The Oatmeal Experiment

I made baked oatmeal pancakes with apples & blackberries on Tuesday:

And I decided to toy with the relative amounts of flour-oatmeal in the pancakes! That pretty much resulted in spending at least an hour preparing the 4 batters, but it was interesting And it gave me a chance to use up the apples that have been lying around!

Bottom left: 100% oatmeal
Middle: 50% oatmeal, 50% whole wheat flour
Bottom right: 75% oatmeal, 25% whole wheat flour
Top left: 25% oatmeal, 75% whole wheat flour

From the appearance, the more oatmeal there was, the more grainy the pancake was. As far as taste, I could kinda taste the subtle difference between the 100% oatmeal pancake and the 25% oatmeal pancake~but otherwise I couldn’t really tell which was which. I wish I hadn’t gotten lazy and made a pancake with 100% flour! Maybe next time…

Recipe! - makes 1 large pancake
Ingredients

• blackberries - as much as you want [I used 2 per pancake and cut them up]
• apples, chopped - as much as you want [I used about 0.125 cup]
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp corn starch
• 0.25 cup quick oats [or 0.25 cup flour]
• 0.25 cup Kellogg’s All-Bran Original [optional]
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp applesauce
• 0.25 tsp cinnamon [optional]

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another.
3. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix.
4. Scoop batter onto baking tray and bake for 20 minutes. You can also pour the batter into a pan and cook them like normal pancakes

I finally tried the pumpkin-oatmeal combo on Monday:

pumpkin, cinnamon, ground ginger, bean brownies, corn

The oatmeal looks like mashed potatoes ’cause I was in a hurry to get to the lab [at 7 a.m.! Hence the reason I packed my breakfast in a box~] so I microwaved :p Ended up not adding a lot of water–it was enough, but less than the amount I usually add.
But yeah–chocolate & pumpkin definitely go well together! The pumpkin has a very refreshing taste and took my attention away the slightly out-of-place flavor of the black beans [I ditched the chickpeas--much better!]–guess bean brownies take a bit of getting used to And notice that I have corn with my oatmeal again! I’m addicted~

Lunch!

whole wheat tortilla, cheddar cheese, chicken breast

Here’s the rest of my lunch–packed in a yogurt container ’cause it’s fun

tortilla, gala apple, baby carrots, grape tomatoes

I ended up eating the apple after I ate my oatmeal breakfast…and started snacking on the tomatoes & carrots at 10 to 10: 30 ish~since the tortilla obviously wouldn’t be enough to get me through til dinner time [I didn't have time to pack a snack! :(], I rushed home for about 2 minutes to grab a mug of coffee to bring to the lab~guess I need to pack a lot more next time!

Got home that day at around6: 30 p.m.–that’s 11.5 hours in a place with no windows! Was rather tired and grumpy at that point, but then mom made soup:

mashed potatoes, mushrooms, pork[?]

It was GOOD. Don’t remember what else I had for dinner that day ’cause didn’t take pictures

Had this the day before yesterday:

Apples, corn, un-baked bean brownies

For the beans, I used chickpeas and black beans ’cause I wanted to see what the brownies would taste like with other types of beans…the results weren’t so good with the chickpeas Its savory-ness clashed horribly with the sweetness of the brown sugar&applesauce…I threw in a tiny bit of vanilla extract in hopes of masking the flavor of the chickpeas…the brownies were still good…just tasted a little odd~I think kidney beans would have worked better…they have a less distinct taste~

But yeah! I’m really liking the corn with the oatmeal–the flavors actually go together quite well–it’s kinda like eating rice, really~so good! Having it with nuts or PB may be even better

Was good!
Got up at 5: 30 a.m. to eat breakfast and bake a surprise cake and finish coloring the card

Before baking:

blueberries&cocoa

20 minutes later:

“marble” cake!

Some of the cake stuck to the red plastic thing–which gave me an excuse to grab a few bites XD

The day before yesterday my mom and I tried Cambodian food for the first time–we had leftovers, so I finished it off today for lunch:

Lemon grass beef, green chilies, red&green pepper, jasmine&normal white rice

Was good! Very flavorful, although a little too salty and oily. I accidentally bite into one of the chillies D: I’m not hardcore enough for spicy foods~

After lab, I took my mom to Wooden Heads for dinner–gourmet pizza!

What I ordered:

Tomato sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, marinated mushrooms, artichokes

That’s my mom pretending to dig in XD

What she ordered:

tomato sauce, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella, lemon chicken

I’m not really much of a pizza fan–but this restaurant makes really good pizzas! The crust wasn’t too thick, and was hot and crsipy, well seasoned toppings, not boring at all. I was really hungry, so I ate the whole pizza [minus a bit of the crust--got too full near the end]

I did another oatmeal “experiment” this morning as well–but I’ll save it for another post tomorrow! XD

Got this idea while making corn muffins with mom two days ago!

