Instant Pot Baked Apple Oatmeal

Tomorrow promises to be a glorious fall day, and while outside enjoying the sunshine you should plan to stop by the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market between 10 am - 2 pm on the corner of Agate and 19th Ave. You'll find plenty of fall fruits and vegetables from Camas Swale Farm and pastured meat and poultry from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm. 

Be sure to stock up on fall apples, which are in abundance this mast year. One of my favorite fall breakfasts is a cinnamon apple version of Heidi Swanson's baked oatmeal, which is a delicious hybrid of a porridge and a muffin. The only downside is that it requires early rising to get onto the table. This inspired me to create a version for my Instant Pot, which I could set up the night before so that it cooks in the early morning and need just a minute under the broiler before serving. This can make a nice weekday breakfast treat for rainy days ahead.   

Instant Pot Baked Apple Oatmeal

serves four

1 large or 2 small apples
2 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup water
2 cups milk
1 egg
2 to 4 Tbsp brown sugar (depending on sweetness of apples)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup steel cut oats
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts
1 Tbsp brown sugar

1. Core the apple and cut into 1 inch cubes. Turn the Instant Pot to sautee, add the butter to the inner pot and sautee the apple pieces with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp cinnamon until they are soft and start to brown. Hit cancel and transfer the apples to the bottom of a 7 inch diameter, 1.5 quart ceramic or metal baking dish that can fit into the Instant Pot. Add 1/2 cup water to the liner pot, swirl to get up all the butter, and pour over the apples. Replace the liner pot, fill it with one cup water, and put in the metal stand.

2. Whisk together the wet ingredients of 2 cups milk, 1 egg, brown sugar, and vanilla. Mix together the dry ingredients of steel cut oats, old fashioned oats, baking powder, and remaining 1/4 tsp salt. Dump the dry ingredients over the apples in the baking dish and then pour over the wet ingredients, making sure that all of the oatmeal is submerged. Place the baking pan into the Instant Pot on top of the metal stand. Seal the lid and set to cook at high pressure for 40 minutes with a delayed start time so that it will start up about 80 minutes before you plan to wake up.

3. The next morning, turn on your broiler. Turn off the Instant Pot and carefully remove the oatmeal pan. Top the oatmeal with 1/2 cup chopped walnut pieces and sprinkle with 1 Tbsp brown sugar. Broil for about 1 minute, being careful not to let the nits burn. Remove and serve with a drizzle of milk or cream.

Skillet Baked Oatmeal with Cinnamon Apples

The Fairmount Farmers Market may seem like a distant memory on this drizzly November weekend, but you can still stock up on local food at the annual Fill Your Pantry event hosted by Willamette Farm and Food Coalition Sunday November 15th from 1 - 5 pm at Lane Events Center. You can pre-order online now through this Sunday at midnight.

Be sure to stock up on rolled oats or barley flakes for winter breakfasts, such as this skillet baked oatmeal, inspired by this recipe from Heidi Swanson, but with seasonal apples and a skillet cornbread approach to baking. This will add a little cheer to your drizzly mornings.

Skillet Baked Oatmeal with Cinnamon Apples

Serves 6

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain salt
1 large apple
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups buttermilk
1 large egg

1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Heat a 10 inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. To the dry skillet, add 1 cup of rolled oats and toast, stirring, for a couple of minutes until they start to become fragrant and brown. Transfer the oats to a medium mixing bowl, and repeat with the second cup of oats. Next toast the cup of chopped walnuts until they start to become fragrant. Transfer the walnuts to a separate small bowl. To the oats, add the baking bowser and salt and mix.

3. Core the apple and cut into 1/4 inch dice. Melt the butter in the skillet over medium heat, add the apple pieces and cinnamon, and cook, stirring often, until the apples are soft. 

4. While the apples are cooking, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract.

5. When the apples are soft, turn off the heat under the skillet. Use a spatula to incorporate the oat mixture into the buttermilk mixture and then immediately pour it into the hot skillet on top of the cinnamon apples. Scatter over the toasted walnuts and transfer the skillet to the preheated oven. Bake for about 35 minutes until the oatmeal has set and the top is golden. Serve immediately. 

Irish Soda Bread

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I baked a loaf of this Irish soda bread. It is not a sweet treat, but rather a slightly buttery, savory quick bread with the tart flavor of buttermilk and nutty notes of whole wheat flour, toasted wheat germ, and oats.

This bread would be delicious with a hardy Irish stew, but we enjoyed it with lighter fare befitting our beautiful springtime day: as the backdrop for an egg and cheese sandwich for lunch, and slathered with butter and peach raspberry preserves for high tea. Happy spring.

Irish Soda Bread

from Merrill Stubbs, food52

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour, plus more for kneading and baking
1 cup whole wheat flour, such as Lonesome Whistle Farm red fife
1/2 cup Scottish oats or old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 to 1 1/3 cup buttermilk

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 425 degrees F. Sprinkle a baking sheet lightly with flour. In a dry skillet, toast the wheat germ for a couple of minutes until  fragrant.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the butter and toss to coat in the flour. Use your fingers or two forks to cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (You can also do this in the food processor if you'd like.) Gradually add the buttermilk and stir or pulse just until the dough comes together (you may not need all the buttermilk). (Note: I made the dough in a food processor and used just a cup of buttermilk).

3.  On a floured surface, knead the dough gently for about a minute until smooth. Shape the dough into a ball and transfer to the baking sheet. Pat gently into a 7-inch round and sprinkle the top evenly with about a tablespoon of flour; with your fingertips, gently spread the flour evenly over the top of the round. Using a very sharp knife, cut a shallow "X" in the top of the loaf. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the loaf is brown, and the bottom sounds hollow when you tap it. Cool on a rack for at least 2 hours before slicing.

