Granola Goodness Part Two!

As is true with a lot of my recipes, this idea started when I wanted to use up something that I had hanging around in the fridge; in this case, it was some jarred applesauce I had bought to make zucchini bread a week or two ago. Given my granola kick, I wondered if anyone had ever thought to use applesauce in granola instead of oil, like you would do with a cake or other baked good.

Lo and behold, the Google revealed to me that others had this thought, too!

Because I'm still on my pumpkin kick, I used pumpkin spice as my seasoning rather than just plain old cinnamon for some seasonal interest. This recipe is on the sweeter side as far as granolas go, which makes it really yummy for direct snacking and also great on plain greek yogurt with a drizzle of honey. Om nom nom.

 Granola for the whole week!

Pumpkin Spice Applesauce Granola

Significantly altered from Baking Bites

Yields approximately 5 cups of granola

3 1/2 cups old fashioned (NOT quick cooking!) oats
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (regular, not the chunky kind)
1/8 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 - 3/4 cup mixed nuts (I used 1/2 cup walnut baking pieces and 1/4 cup sliced toasted almonds)
1/2 - 3/4 cup dried fruit (I used raisins, but cranberries or just about any dried fruit would be great here, too)

1) Preheat oven to 325 F, and line a large baking sheet (or two smaller sheets) with parchment paper.

2) In a large bowl, combine oats, pumpkin spice, and salt. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together brown sugar, applesauce, honey, and vanilla.

3) Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Add nuts and stir to combine. Spread on prepared baking sheet(s) in an even layer.

4) Bake for 20 minutes, then gently stir, rotating the granola from the edges into the middle to ensure even baking.

5) Bake for an additional 20 minutes or until the granola is dry and crispy. It will get crispier as it cools. It might be necessary to stir the granola again at this stage if you need to bake it for a much longer time.

6) Set pan on a wire rack to cool. Once cooled, break up granola as desired, and stir in dried fruit. Store in an airtight container to retain crispiness.

Almond Butter Granola AND Peanut Butter Granola

Okay, how come nobody told me how easy and awesome it is to make your own granola? Seriously, kids, where has this been all my life?

Most of the recipes I've found online involve lots of oil (isn't granola supposed to be healthy-ish?) or laborious stirring, to which I am greatly opposed. I found these two recipes on the site Peanut Butter Fingers (which is a really great read, by the way), and they couldn't be easier. I'm partial to the peanut butter version, but both are very yummy and great to eat with yogurt or by the handful. You're just 15 minutes away from delicious crunchiness!

 Giant clusters!

Almond Butter Granola

From Peanut Butter Fingers
Makes about one cup of granola (I halved the original recipe)

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. almond butter
2 tbsp. honey
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. chia seeds (optional, but a nice healthy addition!)
1 c. old fashioned oats (not quick cooking!)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and spray cookie sheet (I used a jelly roll pan with edges for fear of dropping the granola everywhere) with cooking spray.
2. Combine almond butter and honey in a bowl and microwave until almond butter is slightly melted (about 30 seconds). Stir almond butter and honey together.
3. Add cinnamon and vanilla to almond butter mixture.
4. Stir oats and chia seeds into almond butter mixture, completely coating oats in the mixture.
5. Spread oats onto cookie sheet and bake for eight minutes before tossing oats and baking for another eight minutes until granola is slightly brown.
6. Let cool until granola is crunchy (it might not be immediately crunchy when you take it out of the oven, but give it time and it will be) and enjoy!

Almond butter granola

Peanut Butter Granola

From Peanut Butter Fingers
Makes about one cup of granola

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp. honey
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. old fashioned oats

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray cookie sheet/jelly roll pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
2. Combine peanut butter and honey in a bowl and microwave until peanut butter melts (approximately 20 seconds). Stir.
3. Stir cinnamon and vanilla into peanut butter and honey mixture.
4. Add oats and stir until oats are completely covered in peanut butter mixture.
5. Spread out oat mixture onto prepared cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until granola is slightly browned. Stir the granola once halfway through baking.
6. Let cool until granola is crunchy and eat!