Corn, sweet potatoes, blueberries, ground ginger, cinnamon, brown sugar, soymilk

Some of you were a little skeptical about the blueberries with sweet potatoes, but I found the tastes complement each other quite well and wasn’t weird at all! I mean, it sounds really weird but I loved it And so pretty! I like colors

Aaaand I’m finally finished with the last of my swee potato! This time I cooked them long enough so that they were soft–they tasted so much better than the rocks I had last time! Now I’m really tempted to go buy another one so I can have it again!

Oh, and mom made the best dessert two days ago:

More prettiness!

Contains beans, barley, and rice! I’ve never had this with rice before–but it was the best thing ever. I’m obsessed. It was so good I even ditched oatmeal to have the bean soup for breakfast instead yesterday:

Beans & tortilla with mom’s meat&celery&carrot&onion pasta sauce

And the funny thing is, I used to hate this bean stuff! We’re down to the last bowl now–I’m so sad

Oh oh–and tomorrow I’m taking my mom out to dinner for Mother’s day! Must remember to bring my camera so I can get some pictures of the food! What are you guys doing for Mother’s Day?

I bought a sweet potato the week before and still haven’t used it [I wanted to save it for something...but I have no idea what that "something" was..] so I decided to have it with breakfast this morning:

Sweet potatoes, blueberries, soymilk, cinnamon, ground ginger, and a little brown sugar

I should definitely add more sugar next time…and maybe boil the potatoes longer so it’s softer~sweet potatoes just doesn’t taste right when it’s 0.75% raw. But anyway! The bowl smelled so good I spent about half an hour sniffing it before actually eating

As good as it was, not enough to fill me up But I didn’t have a cup of coffee this morning, so maybe that was why I also ended up having 2[!] slices of this:

Commence drooling!

Whole wheat green tea cake. Mom baked it yesterday [I helped! :D]–we used my bag of whole wheat flour, mom was skeptical, but after she tasted it she thought it was alright! I think I’m well on my way to converting her to my whole wheat ways XD

The cake was more moist than expected, but I like moist and doughy baked stuff so I was happy

Heheh having mom around sure made meals more exciting–’cause I usually just boil stuff, add vinegar or parmesan, and eat. I took pictures of the meals~but I think I’ll probably post everything in another entry or this one’ll be too long!

To the right is my new favorite food–plain yogurt, half a teaspoon of honey, blackberries, and half a rice cake–discovered yesterday! It was also the first time I’ve ever eaten a blackberry [it was on sale at the market :-P]–found it a little too sour…but tasted good with the yogurt!

To the left is a creation spawned from the need to quickly finish what’s left of my whole grain flax bread ’cause it expired yesterday…[I tossed the bread in the freezer the night before in hopes of keeping it for one more day]. Oh, and it’s also the first time I’ve ever made french toast! Behold its ugliness:

Ugly, but tasty!

It was a bit on the soggy side…so next time I guess I won’t dip the bread in my soymilk mixture.
And the “patty” in my french toast sandwich:

Oatmeal, bananas, Kellogg’s All-Bran Original, blueberries

Twas good!

I wish I had more photo taking skills ’cause my breakfast looked and tasted a lot better than what the pictures show here…
But anyway! as awesome as that breakfast was, it was way too small to keep me full so I had one of the strawberry buns that I made a while ago as well~oh man I could seriously eat breakfast food at any time of the day

The day before yesterday’s dinner:

I like playing with my food
The drink is pretty much milk powder + water + cinnamon - was feeling adventurous XD

Yesterday’s dinner:

Cheddar cheese melted with spinach = SO GOOD. Best “sauce” ever!

And today my mom is arriving all the way from BC to visit me for 2 whole weeks! I have no idea what the hell we’re going to do ’cause there’s nothing to do in Kingston except eat But yay!

This has got to be the prettiest thing I’ve ever baked. I love the color of zucchini!

I was originally planning on just making zucchini bread, but while mixing the dough, it came out less moist than expected ['cause so far all my baking doughs came out really moist!] so I decided to break off a chunk and play with it a little! So I ended up making two rolls and a block of bread.

heheh

The bread came out crunchy on the outside, chewy and soft on the inside–awesome! And the chocolate-cinnamon mixture I had in the rolls added an extra zing to it. Oh my goodness I want to devour the whole entire box right now!

