Pumpkin Oat Breakfast Wedges

 

I'm always looking around for a quick breakfast that's reasonably healthy. The one proviso I have is that it must have oats! With the Fall season in full swing, these breakfast wedges are the perfect "breakfast on the go" with morning coffee. They are not sweet but that allows for those who wish to slather on their favorite jelly or jam, to do so guilt free! 

8 ozs whole wheat flour

2 ozs Old Fashioned Oats

¼ cup oat bran

2 tablespoons flax meal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

2 ozs dried fruit (I like to use cranberries)

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon Nutmeg

1 teaspoon grated ginger

1/2 cup butter, cubed

3 ozs brown sugar

2 tablespoons Maple Syrup

1 cup finely grated Pumpkin (not shredded)

Juice from 1 lemon

4 fl ozs milk or Kefir (1/2 cup)

 

1.      Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit

2.      Line a baking sheet with parchment paper

3.      Finely grater the Pumpkin and mix it with the Brown sugar, maple syrup, and lemon juice. Add the cranberries to this mixture.

4.      Mix the flour, oats, salt, Oat bran, flax meal, baking powder, baking soda, and spices in a bowl. Rub in the diced butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

5.      Add the milk (or Kefir) to the pumpkin mixture then add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix with hands to make a dough. Knead on a lightly floured surface, sprinkled with oats, until the dough comes together (The mixture can sometimes be a bit sticky so you may have to add some more flour, but do so 1 tablespoon at a time to help bring the dough together). Place the dough on the parchment paper and shape into an 8” round and sprinkle oats on top, pressing into the mixture with your hands. Score deeply (cut almost through the round) to cut round into 8 wedges.

6.      Bake 20-25 minutes until lightly risen and brown. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. Serve warm or cold. They may also be wrapped and frozen.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Bread with Tropical Flavors

 Fall is here again and although we don't have this season in the tropics where I grew up, I do like pumpkin bread. I decided to come up with a recipe that would have a lively flavor of the tropics....all the flavors I grew up tasting. I also added some oatmeal to the recipe, and used Kefir to cut back on the amount of oil/fat in the recipe. Kefir is a fermented milk with almost no sugar and low fat content. 

Unlike most pumpkin bread recipes, I used Butternut squash (easier to handle) and did not use a pumpkin puree. I find that can make the bread "mushy" at times. If you opt to use pumpkin, I prefer to use the tropical variety or "Calabaza". The bread will also come out more "orange". The recipe does have a lot of ingredients but we have a lot of flavors in the tropics to use! It's very moist and will keep for a few days in an airtight container, or wrapped and frozen for longer storage. 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup Old Fashioned, rolled oats

1 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger root

1 teaspoon grated orange or lemon zest

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup Kefir (plain, unsweetened. You CAN also use ordinary yogurt (not Greek style) or even half and half depending on your need for "healthy")

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups coarsely shredded fresh pumpkin (not canned or pureed). Use the coarse shredder on your box grater or the coarse shredder disc on your food processor, not the fine grater.

Juice of 1 lime (you can also use lemon so that you can use the zest)

1/3 cup dried cranberries

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Coarsely shred the pumpkin or butternut squash. Add the lime juice, dried cranberries, and grated ginger, lemon or orange zest, and set aside.
3. Mix the flour, oats, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk the sugar, vegetable oil, kefir, eggs, and vanilla, until pale in color. Fold in the shredded pumpkin, mix well, then gently fold in the dry ingredients all at once. Mix all until just combined. Do not take a lot of time with this step. Once the ingredients are all incorporated pour into a non- stick 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan. If your pan is not non- stick coat it with butter and flour, and also line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper.
5. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At this point a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf should come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and turn out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before slicing (as anxious as you will be to try it, do not try to slice before it is completely cooled). 

Toasted Overnight Oats with no added sugar

 

This is a very filling breakfast to make. It does need some preparation the night before but the result is well worth the effort. The oats have no added sugar. That's not the same as saying it's sugar free. Just that I have not added additional sugar other that what is found in the stewed fruit and cranberries. The Cardamom and ginger make up for the fact that this is not very sweet. Toasting the oats enhances its flavor. I use Kefir as the milk base and the juices from the stewed fruit make up the additional liquid required by the oats to soften them. You can add 1-2 teaspoons of seeds to the oats (hemp, chia, flax, sesame etc). If I'm using apples as the stewed fruit, I use 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon allspice as the spices. For Peaches, Plums and Nectarines, I use Cardamom and ginger, or cloves and ginger.

1/2 cup Old Fashioned or thick cut oats (not instant)

a fruit of your choosing (apple, peach, plum etc)

1/2 cup water

4 cardamom pods

1-2 thin slices ginger

2 tablespoons dried cranberries (raisins or other dried fruit e.g mangoes, blueberries, apricots, prunes etc may also be used)

1/2 cup of Kefir

Couple of pecan halves

 

1.       Spread the oats on a small cookie sheet and toast in an oven for about 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Toast the pecan halves for the last 8 minutes by sprinkling them over the oats. Remove and set aside.

2.       In a small saucepan, add the cranberries and thickly sliced or cubed fruit (I do not peel them), cardamom pods, ginger, and water. I also add a pinch of salt just to balance the flavor. Bring to a boil then simmer until fruit stewed to your liking. Remove from heat, and set aside (I put it in the fridge to get cold). Just before putting on top of the oats, I remove the ginger and cardamom pods (they are left in during the cooling process so that their flavors can be further extracted by the stewed juice).

3.       When the oats have cooled, mix in the Kefir and yogurt in a container of your choosing. Add the cold stewed fruit, using a spoon to make little “wells” in the oat mixture so that the liquid from the stewed fruit can soak into the oat mixture. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

4.       Just before you are ready to eat it the next morning, toast a couple of pecan halves (if you did not toast them with the oats as described above, I use a convection oven, 8 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit) and sprinkle the pecans over the top.