Dining Danish: Muesli

Part two of my Danish recipe adventure brings you the food that I ate for breakfast pretty much everyday for a month and a half straight: muesli! Muesli in its most basic form consists of raw oats with some nuts and dried fruit thrown in. The muesli you get in the United States is often baked or sweetened, which starts to veer into granola territory rather than muesli in the traditional sense. Danes love their muesli, and you can find entire sections of the grocery store devoted to the stuff.

Muesli is commonly served with yogurt, and in Denmark, you can buy yogurt in quart-sized containers (like milk) and in about a million flavors and varying fat content. I bought something called "Cheasy," which fortunately turned out to be yogurt (it was unflavored, but I figured the chances were high that it was yogurt and not, in fact, cheese in a quart-sized container). I also tried your typical berry flavors as well as more exotic ones like pear-banana (which was delicious!).

A bit suspicious. A38? What does that even mean?

My favorite mueslis came from the Coop store brand sold at the Kvickly (yes, that is really what it's called) and the SuperBrugsen. They were cheap, came in HUGE bags, and had lots of mixins. The recipe below was my attempt to recreate the tropical muesli which came in a teal-colored bag. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Tropical Fruit Muesli

3 cups old fashioned oats

¼ c almonds, sliced or slivered (raw)

¼ c pumpkin seeds (raw)

¼ c sunflower seeds (raw)

¼ c coconut, shredded

¼ c raisins

1/3 c banana chips (sweetened or unsweetened)

½ c flax flakes (or other multigrain flaked cereal)

1/3 c puffed rice cereal

¾ c dried tropical fruit such as papaya and pineapple, cut into 1/4" pieces

1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)

Mix all ingredients together in a large container with a lid. Give it a good shake to mix everything well. Enjoy over yogurt or milk. Store in an airtight container for up to a month.

Note: To make this recipe, I bought a lot of stuff in bulk at Whole Foods, which is good when you only need 1/4 cup of lots of different things!

Dining Danish: Koldskål

A few weeks after coming back from Denmark, I found myself pining...for Danish food. In order to quiet my Danish food cravings, I decided to attempt to replicate some of the recipes of my favorite foods in Denmark, especially those that were particularly unique to the country.

When the weather finally got warm in Copenhagen, grocery stores exploded with displays of quart containers and pre-made cups with cookies in the lid of this stuff called koldskål. I decided to buy a cup of it, not actually knowing what it was (as was the case most of the time when I went grocery shopping in Denmark).

Koldskål (literally translated as "cold bowl") is a traditional Danish dish served in the summer (thus, the increase of product when the weather got warm). It's kind of hard to describe, but it sort of resembles a lemony, buttermilk-yogurt soup. That doesn't sound appetizing, but trust me, it is unique and delicious. I saw people eating it on the train for breakfast, but I ate it as a dessert with strawberries and nut granola on top. The things in the container lid are a type of cookie called kammerjunker (you can't make these words up if you tried), which are akin to a vanilla wafer.

I used the recipe below and served my koldskål with blueberries and vanilla wafers. Enjoy a little taste of summer in Denmark!

Om nom nom

Koldskål
Adapted from Secret Pocket Blog

1 cup yogurt (I used nonfat plain Greek)
4 tablespoons sugar
3 cups buttermilk (I added a little bit of milk, too, to get the consistency to my liking)
zest of one lemon
juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine the yogurt, sugar, and lemon zest in a bowl. Using a mixer or whisk, mix together until the sugar dissolves. Mix in the rest of the ingredients until blended. Keep in a pitcher in the fridge. Serve with fresh berries, granola, and/or vanilla wafers.

Strawberries & Thoughts of Spring

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...

the BIGGEST strawberry I have EVER SEEN.

Actual size!

Seriously, though. I couldn't even get my fist to close around the berry because it was SO LARGE.

Godzilla berry!

