Recipe Review: Breakfast Bowls

So, I recently gave up energy bars, which used to be my quick weekend breakfast.  What to replace it with?  Well, for a couple of weeks, muffins!  I love muffins and have a variety of muffin cookbooks and will continue to keep them on hand (in the freezer). Then, I spotted a recipe from Running with Spoons (site has been slow for me) for a Brownie Batter Breakfast Bowl.  

Brownie Batter Breakfast Bowl

It has chocolate and oatmeal and basically is one serving.  I'm one person and this was an opportunity for a hot breakfast that looked easy to do.  And, how can you turn down chocolate for breakfast? Better yet, baked in the oven, not the microwave, which for some reason is my preference.  So, I gave it a try one night (yes, it was dinner).  Tasty.  I made it again yesterday for breakfast, with more maple syrup (the recipe has a range based on preference) and using quick oats.  Very Tasty.

Oatmeal Cookie Dough Breakfast
Bake

This morning, I tried another breakfast bowl - Oatmeal Cookie Dough Breakfast Bake.  Tasty as well.  I do believe, I've come upon my weekend breakfast solutions.

If you know of similar recipes, please share.

Recipe Roundup

Well, I've been cooking. Quite a bit lately. Some of my tried and true recipes (i.e. Betty Crocker brownies) and some new ones from various blogs (thank goodness for Pinterest). Success has varied. So, here we go.

Parmesan Baked Shrimp

Parmesan Baked Shrimp from RasaMalaysia. It was good, but honestly, for one person, it's a lot of work. I also realized that I don't really care for baked parmesan and I'd rather use cracker crumbs (it's how we do it in my family) rather than panko. And, probably because I'm a southern girl, I'd just go ahead and pan fry these babies. I'd certainly recommend them as they were good, but they do require a bit of work.

Breakfast Oatmeal Cupcakes To Go

Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers

Breakfast Oatmeal Cupcakes To Go from Chocolate Covered Katie.  These turned out tasty, though they are basically baked oatmeal, so not really a cupcake to me.  However, they are filling, in addition to tasting good, and are preferable for a quick snack in the morning or the afternoon.  I did add a little coconut and some walnuts.  I also tried one other recipe from this site, which failed spectacularly.  I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong as I consider myself a fairly good baker.  Hopefully, I'll get up the nerve to try it again and it will work out.

Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers from My Whole Food Life.  I have several versions of sweet potato veggie burgers that I want to try, but this one required fewer ingredients and I had them all on hand.  Not bad.  In the future, I might use quick oats and I'd probably just pan fry them, rather than baking them.  Give them more of a burger feel.  I also think brown rice might work in place of the oatmeal.  All in all, though, I got five, two ounce patties from this recipe (one medium sweet potato, one cup of oatmeal).  Probably could use a little more seasoning, but that's an easy remedy.  Give them a try.

Quiona Fried Rice

Quinoa Fried Rice from Peas & Crayons.  Honestly, this is super easy and not brand spanking new, but not fried rice either.  I halved the recipe, but it is now one of my favorites.  I didn't add egg this time, though I will in the future, and since I had a half of a zucchini left, that was my vegetable.  I paired it with the Sweet Potato Veggie Burger for a lovely dinner.  Future preparations of this recipe will probably include shrimp or chicken.  Her tips on preparing quinoa were awesome.  Mine didn't dry totally, but I did toast it for a bit and it was wonderful.  If you're looking for something a little different but still familiar, give this a go.

There you have it.  Recently tried recipes.  Three from this week and one from a couple of weeks ago. I'll also add, that with the exception of the Baked Parmesan Shrimp, which used an egg, these recipes are Vegan.

Recipe Review: Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

The past week or so has seen a giant jump in my baking.  I've shared a good portion of what I've baked, but some is just for me.  These muffins fall in the just for me category.  I'm always on the lookout for a good chocolate muffin.  I've tried a lot of recipes from various cookbooks and have so far only run across one that was really good and it made just two large muffins (I tried making four smaller ones and they just weren't the same as the large ones).  Anyway, I came across this recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Muffins from Oh She Glows (one of my favorite blog sites) on Pinterest.  Since I've also recently discovered the joy of zucchini, I had to give them a try.

I'm so glad I did.  They were well worth the effort.  I particularly like the recipes from this blog as they are dairy free.  The flour came out a bit strong to me, but mine could have been on the cusp of needing to be replaced.  Next time, I may go with just unbleached flour or a mix of unbleached with whole wheat pastry flour.  And, I'll use a finer grate on the zucchini, but that is just my personal preference.  Overall, I'm happy to have found a chocolate muffin recipe that is good and has some good for me stuff in it (mostly referring to the zucchini).  Give them a try.

Recipe Review: Coconut Loaf

We had a meet and greet for a new employee in my department at work and I decided that it should be a morning breakfasty kind of thing.  I made Poppy Seed muffins from Mostly Muffins, a wonderful little cookbook I got years ago and have used so much it is literally falling apart.  I have many muffin cookbooks, in all shapes and sizes, and this recipe is one of my favorites.  Most poppy seed muffins have lemon.  This one doesn't.  It does have sour cream, which gives it a very moist texture.  I made mini-muffins rather than full size and as always they were wonderful.

Coconut Loaf

I also wanted to take something else.  I toyed with a blueberry coffee cake or a pound cake or some type of nut bread.  I was going through a little Taste of Home Muffins and Quick Breads cookbook, you know, the ones that you get at check-out registers, that I came across this Coconut Loaf  recipe. I'd wanted to try it for some time, but never had any coconut.  Well, I had coconut, so I gave it a try.  It's simply wonderful!  It's more like a pound cake with a bit of coconut -- the coconut is not overwhelming at all.

