From Weird to Wonderful

Last week was, for lack of a better word or possibly the best word to describe it, weird. As in, The Twilight Zone weird. Or Weird Al weird. Or falling down the rabbit hole weird. I’m sure you get it. It was weird, and it wasn't the kosher kind.

Stress and uncertainty can do a lot of things to a person, particularly when you aren’t quite sure what it is you are stressed or uncertain about. While I was sick it felt like I was eating all the time. I felt better by Thursday, and rock climbed three days in a row. At the same time I was playing around with various supplements to enhance my health. Some days it worked while on other days... not so much. My hormones and emotions were playing Ping-Pong in the very back of my consciousness, coloring my perception of reality. Again, there were days where I was aware and bright eyed. But on most days, I didn’t like it at all.

From the weirdness came a beacon of light, though. This was the week the boyfriend was up from Harrisonburg to talk with students at GMU for the job fair. We talked about us, about hypothetical and/or future hard decisions, and we walked from it hand in hand, a better couple and better friends as the result. This may have been the underlying stress I didn’t know I had, because after our many heart-to-heart conversations, I’ve been sleeping a full night’s rest without waking up, and I’m not randomly hungry or mindlessly munching.

It was the domino effect, and it poured into the other aspects of my life. I became motivated to continue working on my resume and taking it seriously. With my sleeping well, I wasn’t as hungry and had the energy to run longer (view updated fitness regimen here). I am managing my time more efficiently, and thus have time to write a post or two… maybe three.

Starting this week, I’m managing recipes and posting a lot more regularly than I have been doing. I want to do at least one every other day, but I’d like to have around twenty posts a month. So be on the look out for more recipes, philosophizing, random pictures of food, adventures, health updates, and restaurant reviews.

My blog is changing, hopefully for the better, because I have been neglecting it terribly. I loved how much I learned my first month blogging, and recently I’ve been treating writing like it was a chore instead of a pastime. If I want to be the change I want to see in the world, I have to make the effort to develop and nurture such a feat.

I’m back from the Rabbit Hole, dear readers, with a new recipe for you.

As you may know, most of my breakfasts have consisted of breakfast bakes for a couple of months now. Some of them have been solely made with buckwheat flour or garbanzo bean flour, while others have had additional flours like coconut, CGF oats, or flaxseed meal. I like to keep the base around 275 to 350 calories, and incorporate fruits, veggies, and spreads for a higher nutritional content for an extra 100 to 200 calories. Calories don’t matter that much to me anymore, and I can happily say my breakfasts keep me going until 11:00, an impressive 4 – 5 hour stretch.

Recently I made a carrot cake breakfast bake and, loving it so much, decided to make a batch of muffins with a few modified adjustments and some added ingredients to make them cake-like and moist. The base is essentially two breakfast bakes combined to make 8 – 9 muffins, so if you eat four or six (yes, they’re that yummy) in a sitting, don’t worry about it. They hold well and don’t crumble on you, perfect for eating right out of your hand. Eat them with a smear of honey or stevia-sweetened cream cheese, almond butter, or simply them as is in all of their glorious muffin-ness.

Eat well, my friends, and enjoy. 

Carrot “Bran” Muffins

60 g Buckwheat flour
28 g Coconut flour
16 g Flaxseed meal
120 ml Carrot juice
120 ml Filtered water
10 ml Unfiltered apple cider vinegar
15 ml Coconut oil, room temperature
2 Eggs
60 g Unsweetened applesauce
80 g Thompson (or Sultana) raisins
2 medium Carrots, finely grated
45 g Unsalted pistachio meats, finely chopped (by hand or with a food processor)
1/2 – 1 scant tsp. Sea salt
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Bourbon vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg
1/4 tsp. Cloves
1/4 tsp. Ginger powder
Stevia, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the ingredients (sans the coconut oil, the grated carrot, raisins, and pistachio).
Fold in the remaining ingredients and let the batter sit at room temperature for fifteen minutes.
Pour the batter into greased muffin tins (I used a 3 oz ice cream scoop like this one to keep it even), and place in the oven to bake for thirty minutes.
When set, remove from the muffin tins to the cooling rack (I didn’t wait that long to take a bite).
Serve slightly above room temperature or chilled.

Makes 8 – 9 muffins.