If the berry crop is this vigorous already, I can only conclude that warmer days are just around the corner! I have to admit, I felt a little betrayed when Punxsutawney Phil decreed an early spring only to get several inches of snow dumped on us in the midst of below-freezing temperatures. Now that things are looking brighter, what better way to get into the springy spirit than with a light (both in texture and in calories) yet decadent muffin?

As I've mentioned before, I love love love breakfast, and I will look for any excuse to make something delicious. Waking up is a little bit easier when you have something tasty waiting for you, amirite?

I changed this recipe slightly to use white chocolate chips rather than mini bittersweet ones (which I'm sure would be great, too), and I used half whole wheat flour, half regular flour. Other than these modifications, I stuck with the recipe just as it is written. It's basically like eating a chocolate-covered strawberry in muffin form. Awesome!

Skinny Strawberry White Chocolate Chip Muffins

Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction
Yields 10 muffins

Ingredients:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce

1 egg white, beaten

2/3 cup diced strawberries

1/3 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 10 muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray (or use a non-stick muffin tin like I did). 

2) In a large bowl, gently toss the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon. Set aside. 

3) In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and applesauce until together until no brown sugar lumps remain (a fork works well to break up the brown sugar). Add the beaten egg white and stir gently with a fork or whisk until fully incorporated. 

4) Add the wet ingredients to the dry until just combined - do not overmix. Fold in the strawberries and white chocolate chips.

5) Divide the batter evenly between 10 muffin tins. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Muffins will be lightly golden in color, and a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin should come out clean.

6) Let muffins cool in the muffin tin for about 5 minutes. Remove muffins to wire rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!

The finished product

Overnight Oats in a Jar

After my last post, this little blog has reached over 1600 pageviews! Thanks to everyone who has read my posts. Your support means a lot to me, and I'm glad that I can share my baking and grad school adventures with all of you!

Do you ever have those jars of peanut butter hanging around that only have a liiiiittle bit left at the bottom? You know what I mean. The ones where you can see the peanut butter, but you can't always get to it with a knife/spoon/pretzel/finger.

Look at it sitting in there, mocking me. 

Lo and behold, I have found a solution to this problem: overnight oats.

You may ask yourself, what does this mean? Overnight? Oats? These are two words not normally found together. Basically, overnight oats are a cold version of oatmeal that you mix up the night before you'd like to enjoy it and then let hang out in the fridge overnight. Poof! You have breakfast waiting for you in the morning! The resulting mixture is along the lines of an oatmeal shake, although you can adjust the amount of liquid in the recipe to achieve your desired consistency.

You don't have to use a peanut butter jar - any container (Tupperware, leftover Chinese takeout container, glass jar, etc.) would work fine. The jars are nice because 1) they use up that pesky little bit of PB (or cookie butter or Nutella...), 2) the airtight seal prevents the bananas from getting brown, and 3) it's easy to grab and go without worrying about spillage. I keep a spare glass jar around to use when I'm not making peanut butter-based oats for this reason.

It looks a little wonky now, but trust me, it's going to be awesome!

I love the addition of chia seeds (yes, like that chia) because it gives the oatmeal extra volume and keeps me full all morning long. When the chia seeds are exposed to moisture, they expand and have a tapioca-like consistency. Also, I cut my banana slices a little bit on the large side so that there are still banana chunks in the oatmeal in the morning. If you cut them smaller, you'll taste the banana, but you might not see the pieces. 

Getting cozy in the fridge, making friends with the lime juice and half & half.

Before I get in the shower, I take the oats out of the fridge and let them sit on the counter for 20 minutes or so to take out the chill. The result is still refreshing but not quite as frigid. It also gives the oatmeal some time to mellow and get ready for consumption.

 The finished product. Yum!

Overnight oats are great because they are so versatile. Don't like yogurt? Leave it out. Can't imagine oatmeal without brown sugar and raisins? Go for it! If you do a quick search on The Google, you will find myriad recipes and variations. I've made versions with peanut butter, assorted fruits, and even pumpkin. Feel free to experiment with all kinds of ingredients. You might find a new favorite breakfast!

Done! Now off to the recycle bin with you!