I did make a couple of modifications - I used margarine (really not a huge change) and almond milk, leaving this version dairy free.

It sliced fine after it cooled, but the following day it was a little crumbly when sliced.  Not sure why.  Still, it's a wonderful recipe and I'll probably bake it again

Try a New Recipe challenge - Couscous & Veggie saute

So, I'm finally trying to get back in cooking mode and started out with what turns out to be a tasty and easy recipe to do -- Couscous and Summer Veggie Saute from the My Recipes website (found via Pinterest).

I'll admit, my past experience with couscous is from a box.  This was better.  I've also not done a lot with zucchini, but found the shredding part easy and I do like it in the couscous.  I think you could do just about any veggie that you liked with this recipe as it is very basic.  Got me cooking again and gives me a good side dish "go to" that's quick and easy to do.

Try a new recipe challenge Round-up

Over the past couple of weeks, I've tried several new recipes, mostly with success.  The one that basically failed, I'm fairly sure was my fault due to substitutions.  I have a rule for no modifications the first time I do a recipe for a reason; too bad I didn't stick to that rule.

At any rate, here's the round up of the new recipes I've tried in the last couple of weeks:

Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes

Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes: Another recipe from Joy the Baker. Simply wonderful.  These are probably the fluffiest pancakes I have ever made.  I did halve the recipe and even put half in the refrigerator for use another day and was pleased with how the batter held up (I did bring it to room temperature before cooking).

Vegan Red Beans & Rice for 2

Vegan Red Beans and Rice for 2:  This is a slow cooker recipe from Healthy Slow Cooking.  I'm not really a vegan or a vegetarian, but I eat very little beef and I like beans.  This recipe basically cooks all night and then all day.  I did it in a Rival Crockette, which I don't think they make anymore.  I had kidney beans, so I did boil them for a little over 10 minutes before putting them in the crockette (so as not to poison myself).  I found that I didn't really need 3 cups of water which I think is because they had been boiled.  It turned out tasty and made me want to try it with either true red beans or white beans.

Breakfast patties

Breakfast Patties from the Taste of Home Comfort Food diet Cookbook.  I don't know why making my own never occurred to me before.  Mine don't look like the picture in the cookbook, but they turned out very good and will likely become a staple for my freezer.  No more store bought "sausage" for me.

And, last, but not least Quinoa Pilaf with Spinach, Apples and Walnuts from the Quick-fix vegetarian cookbook by Robin Robertson.   This is only my second recipe using quinoa, so I wasn't really sure.  Turns out, it's quite tasty.  And, it makes a lot.  I'm one person, so I'll definitely halve it when I do it again.  While the recipe says four servings, I used a cup for a serving (which is plenty) and found that I got more like 6 servings.  A "serving" of quinoa is two ounces so if one goes with the four servings that would be three ounces of quinoa plus the additions per serving.  I did calculate calories and it's not what I'd call low calorie, but it's not outrageous.  Of course, some of those calories come from the oil used for the scallions and walnuts and apples.  Still, I'm enjoying the leftovers (as did a friend) and will more than likely cook this recipe again.

Spinach, walnuts & apple

cooked quinoa

Quinoa pilaf with spinach, apples, & walnuts

Soup...

So, a while back I wrote about giving up frozen dinners and doing more cooking. However, I'm one person and I've never really cooked a huge variety of foods. Today, I did something different for me. I made Split Pea-Sweet Potato soup from a recipe on the Whole Foods site. I did halve the recipe and I used vegetable stock in place of half of the water. The rest remained the same. I'm happy to say I'm very pleased with my first soup attempt and will do this one again.

It didn't take that much to do, but I laughed a little at myself. I would choose the world's smallest kitchen to really start cooking in. Fortunately, the mess looked worse than it was and the clean up was quick and easy.

Baking and smoke alarms....

Recently, it's all about the food. About three months ago, I decided to give up frozen dinners. As a single girl, this was a major decision for me, as the frozen dinner had become a really easy go to dinner during the week. However, I was having various issues and one of the things I decided to really try and eliminate, or drastically cut down on, was preservatives. Frozen dinners often use them as well as a ton of sodium.

So far, it's been good. I thought I'd do a lot of freezing, but basically I do things that can be built upon, either for lunch or dinner during the week. I'm basically using leftovers in the planning. I've also switched from an egg breakfast that I ate for years (home cooked) to a greek yogurt with a morning snack of a home made muffin. Cooking wise, I've done a few things that have really pleased me, but in other ways I'm still learning how best to cook for one person, which means I'm learning a lot.

It's a joy to be baking again. Muffins are my passion and I've started to try my hand at scones. So far so good. However, my apartment complex upgraded the smoke alarm in the hall outside of my kitchen to a combo carbon monoxide detector and smoke alarm a few months ago. Apparently it's very heat sensitive. Running the oven at 450 degrees sets it off. Apparently 400 degrees does as well, as I discovered today while baking muffins. I'd even covered the thing with aluminum foil. Seems that's not good enough. I'll give it a go with a plastic bag as well when I do dinner tonight as that will require 450 degrees. It's nerve wracking. I know covering it isn't a good idea (of which it appears I fail at since it still went off), but I'd rather the thing not go off when I'm using the oven. Others in my apartment complex have the same problem and I believe some have simply disconnected them. I know this isn't ideal. A friend has strongly suggested I talk with the apartment management, but I don't think these things can be adjusted. I've done some research and am at a loss. I've cleaned the oven and checked everything I can think off. Running the fan doesn't help. It'll be okay for a while, then bam, the darn thing is going off. And, it's not like I'm going to give up using the oven. Until I can talk to management though, I'll experiment with ways to cover it up so kitty and I can keep our nerves in tact.