The Breakfast Bake Jamboree!

Last week must have been my most bangin’ week that I’ve had in a while. I was busy when there was something to do, and was relaxed when there was nothing to do. The house is cleaner, my demeanor is happy-go-lucky and open, and better still, I’m sleeping. Last night was my longest sleep yet: nine-something hours.

It’s weird, though. I figured that this awesome way of looking at the world would give me more time to blog, but the somethings in my life (i.e. working two jobs part-time equaling thirty-two hours, cleaning, exercising, hanging out with people) have kept me plenty occupied. In retrospect, I think this blog was my outlet from stressing out and losing it last semester, an escape through recipe writing and reaching out to those who visit Meals With Morri with stories of my day-to-day life. But after this week, I know when I am free to cook just for the sake of cooking, and following up with a post.

This particular post on my take of breakfast bakes has been two plus weeks in the making, if only because I wasn’t sure if I wanted each recipe to have its own post or do like I did with my various socca versions in “The Socca Chronicles”. After my stagnation of not blogging much of anything, the photos on my camera were adding up and I was getting overwhelmed with the idea of having to do so many over a short amount of time. In my something-nothing philosophy, that kind of thinking just wasn’t kosher. 

One post it was then.

My first ever “breakfast bake” (if I could call it that) on this blog was significantly different than what they look like today. They’ve transformed based on how they are cooked and in what, and I am truly digging my oven-safe soup bowls to do the job I wanted. They’ve varied in flours, liquids, fruits, leavening agents, and fats. Some of them have been amazing while others, well, not so much. I wasn’t partial to baking powder, only because of wanting to avoid cornstarch (or starches in general to keep the bakes whole-grain), and used equal measurements baking soda and cream of tartar instead. At the moment I’m only using baking soda, not as highly rising a product but delicious all the same.

By the way, the following recipes were baked in a preheated soup bowl at 350ºF for 30 or so minutes. Butter and coconut oil were used for greasing the pan just before adding the batter, though I’m using coconut oil currently. Oh, and all of the batters were made the night before and placed in the fridge to “set”.

The first is similar to the breakfast bake I had almost every day during the boyfriend's and my ski trip. It was made with 60 g of garbanzo bean flour, 90 g water, one egg, salt, baking soda and half a Granny Smith apple, so I just rolled with calling it a “socca bake”. But I started to realize that my tummy could only handle so many beans in a day, so I tried it with buckwheat flour and groats. 

Spiced Apple Buckwheat Bake

30 g Raw buckwheat groats, whole

30 g Buckwheat flour

90 ml Filtered water

5 ml Unrefined apple cider vinegar

1 Large egg

1/4 tsp. Sea salt

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 tsp. Allspice

1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

1/4 tsp. Bourbon vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. Baking soda

1/4 tsp. Cream of tartar

1 Granny Smith apple, cored and cut into small chunks

1 – 2 tsp. Butter, for greasing

Combine everything into a mixing bowl (except for the leavening agents, the apple, and the butter) and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF with a small oven-safe soup bowl (or ramekin) in the center.

Add the leavening agent and apple chunks into the batter and let it sit on the counter until the oven is heated.

Melt the butter in the hot bowl and swish around the bottom as well as the edges and then pour in the batter.

Bake for 30 minutes (or until you press the top in the very middle as does not give way).

I cut mine so it resembled a puffy sandwich and put a little peanut butter love in the middle.

Over the next few recipes I fell in love with cream cheese and wanted to use it in a few of my breakfast bakes as well as topping them with it.

Strawberry Dream Breakfast Bake

60 g Buckwheat flour

6 g Buckwheat groats

90 ml Filtered water

1 Large egg

1/4 tsp. Sea salt

1/8 tsp. Bourbon vanilla extract

Stevia, to taste

30 g Cream cheese

140 g Strawberries, cut into small chunks (if frozen, put in the fridge to thaw overnight)

1/4 tsp. Baking soda

1/4 tsp. Cream of tartar

1 – 2 tsp. Butter, for greasing

Like the “Spiced Apple BB” recipe above, mix together all but the cream cheese, strawberries, leavening agents, and butter to sit in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF with a small oven-safe soup bowl (or ramekin) in the center.

