Spiced Whipped Oatmeal

I now present you recipe two from the healthy fixes series. It reminds me of oatmeal pudding. And we know that I'll eat anything that reminds me of pudding.

I was inspired to make whipped oatmeal by the blog Katheats. This girl is a serious oatmeal lover- check out her oatmeal tribute page; it's epic.

The Basic formula is this:

Make oatmeal with thin slices of banana, whisking like crazy during the second half of cooking.

Once you've mastered the (extremely complicated) basic formula*, the dish is highly customizable. You can use any kind of milk you want to prepare the oats and then add extras like spices, nuts, granola, peanut/almond butter, dried fruit, fresh fruit, yogurt or chia seeds.

* Its not extremely complicated, that was a joke.

Now, Why Oatmeal? I'll tell you.

Oatmeal boosts energy without adding a ton of calories and fat. It is a complex carbohydrate, which means you feel full longer and have energy longer than you would if you'd just eaten cake and icecream, or even something like a peach. This means the oat/banana combination packs a one-two punch: Energy spike from the banana, sustained energy compliments of the oatmeal.

Oatmeal contain more soluble fiber than whole wheat, rice and corn. The soluble fiber helps eliminate heart-clogging cholesterol, and reduces the risk of heart disease. Oatmeal also contains goodly amounts of vitamins A, B and E, protein, iron and calcium.

What's more, when you choose oatmeal for your breakfast, you are totally in control of what you put in your mouth. Unlike cereal, the only ingredient in rolled oats are OATS. Stay away from the flavored instant varieties... they're full of sugar and it really doesn't much longer to prepare the real thing.

Here is my super tasty decadent version:

SPICED WHIPPED OATMEAL

1/2 cup oats

1 cup vanilla silk almond milk

1 medium banana

1/2 t cinnamon

1/4 t cardamom

There's no sweetener even needed, because the banana and the vanilla almond milk is sweet.

Combine the almond milk and oats in a pot over low heat. Thinly slice the banana into the pot and let the oats warm, stirring occasionally. Once you start seeing some simmering action, get out your whisk and whisk until the banana is dispersed and unrecognizable as banana and the oats are at your desired consistency. Stir in the spices. Mmmm fragrant and spicy. After writing this post, I definitely know what I'm having for lunch today.

If you want to really mix things up, instead of spices, try adding 1/4 cup chocolate chips when the oatmeal is still hot and stirring them in to melt. You could also add a little bit of cocoa powder and a sweetener like agave nectar or honey instead of the chips.

Calories: 340 Fat: 2.5 g Sugar: 30 g

Cinnamon Oatmeal Praline Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

That name is quite the mouthful, eh? Let's add on to it and make it Smooth-Crunchy-Creamy-Chunky-Luscious-Cinnamon-Oatmeal-Praline-Chocolate-Chunk-Incredible Cream.

And after all that I have to admit that string of descriptors goes nowhere in describing how utterly divine, just how perfect it is. Thank you, David Lebovitz, for equipping me with the tools to make it.

disclaimer...this absurd number of egg yolks is for a double batch

This ice cream has three components: 1. A custard base, which means it uses a ton of egg yolks and remains soft and creamy in your freezer, rather than getting icy and hard like ice creams that use only cream and milk. 2. Oatmeal Pralines- toasted old fashioned oats tossed with hot caramel an sprinkled with sea salt, cooled in a sheet pan and smashed to bits with a heavy object. 3. Chocolate chunks- I recommend chopping up bar chocolate in slivers and chunks. I used ghiradelli baking dark, but I think semisweet would be just as good, if not better.

Order of prep:

1. Make custard, place in ice bath in fridge.

2. Make Oatmeal Pralines, set out to cool.

3. Chop chocolate, place in bowl in the freezer.

4. When custard is totally chilled (at least three hours later), churn in ice cream maker.

5. While churning, smash the praline to bits and place in bowl in freezer.

6. When ice cream is churned, put it in a bowl or tupperware and fold in the praline bits and the chocolate.

7. Cover bowl. Freeze for several hours (I recommend overnight) to soften pralines and firm ice cream.

8. Enjoy your hard earned ice cream. Try to share with your friends and family, and try not to stick your whole face in the bowl when you take it out of the freezer. Feel free to sneak a spoonful every time you pass the freezer.

Cinnamon Ice Cream, from The Perfect Scoop

Makes about 1 quart. I doubled it, and it still only lasted 2 days. There were 7 people though.

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

Pinch of Salt

Ten 3-in cinnamon sticks, broken up. I used 2 tablespoons of Saigon Cinnamon instead.

2 cups heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

Warm the milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon sticks and half the cream in a pot. Once warm, let steep for an hour to infuse the milk with the cinnamon. If you're using ground cinnamon, skip this step.