And I accidentally figured out how to work the close-up function on my ghetto digital camera yesterday while snapping pictures of my dinner:

I should make more veggie desserts! They’re so prettyful~

Recipe time!
Makes 9-10 slices of bread [or 15-20 rolls, depending on size]

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp applesauce
• 1 small mashed banana
• 2 tbsp soymilk
• 1 tbsp water added to 1 tbsp of cornstarch
• 1.5 cup whole wheat flour
• 0.5 cup oats
• 0.5 cup Kellogg’s All-Bran Original [optional--I have a whole box of this stuff so I need to use it :-P]
• 0.5 cup chopped zucchini [add more if you want!]
• 0.75 tsp baking soda
• 0.25 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp cinnamon
• any amount of unsweetened cocoa or melted dark chocolate [depends on how chocolatey you like things to be!]

Instructures for the Bread
1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Mix wet ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients in another [you can add the cocoa now or leave it aside if you want to make the rolls or sprinkle it on top of the loaf!]
3. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix together til you have dough.
4. Line a baking tray or bread pan with parchment paper/baking mat, place the dough in.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes. [depends on how moist&dough-y you like your bread! :-)]

Instructions for the Rolls
1. Do steps 1-3 listed above. Leave out the cocoa
2. Roll your dough til it’s about 0.25-0.5 inches thick.
3. Sprinkle the cocoa evenly all over the dough.
4. Add small pinches of cinnamon or small amounts of sweetener of your choice
5. Roll the dough up and chop it carefully into blocks.
6. Do steps 4-5 listed above.

Imagine my surprise when I received this:

Thank you, Happy Herbivore!

I’m happy that the fruit of my procrastination [yes, this blog was created during the period where studying for finals was supposed to happen!] has captured people’s interest in such a short amount of time!

And now to pass this reward along…

Kath Eats Real Food: Fellow oatmeal lover! I love her creative combination and presentation of ingredients–very inspiring!

Vegan Yum Yum: Beautiful and delicious looking food! Her knit cupcakes are the most innovative things I’ve ever seen!

BitterSweet: Only recently started frequenting this blog. The food on this blog looks absolutely phenomenal. She’s a really good writer as well!

Veggie Girl: Love her food adventures and the awesome baking projects she undertakes! The pictures on her blog are also really amazing!

Fatfree Vegan Kitchen: The blog that got my interest in cooking and baking started! I don’t remember how I stumbled onto SusanV’s blog, but I’m glad I did

Aaand change topics!
Yesterday’s dinner:

Haven’t had asparagus in a long time–forgotten how much I love it!

Today’s dinner:

I had just the right amount of parmesan [1 tsp], so it was great! Was especially hungry today ’cause I had to stay half an hour later than usual ’cause of lab duties [my summer job! I work at a neuroscience lab]. The dinner was finished off with what remained of my strawberries!

Also bought a bag of whole wheat flour today–so more oatmeal adventures to come tomorrow!

Today’s post is a two-in-one special! XD

I attempted to do something with the strawberries in my fridge today…

Before baking:

I made a huge mess XD

During the baking, I did an experiment within an experiment using the leftover strawberry-oatmeal filling!

Brownie [from yesterday] + strawberry oatmeal. I ate them together–using the strawberry oatmeal as topping–best thing I’ve ever tasted! [Yes, I'm aware the bowl looks pretty gross in that picture :-P]

After baking:

I was kinda horrified when I took them out of the oven ’cause I thought I burnt them… But I think that’s just the coloring of the strawberries staining the surrounding areas?? I have no clue. I definitely added too much flour…’cause they’re so white! They’d probably look less scary if the dough was at least a golden-ish color

Nonetheless–they tasted great!

Recipe! - the amount of flour has been adjusted.
Makes 10 servings. 77 kcal each

• 1.5 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp water
• 0.25 cup plain yogurt
• 0.25 cup soymilk
• 0.5 tbsp applesauce
• 0.5 small mashed banana
• 1 cup flour
• 0.5 cup Kellogg’s All-Bran Original cereal [optional]

Filling

• 7 medium-size or small strawberries, mashed
• 0.25 cup quick oats

1. Mix all wet ingredients together in a bowl, leave out the lemon juice.
2. In another bowl, mix the flour and bran cereal together, chop up the cereal a bit.
3. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together.
4. Preheat oven to 350F.
5. Line a baking tray with parchment paper or baking mat.
6. With a wooden spoon, scoop 10 separate spoonfuls of the batter and drop them onto the tray.
7. Mix the mashed strawberries and oats together and use a spoon or your fingers to drop the filling onto the scoops of batter. Press downwards gently as you apply the filling so that they’ll stick to the flour.
8. Bake for 20 minutes.