fantastic. I like oatmeal but like you I sometimes find that I don't want to spend a lot of time cooking in the morning. I'd rather have those few extra minutes of sleep.

I will most definitely be trying this!

[Maggie Ann]

Oh, I'm getting hungry reading this post. I must come back & visit tomorrow. =)