Waffle Cookies

A SERVICEABLE RECIPE.


Ingredients

• 3/4 stick of butter, softened
  
• 1/8c oil
  
• 1/2c brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1tsp vanilla extract
  
• 3/4c flour
  
• 1.5c rolled oats
  
• 1/2tsp baking soda
  
• 3/4tsp salt
  
• 1c dark chocolate chips
  
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
  

In a bowl, whip together the butter, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Heat a waffle iron and cook big spoonfuls of the batter according to the normal waffle iron procedures.

Thoughts: this idea is almost as cool as it sounds. And it nearly works. But there need to be some modifications. For starters, I would add baking powder. The soda just creates a basic environment so you get browning, but I wanted a little lift. Second of all, I would soak the oats for at least an hour beforehand in milk. I thought the cookies turned out pretty dry, and that's a danger if you're basically creating MORE surface area. I think the oats should help retain moisture, but they need to have moisture to begin with. Flavor was good, though I had to adjust the salt up from 1/4tsp... .75tsp may be an understatement as compared with what I eventually used. Finally, I would probably use whole wheat flour, but that's just me. In general, though, the recipe needs more moisture somewhere. The trick is to sneak it in without ruining the consistency of the dough.

Disaster Index: 3/10, but I'd definitely try it again.

Olive Oil Granola

Best granola recipe yet. This is super addictive. This is my own take on the olive oil granola recipe from the NY Times that's been circulating on the food blogs. I didn't have all the ingredients for that one, so I kind of improvised. I think my flavor combinations are probably better, though. YOU HEARD ME NEW YORK TIMES. Okay.

Ingredients

• 3c rolled oats
  
• 1c quick oats
  
• 1/4c wheat germ
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• ~1/2c packed brown sugar, plus or minus (see thoughts section)
  
• ~1/4c chocolate chips
  
• 1/2c olive oil
  
• .75tsp cinnamon, maybe more
  
• .5tsp cardamom
  
• 1 egg white, whipped until foamy
  

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix together all the dry ingredients until well mixed. Add the olive oil and stir around until coated, then whip the egg white and stir that in until well mixed. Spread the granola over a 9x13 pan with steep sides (like a brownie pan). I had a layer of waxed paper on the bottom of my pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 300, stir lightly, turning over the top layer, and then bake for another 25 minutes. Take the granola out of the oven and let it cool overnight. Don't touch it! This is how you get the clusters. The next morning, you can (carefully) break it apart and put it in the fridge.

Thoughts: This is REALLY good. Olive oil + chocolate = awesome. Trust me on this. But what's more, it's hard to eat more than like 1/3c at a go. For some reason this is really unusually filling. Here are some things I might do differently next time:

1. Salt: wheat germ is just naturally a little salty and olive oil is a little savory. This granola turned out a little on the salty side. Which was OK, but it meant I had to add a little more sugar to compensate. Next time, maybe 1/2 the added salt. Or no added salt.
   
2. Egg Whites: while I got SOME of the granola clusters I was looking for, the effect wasn't quite as pronounced as I'd have liked. In the future, I'll use more than one egg white.
   

Disaster Index: 1/10

Oat Applesauce Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup raisins
  
• 1 egg

Combine the rolled oats with the buttermilk and let sit on the kitchen counter for 2 hours (we did it for and hour and 15 minutes, but it really should be for the whole time).
Preheat oven to 375.
In a small bowl, cover the raisins with boiling water and let them hydrate for about 5 minutes. Drain.
In a separate bowl, combine whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, wheat germ, and brown sugar.
Stir in the oat/buttermilk mixture. Add the applesauce, the egg, and the raisins. Stir to combine.
Put the batter in 12 greased muffin cups or a muffin tin. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Thoughts: While we were preparing this recipe, we were like "huh, there's no salt here. I wonder if we should add salt?" and "huh, there are no spices included. Maybe we should add spices." Despite thinking both of these things aloud, we did neither, and that was a huge mistake. The muffins came out chewier than we wanted (probably because the oats hadn't been thoroughly soaked in the buttermilk (because we're too impatient)), and furthermore, they were pretty tasteless. They badly needed both spices and salt. Thank god we added raisins (they weren't in the original recipe) because they added some flavor.

In the future, we would:
1) add probably 1/2 tsp salt
2) add cardamom or cinnamon or something -- maybe generic Baking Spice? Maybe 1/2-1 tsp
3) soak the oats for the whole time

On the other hand, this recipe is ridiculously healthy. The muffins didn't taste bad, they just didn't taste like anything. If you ate them with lemon curd, that would probably help. We might actually have a recipe for lemon curd. Hm.