Peanut Butter Cup Overnight Oats

Makes one jar

almost empty peanut butter jar (or about 1 tbsp of peanut butter)
1/4 cup quick cooking or old fashioned oats (do not use steel cut oats - they won't get soft enough)
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp Greek or regular yogurt (for extra protein and oomph!)
1/2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 of a large banana, sliced
splash of vanilla extract
honey, sugar, or your favorite sweetener to taste
additional milk to achieve desired consistency (optional)

Add all ingredients to your jar of choice. Stir the mixture gently to make sure that everything is incorporated. Tightly close the jar and give it a hearty shake. Place jar in refrigerator overnight.

Before enjoying, let the jar sit on the counter for about 20 minutes to take the chill off. Open jar, give it a stir, and add additional milk as desired until the perfect consistency is achieved. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Bonanza!

Well, folks, it was a late night in the lab yesterday. I had to run a long furnace experiment (and had to go into lab today to finish it blah), and while I waited, I decided that I should tell you good people about all of the delicious fall baking I've been doing lately. I noticed that even though I included cupcakes in the title, my blog is definitely lacking in baked goods. Worry not...this sad fact will change in the coming chilly months.

My research group had coffee hour last week, which I always use as an excuse to go a little crazy with the baking. I made some apple cinnamon muffins (not as interesting) as well as a few pumpkin dishes (more interesting).

These pumpkin pie bars are a fun, easy twist on pumpkin pie. They're sort of halfway between pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake. The only modification I made was to decrease the amount of the topping/crust to 3/4 of the original recipe. Since they turned out so well, I made another bunch for a "practice Thanksgiving" that my friends Lauren and Kellie had at their place on Saturday. Our lovely hosts made the turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, and everyone else brought sides, desserts, and appetizers. There were great friends, great food, and great times all around. :)

Even though the bars were well received, the star of the show was something I made on a whim: pumpkin spice puppy chow. No, not like the stuff by Purina. This kind of puppy chow (aka muddy buddies in some places). If you haven't had it before, a very important piece of your childhood is missing, so go make yourself some. Right now. I'll wait.

The recipe for the pumpkin spice version replaces the peanut butter with Biscoff spread. However, since I couldn't find that, I used Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter, which is basically heaven in a jar. Seriously, the clouds will open up and angels with trumpets will appear when you first taste it. Couple that with some white chocolate and pumpkin pie spice, and you have a deliciously addictive snack. (I may or may not have eaten all of the puppy chow left over from coffee hour...but you have no evidence of this, do you? Mwahaha.) Puppy chow is super easy, and this version really seemed to be a crowd pleaser. Try it at home!

A little bowl of heaven

Also, not quite as heavenly as speculoos butter but still quite delicious is Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter. (I swear I'm not paid by TJ's in any way) It's like apple butter...but with pumpkin. I'm really digging it stirred into Greek yogurt with some granola.

The triumvirate

Once I discovered exactly how nutritionally sparse the PSL from Starbucks is, I've tried to avoid them (sigh). Thus, I sought to make my own. This recipe from Skinnytaste is an excellent substitute which uses the pumpkin butter...and it's super easy! Also, I can make mine more pumpkin-y if I want to without having to learn the language of Starbucks to get my order across. Be your own barista!

Starbucks, eat your heart out!

To use up the last of my pumpkin as well as some walnuts and applesauce I had lying around, I made a small batch of pumpkin nut muffins. They are moist and delicious and a festive way to use up any extraneous gourd you may have hanging out in your fridge.

As much as I love pumpkin, I'm super excited for the next season in line: peppermint! I think I saw some seasonal items popping up on menus already, so it's just around the corner! What's your favorite seasonal flavor?

A Return to Baking: Apple Spiced Scones

I freakin' love fall. There I said it. The crunch of the leaves, the crisp smell of the air, the warm colors of the trees...

Magical.

I also freakin' love scones. When I saw the recipe for these apple spiced scones on Skinnytaste yesterday, I knew that I had to get back to baking. Now that our kitchen in the new apartment is pretty much all unpacked and painted(!), I'm starting to make the kitchen my own again and beginning to get acquainted with my new oven. I feel like I should name it. Maybe I'll call it Gladys.