Heat the milk mixture, remove the cinnamon sticks and discard. Prepare your icebath- fill a large bowl with ice and a bit of water, and put a smaller bowl inside the big bowl. Pour the remaining cream in that smaller bowl. Have a strainer on hand to make sure there are no eggy bits in your ice cream.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Whisk the hot milk into the egg yolks a little bit at a time until the egg yolks are the same temperature as the milk mixture. Whisk the hot egg mixture into the milk mixture.

Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. DON'T BOIL. You can also tell it's done when you can feel it starting to coat the bottom of the pan. If you think its coating the spatula, it probably is.

Pour the custard through the strainer into the cream in the icebath bowl. Stir until cool. Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, then churn according to the instructions that came with your ice cream maker.

Oatmeal Pralines, also from The Perfect Scoop

3/4 rolled oats (not instant)

1/2 cup sugar

Pinch of coarse salt

First, toast the oats. You can either do this on a sheet pan in the oven, or, if it's a hot summer day and you don't feel like turning on the oven, you can toast them in a wide skillet on the stove top, stirring constantly. Like so:

Place a sheet of aluminum foil on a baking sheet.

Spread the sugar evenly in the bottom of a medium, heavy bottomed pan. Cook over medium heat and cook attentively. When you see the edges liquify, stir carefully to get the rest of the sugar to melt. Be aware that if you don't stir, the bottom can burn while the stop is still white. Once the caramel is deep golden, remove from heat and dump the oats in. Stir the oats to coat with the caramel, then scrape them onto the aluminum foil on the baking sheet. Spread them out as evenly as possible. Sprinkle with salt and let cool and harden.

Once cool, break up into pieces and put in a heavy duty plastic bag. Whack them into bits with a rolling pin or other heavy blunt object.

The pralines will be very hard, but will soften in the ice cream. I recommend mostly small bits, like the size of a fingernail.

Stir together ice cream, pralines and chocolate, freeze for a bit and enjoy!

Make it this weekend and tell me how you liked it!

OAT FUDGE BARS!!

Can you believe it's December already? My life is slipping away. I'm pretty much convinced that I am middle aged right now, based on life-experience-speed.

See, when you're a kid, life moves so unbearably slowly. There are years between birthdays. You've been in 3rd grade forever. You can't even remember the last time you had ice cream.

Somewhere around high school, time picks up, and before you know it, you're applying to colleges. You're on the brink of adult life. There's no catching up now.

I am now 24; I've been out of college for almost a year, but it seems like only a few months. And in this year, I've lived in 4 of the 5 boroughs of New York City, planned a wedding, gone through with it, moved to Georgia....and here I am now, married FOUR MONTHS and trying to figure out what to do with my life before it gets up and leaves me!

Hence, I am middle aged. I'm pretty sure that the entire rest of my life will take about as long to live as the first 24 years. TWENTY-FOUR!!!!!

Oh wait, you say you're here for baked goods?

Well, here you go....OAT FUDGE BARS!!!

A local coffee shop in Blacksburg, VA, sold super amazing oat fudge bars that helped me through each and every final...and I made it my collegiate mission to crack the recipe. I was very scientific about it, taking notes on every batch I made, and I must say that this one is very, very close.

You'll find similar recipes for oat and chocolate bars, but the chocolate part always lacks the key ingredient: cocoa powder. It's essential to achieving the fudginess that makes these things so darn phenomenal.

I also use regular oatmeal, not the quick-cooking kind. I like the texture better. Also, I like to pretend these things are healthy. I haven't heard otherwise, and I'm not going to bother asking.

Ingredients:

Oat part:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

2 t vanilla

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

2.5 cup AP flour

3 cup oats

Fudge part:

2 T butter

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

12 oz sweetened condensed milk (so I basically just pour out a 15 oz can and don't worry about scraping the sides.)

2/3 c cocoa powder

Preheat to 350.

You know the drill: Mix the dry ingredients (minus oats), set aside. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Mix in the dry ingredients, then stir in the oats.

Make the fudge:

Melt the chocolate with the SC milk and butter in a saucepan over low heat, stirring often. When the chocolate mixture is smooth, add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth. (add it a little at a time, and if it looks like it's getting too dark and thick for you, then you can stop whenever. Really, any cocoa powder is better than no cocoa powder.)

Press 2/3 of the oat mixture into the bottom of a greased pan. You can use different dimensions depending on how thick you want your bars to be. I used a 9x9 pan, but you could easily use a 9x13.

Scoop the fudge mixture on top of the oats and smooth.

Drop the rest of the oat mixture on top, pieces at a time, until it looks like this:

Then bake at 350 for about 30 min, until golden brown on top. Don't over bake- the fudge will set as it cools.

Good for breakfast, lunch, dinner and anytime in between.