Disaster Index: 4/10 - needs improvement

Melon lassi

Okay, hardly a "recipe" but it was something I tried out today. I was originally thinking "smoothie" but it pretty much tasted like lassi. So there you go.

Ingredients

(roughly)

• 1c honeydew melon
  
• 1/2c vanilla ice cream
  
• 1/2c plain yogurt
  
• 1/4c milk
  
• 1tbsp honey
  
• 1/4tsp cinnamon
  

Throw everything in a blender. Enjoy.

Thoughts: Pretty delicious. It's like lassi, but with a subtle melon-y taste (go figure). I was mainly trying to get rid of a not-so-great honeydew melon, and this worked. My only gripe is that the melon doesn't blend TERRIBLY well - it takes a lot of blending to get it into small enough bits to be enjoyable. But the melon in question wasn't completely ripe - otherwise I wouldn't have been blending it in the first place. Catch-22. It could use to be thicker, too. Maybe some quick oats next time, no added milk, and a banana. That would make it a little more smoothie-like and probably the desired density.

Disaster Index: 2/10

UPDATE:

Ingredients

(roughly)

• 2c honeydew melon or honeydew-cantaloupe hybrid OR whatever you want
  
• 1/4c vanilla ice cream
  
• 1/2c plain yogurt
  
• 1/3c quick oats
  
• Any additional flavors you want - other fruit, cinnamon, etc
  

Throw everything in a blender (make sure you add the oats last or it'll be tough to get it started blending). Blend for 20 or 30 seconds, until it looks pretty smooth. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours. I just throw in the whole blender bowl and leave the base on the counter. During this time, the oatmeal (now more like oat flour) will plump up and thicken the smoothie, also enhancing the oat flavors, but it gets kind of lumpy. Take it out and re-blend it for 10-20 seconds on high speed after it's done. Enjoy.

Thoughts: Much improved. The oats actually add a little extra sweetness to the smoothie, and the texture is much thicker & richer. This works great if you have some melon that isn't quite sweet or flavorful enough to motivate you to eat it straight OR if you just bought way more melon that you needed and Claire won't help you eat it.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Better Granola

Based on a recipe called "Seven Year Granola" I came across through the Kitchn blog.
Ingredients

• 2/3 lb quick oats, 1/3lb rolled oats
  
• whatever nuts you have on hand (up to 3c)
  
• 1tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/2tsp ground cardamom
  
• 1/2tsp ground mace (or replace all of the seasonings with a little less than 2tsp Penzy's Baking Spice mix, like we did)
  
• 1c dark brown sugar
  
• 1 stick unsalted butter
  
• 1/3c water
  
• 1/2tsp salt
  
• 2tsp vanilla extract
  
• a bunch of raisins or other dried fruit
  

Preheat oven to 300*F. In a cuisinart, grind 1/2 lb of quick oats into a fine powder. In a large bowl, mix all the oats (and oat flour you just made), the nuts, seeds, and spices, and set aside. In a small sauce pan, add the butter, water, and brown sugar, and heat until the butter has melted. Take off the heat and add the salt and vanilla and stir to dissolve. Pour this over the oats and nuts mixture, stirring until everything is uniformly damp. If you can't get everything damp, add a little extra water and stir some more. Let it stand for 10 minutes.

Spread the mixture evenly over a large baking dish, and then make several divisions with a spatula or something so that it's more like a series of clumps of granola. The basic idea is that you want to expose a little more surface area to the dry oven air so that you can get more clumps in the finished product. Bake for ~30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and gently stir the mixture around. This will break the mixture into slightly smaller chunks. This is OK. return to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes. Repeat this step (mixing and baking) until the granola is dry. Then set it out on a counter to cool. Once it reaches more or less room temperature, add all the dried fruit.

Thoughts: This granola is unique among the granolas we have made in the past insofar as it actually has CLUMPS of granola. Awesome! Personally, I could use to adjust the seasoning somewhat, and next time I will probably want to use more rolled oats and less butter. I hypothesize that the oat flour is responsible for getting things to stick together, so I can reduce the fat content a little and it'll be fine. We'll see. Otherwise, this is fantastic. Claire and I agree that it's probably the best granola we've made.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Apple Carrot Cake with Molasses Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 and 3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
• 2 cups dark brown sugar
• 1.5 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp rum
• 3 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp grated or ground nutmeg
• 2 apples, peeled, cored, and grated
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and grated

Heat the oven to 350.
Combine the oats with the boiling water and set aside until the oats have absorbed the majority of the water.
Beat the butter and sugar together. It will be easiest if you use a kitchenaid for this or something. We did. Cream the butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat until smooth and whipped. Add the vanilla and rum and mix to incorporate. Add in the oatmeal.
Combine all the dry ingredients together and whisk well. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix until fully incorporated. Add the grated apple and carrot. Mix well.
Line a smallish spring-form pan with parchment paper (or grease it really well). Put about 1/3 of the mixture in the pan (this batter will make 3 tiers, so you'll have to do this 3 times. Just be prepared). Put in the oven for at least 40 minutes (we had to cook each tier for like, an hour), or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool each layer completely before adding the icing in between each layers.

