Recipe: Baked Steel Cut Oats

These past few weeks I have been joining in on the "mini-pledge" from 100 Days of Real Food, one of my favorite blogs. If you haven't checked it out you should. 

This week's pledge was to try two new "whole foods" that you have never tried before. Surprisingly, this was hard for me because I have tried so many! But then one group member shared an oatmeal recipe and I decided to give Steel Cut Oats a try. I am so glad I did, because they are fantastic!

I wish I could say this recipe was all my own, but sadly it's not. The original is here. I did, however, modify it quite a bit when I made mine. 

Baked Steel Cut Oats

Ingredients:

2 cups steel cut oats, organic if possible

½ cup (or desired amount) chopped pecans (luckily, I had some from my backyard. Other nuts work good too!)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

¾ to 1 ½ cups raisins (or fruit or really anything)

2 cups Almond milk (original recipe calls for whole milk. I chose almond as a health alternative)

1/3 cup maple syrup (but honey works too). Get natural of course!

1 large egg

1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly - I actually used Ghee since it's all I had on hand. 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Recipe:

1) Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2) In an 8-inch square baking dish, mix together the oats, the nuts, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Scatter the raisins on top or mix in with the dry ingredients. 

3) In another bowl, whisk together the milk, maple syrup, egg, about half of the butter, and vanilla. Slowly drizzle the milk mixture over the oats. Gently give the baking dish a couple of thwacks on the counter top to make sure the liquid moves down through the oats.  BUT DO NO MIX THE INGREDIENTS.

4) Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the top is golden and the oat mixture has set. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool for a few minutes. 

Of course this tastes best fresh out of the oven, but if you are like me and don't have that much time, make it ahead and microwave throughout the week. Still tastes just as good! 

I like the nutty flavor of the steel cut oats and the way the milk was absorbed into them to make it a bit crumbly when I reheated. I also love the cinnamon/raisin combo. But like I said, experiment with your toppings. I wander what it'd be like with chocolate chips?

~Lisa 

My Thoughts: Restaurants and Their Calories Lists.

Something I want to try and do a bit more this year is to post my thoughts on different food and diet related subjects. I have a lot of thoughts about certain food subjects and don't have very many other outlets to share them (My mom has heard it enough), so why not share it here.

The information I will be talking about is my own personal opinion and it is not my intentions to offend anyone with my comments.

Tonight I wanted to talk about something I've seen a lot of lately: restaurants offering special, low-calorie, portions of their menus. Maybe you've seen or heard of some of these?

Applebee's Pub- menu, including whole grains and light sauce

TGI Friday's Cut back menu

Olive Garden trying to go light.

Normally, I would be really happy that so many restaurants are making strides in helping people stick to their diets and be more conscious of their food decisions, but lately I've been thinking otherwise. 

If you know me well enough, you know that I am a bit of an advocate for the idea of "ingredients over calories". Because of this, I find the fact that so many restaurants are required to post calories a bit disturbing and frustrating. If I'm eating out, I would rather NOT know that I ingesting 1000 calories with my appetizer.  

But back to my main concern. When a restaurant adds a special "light" menu, it's implying that the rest of their menu is unhealthy, caloric, and simply dangerous. It's making people (or I hope it is) feel guilty for picking something that isn't on this menu. Or for picking something without the nutrition info posted. And when a menu only has calorie info in certain areas, I see it as their way of hiding the whole truth about their food from consumers. 

A great example is an experience I had this past summer when I was counting calories (which for the record, I never want to do again). My family visiting Chili's and I was debating between fish off the light menu and a flatbread off the regular menu. The fish (and everything on the light menu) had calorie info, while the flatbread did not. Luckily I was able to get on my sister's smart phone and find the info online. I'm glad I did,because even though the flatbread had "healthy" ingredients on top, it clocked in at almost 1,000 calories. I ordered the fish...

I think that we need to stop worrying about calories and start worrying about what is actually in our food and how it's prepared. I bet the quinoa and whole grains in that dish aren't even as nutritious as if you made them at home. Don't get me wrong, it's great that places like Applebee's are offering whole grains and quinoa, but I think that these ingredients should be staples on their entire menu, not just shoved in a corner of a page. If such ingredients were to become staples on menus, I believe that more people would accept them and we could finally start the transition to eating healthy, natural foods on a regular basis. 

At the end of the day, we all feel the way we feel about our food and make our own decisions. But for me, I think I'm going to just avoid these restaurants as much as I can. If I can't pick something off the menu without wondering why they don't have the numbers with them, it's not worth my time.

~Lisa 

Recipe: Tomato Gnocchi with Parmesan Pork Chops

New year new food! I can't wait to share all of my yummy ideas with  you guys. And hopefully more often than before.

So tonight I wanted to share a recipe I made up over the holidays, that I found really yummy.

Tomato Gnocchi with Parmesan Pork Chops

Ingredients:

For Gnocchi:

two normal sized (forgot amount!)  of diced or stewed tomatoes

1 package of store-bought gnocchi

Italian seasons to taste

Pork chop recipe:

Italian style pork chops

Instructions:

1) In a large skillet, add the gnocchi and one can of the tomatoes (with the juice!). Turn up the heat so it can begin to cook.

2)Once it starts to bubble, cover and let simmer. By covering  you are allowing the gnocchi to fully soften up.

3) You shouldn't need to simmer it for more than 5 or so minutes. Check on it to make sure that it isn't burning, and add extra can of tomatoes if needed. The gnocchi has a lot of starch, which will thicken the tomato sauce a lot.

4) Once it is almost ready, add your Italian seasonings. I always like basil and oregano, but you can add whatever you choose.

5) Remove from heat and serve with pork and veggies ! 

This went really well with the pork chops, and even better with Italian roasted veggies. Overall, this is a good recipe for those who like gnocchi but never know what to do with it! 

~Lisa