My preferred scone recipe is a whole wheat cherry scone that I came across a few years ago on the interwebs, but I'm always looking for new recipes for my favorite breakfast treat. My friends and I went apple picking a few weekends ago, and as you can probably imagine, we still have a glut of apples hanging out in our fridge. What better way to put them to use than in something delicious?

Scones fresh out of the oven.

The kitchen smelled AMAZING while these morsels were cooking. Sort of like as if you were baking an apple pie and banana bread simultaneously. UH-mazing.

I followed the Skinnytaste recipe pretty much word for word with a few substitutions. I used the lemon juice/milk substitution for buttermilk. I didn't have applesauce, so I just used a one-for-one substitution with vegetable oil. I'm sure they would be even more apple-y if you used the sauce. Also, I just used straight-up whole wheat flour because I don't stock the white whole wheat flour regularly in my pantry.

My dough was very sticky (maybe it would have been less so with the applesauce?), so if your dough is like this too, I would recommend forming the dough into a round on a cutting board, flipping it onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and cutting it into twelve wedges once on the baking sheet. I learned that this would have been the better technique by doing things the hard way and cutting the wedges first. I had to reroll the dough into a disk on the baking sheet. Oopsy.

EDIT: I also might refrigerate my dough for a little bit before working with it. I usually do this when I make my cherry scones, and it really makes handling and cutting the dough much easier!

A solitary scone...

...plus cinnamon/nutmeg sugar glaze...

Glorious!

Also, the scones themselves aren't super sweet and are almost like an apple cake/scone combo. Thus, they really need the sugar glaze to give you that satisfying sweetness in every bite. One of my baking life mottos is that you can never really have enough glaze on baked goods, so the more the merrier. I wound up using pretty much all of the glaze that the recipe makes, which gave me a nice hearty drizzle of glaze in every bite. Enjoy!

Delightful Apple Spiced Scones

From Skinnytaste

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cold buttermilk
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce (or oil)
1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed (light brown works, too)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
cooking spray (I used parchment paper instead)
1 cup white whole wheat flour (I used plain whole wheat flour)
1 cup all purpose flour  
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp chilled butter (must be cold) cut into small pieces
2 cups diced apples, peeled (I used Jonathan)

For the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
2 tbsp cold fat free milk (plus 1/2 tbsp if needed)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°.

Combine the first five ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.

Combine the flours, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in another large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Cut in chilled butter with a pastry blender, or you could use 2 knives, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Fold in diced minced apples. Add buttermilk mixture, stirring just until moist.

Place dough onto a floured surface and knead lightly four times with floured hands. Form dough into an 9-inch circle onto baking sheet, about 3/4" thick. Using a knife, cut dough into 12 wedges all the way through.
Bake until golden, about 18-20 minutes, depending on your oven. Place on a cooling rack about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the glaze: Mix powdered sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg with 2 tbsp of milk, adding 1/2 tbsp more (1 tsp at a time) if necessary to get the consistency to the right thickness. 

Place scones on parchment or wax paper and drizzle the glaze over the scones using a spoon - or- place the glaze in a shallow bowl and dip the top of the scones into the glaze, then let it sit on the waxed paper to harden.

Ole!

Happy weekend, friends! I hope everyone had a great Saturday/Derby Day/Cinco de Mayo. By some miracle, I didn't have to write a lab report for my microscopy class this week, and thus, I had a bit more time on my hands this weekend to devote to cooking and baking with pretty yummy results.

Nutella was on sale at Dominick's this past week, so I did what any girl who was in possession of a jar of Nutella would do - I made me some crepes. This was my first crepe making experience, and they are super-easy and super-yummy. I made a basic crepe and added ~1/4 tsp of vanilla because I wanted it to be dessert-y but still kind of breakfast-y to complement the sweet filling. Spread the crepe with Nutella, top with some banana slices, and enjoy! The batter keeps well in the fridge, so I'm going to experiment with berry-filled crepes tomorrow morning. Nom!