Icing

• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 8-oz packages of cream cheese, very soft
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• at least 2 cups powdered sugar - more if you want the icing to be stiffer.
  

Beat the whole milk for a while, then add the cream cheese bit by bit. This will help it incorporate better into the milk. Don't just dump the whole thing in there. Add the molasses, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg. Beat in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Set aside and refrigerate for an hour while the cake bakes and cools.

Thoughts: This was hella good. There's just no way around it. The original recipe also called for like, a cup of coconut in the cake, but I suspect that would have made the cake way too sweet. It was pretty damn sweet as it is. It was also VERY moist, which was fantastic. I think next time we would put raisins in the cake as well, just for a little added texture. The carrot and apple was grated pretty finely, so they didn't really add much of a textural element at all. I felt more ambivalent about the frosting because it just tasted SO much like molasses. In the future I think we would either cut WAY back on the molasses or just not put it in at all and make a normal cream cheese frosting. Also we used whole milk instead of whipping cream for the frosting, which probably contributed to its texture (more like a loose icing than a frosting). Next time we would go ahead and use the whipping cream.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Oat, Raisin, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Extravaganza

Makes about 24 cookies.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp butter
• 2/3 cup superfine sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 capful of vanilla extract (what is this, like, 1/2 tsp? a full tsp? Not a full. Probably a half)
  
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1&3/4 cup rolled oats (NOT INSTANT)
• 1 cup raisins, soaked in water for 15 minutes
• 1 cup chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 350F
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Gradually add the beaten egg and vanilla.
Beat in the salt, baking powder, and flour and gently mix to combine.
Add the rolled oats, raisins, and chocolate pieces.
Place spoonfuls of the mixture on a greased baking sheet. About 12 should fit at one time.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. These won't really turn golden brown, so you can't use that as an indicator. Poke them with a knife or toothpick or something and make sure that it comes out clean.

Thoughts: Well, these were much better than that other oatmeal cookie recipe, I'll tell you what. But I don't think we were entirely pleased with the oat: flour ratio. These cookies, like so many other oat and raisin cookies, were too much oat and not enough batter. So I think we'd probably change the recipe to include something like 1 cup flour and 1 cup oats or even 3/4 cup oats or something. I don't know. We'll mess around with it. We used shredded chocolate pieces because that's what we had on hand, but I think actual chocolate chips would probably have been better.

Disaster Index: 2-3/10 not too shabby

Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup apple butter
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup raisins
• 1.5 cups white flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice (or cardamom)
• 2 cups rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350.
Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, mix apple butter, oil, egg, vanilla, and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in raisins.
In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cardamom/allspice. Stir in oats.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until well blended.
Drop batter by tablespoonfuls about 3 inches apart onto the baking sheet.
Bake 15 minutes, until lightly browned.

Thoughts: For some reason, this recipe didn't work at all. The cookies didn't flatten out; they just sort of stayed in lumps. And they were really dry on the inside. I mean, they were edible, but I wouldn't make them again. These are 65 calories per cookie, on the bright side.

Disaster Index: 7/10

Granola

This is an edited version of Alton Brown's granola recipe.

Ingredients

• 3c rolled oats
  
• 1c chopped or slivered almonds
  
• 3/4c shredded coconut
  
• 3T brown sugar
  
• 2T honey or maple syrup
  
• 1c raisins, chopped dates, and craisins
  
• pinch of salt
  
• anything else you happen to want to add (today we added about 1/4c peanuts to supplement a lack of almonds).
  

Preheat oven to 250. Take out a baking sheet with moderately steep sides. Add the oats, nuts, coconut, sugar, honey (more or less evenly), and salt. Stir that around with a spatula or wooden spoon. Then put it in the oven and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, taking it out ever 15 minutes and stirring it around to make sure it toasts evenly. Once it's done, throw in the dried fruit.

Thoughts: We've made this a couple times, and it always turns out well. It's kind of a 'blank slate' recipe - you could just add cinnamon or vanilla, maybe orange zest, or chocolate chips (though only after it's done baking). Actually, come to think of it, you could probably use chocolate chips slightly before it's done baking and get sort of 'clusters' of granola, though you'd probably have to refrigerate it once it comes out of the oven.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - A fool-proof, open-ended recipe. Maybe you could make granola bars out of it, too.