Add the leavening agent, the cream cheese in small patches, and strawberry chunks into the batter and let it sit on the counter until the oven is heated.

Melt the butter in the hot bowl and swish around the bottom as well as the edges and then pour in the batter.

Bake for 30 minutes or until done.

I think I would have liked it more if there was a little more stevia in the mix, but it was very satisfying nonetheless.

While I’m on the cream cheese track, I made one with cream cheese, coconut flour, and pureed berries for a cheesecake breakfast bake sort of thing. It looked darling until it sank. And there needs to be a different flour; the coconut gave it a weird texture.

Moving on.

I started craving the lemon poppy combination, and thought about making a breakfast oatmeal cookie with the two flavors. But I found that quinoa flour and garbanzo bean flour were simply made to be together, and deliciousness ensued.

Lemon Poppy Bake with Sweet Poppy Cream Cheese Spread

30 g Garbanzo bean flour

28 g Quinoa flour

120 ml Filtered water

12 ml Orange juice

1 Large egg

1/4 tsp. Grated lemon zest

4 g Poppy seeds

1/8 tsp. Bourbon vanilla extract

Stevia, to taste

1/4 tsp. Baking soda

1/4 tsp. Cream of tartar

1 – 2 tsp. Coconut oil

Sweet Poppy Cream Cheese Spread

15 g Cream cheese

1/8 – 1/4 tsp. Poppy seeds

Stevia, to taste

With this recipe, you can combine all of the ingredients with the exception to the leavening agents and coconut oil and bake as instructed above. I particularly enjoyed this one because it was something different, and quinoa flour has been neglected for much too long in this house.

Along with using the typical dry ingredients for the “flour" component, I also tried out pumpkin and sweet potato for a change of pace. Both bakes were significantly softer and creamier than the others, and resembled very much like a baked pudding or spoon bread.

Pumpkin Pudding Bake

60 g Garbanzo bean flour

183 g Pumpkin puree

90 ml Filtered water

1 Egg

1/4 tsp. Sea salt

1/4 tsp. Bourbon vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

1/4 tsp. Allspice

Dash of Powdered sage

Stevia, to taste

1/4 tsp. Baking soda

1/4 tsp. Cream of tartar

Finally, in an attempt to keep the Winter Wonderland Spirit alive (since it only became cold enough to snow as of Friday), I thought of some of the recipes I didn’t get to make in December, like gingerbread cutout cookies and other recipes associated with the holidays. But I did have fresh ginger root on hand. And I did have some odds and ends that reminded me of ornaments, trees, and lights…

Gingerbread Bake with a Touch of Currant

30 g Buckwheat flour

28 g Buckwheat groats, coarsely ground in a spice blender

120 ml Filtered water

1 Large egg

1 tsp. Orange juice

1/4 tsp. Grated lemon rind

6 g Finely grated fresh ginger

5 g Fresh ginger, cut into very small cubes (you can also use candied ginger in its place)

15 g Dried currants

5 g Unsweetened baking chocolate, finely ground in a spice blender

1/4 tsp. Sea salt

1/4 tsp. Cracked pepper

1/4 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 tsp. Allspice

1/8 tsp. Bourbon vanilla extract

1/8 tsp. Nutmeg

7 g Honey (or 1 pureed prune, as I had done)

1/4 tsp. Baking soda

1/4 tsp. Cream of tartar

1 – 2 tsp. Coconut oil

Just like with the "Lemon Poppy Bake" and the "Pumpkin Pudding Bake" you combine all of the ingredients except the last three to sit in the fridge overnight. And just when you are preheated the oven you add the leavening agents, and then put the coconut oil into the hot pan ahead of the batter.

So there you have it: five breakfast bake recipes with an additional two mentioned in passing (one of those passing fancies being a flop). I learned a lot about how leavening agents differ, and the glories of cream cheese were only just realized. There were many I didn’t photograph simply because I was up at such a ridiculous hour and my brain was fuzzy with fatigue and hunger, but I have one of the recipes written down and one still in the thought process, both of which need to be tinkered with.

It’s official: January is definitely Breakfast Bake Month for the year 2012. Don't get me wrong; that’s just dandy. I do, however, intend on the last week of this month having other recipes besides breakfast bakes. Cookies maybe. Or something with whole grain quinoa in it. 

We'll just have to wait and see.