Eating Nutella directly out of the jar is also an acceptable form of consumption. Source

Starting out the day with a French dish is probably somewhat sacrilegious on Cinco de Mayo, so I felt obligated to make something Mexican-y (I'm really enjoying the -y in this post. My apologies to any English majors reading this). The warmer temperatures of last week had me thinking of warm-weather meals. Warm weather makes me think of California, which made me think of surfing, which made me think of fish, which lead me to troll the interwebs for a good fish taco recipe. Before you ask, no, I don't really have a good explanation for that train of thought. Just go with it.

A lot of recipes either deep fry the heck out of the fish or use TONS of mayo, both of which make my arteries quiver in fear. This one from Alton Brown was simple, moderately healthy, and AWESOME. I didn't bother with the whole making-your-own-tortilla (that's what the grocery store is for) or the crema thing (it takes 24 hours just to sit there? I'm too impatient for that). Also, I substituted lime juice for the liquor. Andy and I paired our tacos with some homemade guacamole and Newman's Own salsa with my current favorite tortilla chips. Excellent.

"You need some tacos, my friend." Source

Fun fact: the internet told me that if you let your fish marinate in an acidic substance (like lime juice) for more than 30 minutes, the proteins in the fish become denatured, and you have a mess of mushy fish instead of flaky filets of fish. So don't do that. A 15-20 minute swim in the marinade should be just enough for your fish. I used tilapia, which is a really good fish for people who normally don't like fish (like me).

Keeping with the Cinco de Mayo theme, I had seen this recipe for pinata cookies(!) earlier in the week. My friend Elizabeth made these cookies without the filling, and they turned out really cute. However, after scouring every aisle of Dominick's and Walgreens, it seems that mini M&Ms have ceased to exist. If anyone can tell me their whereabouts, let me know ASAP! For my pinatas, I'm going to go with a more basic sugar cookie recipe and heart-shaped pinatas because I am not in possession of a burro shaped cookie cutter. I'll report back on my findings! Until then, enjoy the rest of the weekend!


Cupcake sighting: I Dream of Sweets has a sign up for a Dillo Day cupcake consisting of a caramel cake, green raspberry frosting, and a chocolate 'dillo on top. Must. Try. This. Cupcake.

S'more Oatmeal

Lately, I've been kind of stuck in a breakfast rut. This statement unto itself makes me very sad because breakfast/brunch is by far my favorite meal of the day. However, when I get busy with school and such, cereal, even with its myriad varieties, can only take me so far. I recently discovered the joy of Thomas' Whole Wheat Mini Bagels, which are delicious topped with some Philadelphia Cream Cheese (I like the 1/3 less fat stuff) and strawberries. But still I yearned for more.

This lazy Saturday morning, I decided to venture into the forgotten territory of oatmeal, cold cereal's less flashy older brother. A warm, hearty breakfast is just what I needed on this gloomy Chicagoland day. Normally, I'm a brown sugar and dried fruit sort of gal, but I was feeling adventurous and, inspired by the random ingredients I had in the pantry, came up with this little number: s'more oatmeal! Great idea, or the greatest idea?

The amounts in the recipe below make one hearty serving of ~1 cup prepared oats. It's super simple and wildly delicious. Cheers!

S'more Oatmeal

Oats

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1 cup water

1/8 - 1/4 tsp salt (depending on your taste)

Topping

1 tbsp semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 tbsp light brown sugar (optional, but good if you like it really sweet)

1 sheet (4 crackers) graham crackers (I had some Honey Maid Gingerbread graham crackers left over from the post-holiday season - nom!)

10 mini marshmallows

Instructions

In a two cup microwave-safe bowl, combine oats, water, and salt. Microwave on medium (50%) power for 5-6 minutes. Stir well after heating.

Mix chocolate chips (and brown sugar, if desired) into the cooked oatmeal, giving the chips a chance to melt and become gooey. Crumble the graham crackers on top of the oatmeal, and top with mini marshmallows. Garnish with a squirt of light whipped cream, if desired.

Enjoy!