Leftover Oatmeal Apple Sauce Muffins

I was traveling for just a few days this past week, but seemed to miss out on all sorts of important events at home: a valiant loss in an OBOB battle, a dramatic playground fall that required a trip to the nurse's office, and an ambitious, last minute project fair presentation. Even after a short trip, it takes a couple of days to get caught up on the latest jokes, bedtime book story lines, and the status of food supplies.

So after a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast of teff and flaxseed oatmeal, it felt satisfying to roast up a couple of aging apples and use the apple sauce, along with the leftover oatmeal, in a batch of mini muffins to pack as snacks for the week.

I adapted a recipe for banana cereal muffins from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain, described by Molly Wizenberg of Orangette as "a garbage disposal-style recipe" in the best sort of way. In went our leftover oatmeal, the roasted apple sauce, and even the end of a tub of sour cream. Out came some very tasty muffins, pictured here with my daughter's spelling list from last week, including the words "anxious", "whether", "succeed", "business", and "companion", which seemed to form an accidental poem about the mixed emotions of traveling away from home.

Leftover Oatmeal Apple Sauce Muffins

adapted from Kim Boyce Good to the Grain, described here

makes about 28 mini muffins

roasted apples sauce
2 apples, cored and peeled 
1 tsp butter
pinch of salt

muffin batter
4 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1/2 cup cooked oatmeal
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup soft white flour
1/2 cup red fife flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon

1. To prepare a small scale, accelerated version of this apple sauce, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Peel and core two apples and cut each into about 24 pieces. Arrange in a small baking dish, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and dot with about a tsp of butter. Roast for about 25 minutes until the apples are soft and just a bit charred. Mash with a potato masher, leaving it a little chunky. This should make about a cup of sauce. You could also substitute a cup of store bought apples sauce or two to three very ripe bananas, mashed.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffins tins (enough for 28 mini muffins or 12 regular muffins).

3. In a large bowl or a standing mixer, cream together the butter and the brown sugar until very creamy. Mix in the sour cream (or use 2 more Tbsp of butter, as in the original recipe). Mix in the egg, then the cooked oatmeal, the apple sauce, and the vanilla extract.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until just combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins. Bake for about 24-28 minutes for mini muffins, or 35-40 minutes for regular muffins, rotating the pans halfway through, until they are nicely browned on top and a fork comes out clean. Best eaten warm or reheated for a few minutes in a toaster oven.

Elkdream Bars

Last week my daughter and I needed to come up with a snack for her girl scout troop meeting. It had to be healthy, transportable, peanut and nut-free, and fun. I knew just the thing: Elkdream bars from Elin England's forthcoming book "Beans, Grains, Nuts and Seeds: Further Adventures in Eating Close to Home", a sequel to "Eating Close to Home: A Guide to Local Seasonal Sustenance in the Pacific Northwest", which I described here. 

The best thing about these bars is that they are extremely accommodating. We omitted the hazelnuts and used sunflower butter to make them nut free, we didn't have pumpkin or sunflower seeds on hand, so we increased the sesame seeds and flax seeds, and added some chia seeds for good measure (on hand for favorite sauce, porridge, and pancakes), we'd run out of honey, so we used maple syrup, and we added some chopped apricots along with the cranberries. The end result after all this tampering was so delicious that it was completely devoured by the troop. This weekend I'll make another batch to pack for school snacks. After all the harrowing news from Boston this past week, from which I've assiduously shielded my children despite anxious phone calls with their grandparents in lockdown, because how can one begin to explain such senseless destruction, it is somehow comforting to laden their lunch boxes with homemade treats when sending them out into the world. 

Elkdream Bars

from Elin England's forthcoming book 

"Beans, Grains, Nuts and Seeds: Further Adventures Eating Close to Home"

In a large mixing bowl, stir together:

2 1/2 cups rolled oats (not quick-cook oats)
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts

Spread on a rimmed cookie sheet and toast at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Pour back into the bowl. Leave the oven on, as you'll use it again in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, combine in a small saucepan:

1/2 tsp ground ginger, or substitute cinnamon or cardamom (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup peanut butter, or substitute sunflower butter, almond butter, or hazelnut butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 to 3 Tbsp butter

Heat over medium-low heat, stirring until dissolved, then remove from the heat (so it doesn't burn). This is the glue that holds the bars together.

Pour the glue mixture over the oat/nut mix and add:

1 cup dried cranberries (or your choice of chopped, dried fruit)

Mix the oat/nut mix, the glue, and the dried fruit together very well.

Line a 9x12 baking pan with parchment paper (you can oil the pan to help the parchment stick down). Cut the paper long enough that it comes up all 4 sides of the pan (you can pleat the corners). Plop the mixture into the pan and press down HARD all over. A good way to do this is to spread a piece of waxed paper over the top and press down with your hands.

Bake for 15 minutes at 325 degrees. Let cool COMPLETELY (this part is really important). Lift the whole arrangement out of the pan onto a cutting board, using the overhanging parchment paper as a handle. Cut whatever sized bars you like, and store in an air tight container, using waxed paper to separate layers. Save any crumbs that accumulate to sprinkle over yogurt. 

Teff Grain, Flax Seed and Oatmeal Breakfast

After I started experimenting with cooking Scottish oats for weekday breakfasts and combining them with flax seeds in granola, it was a natural extension to explore mixing other ingredients into my oatmeal. Here is an especially tasty combination with fine teff grain to add body to the porridge and flax seeds to add a little texture. Dried apricots, hazelnuts, and maple syrup finish it off with sweetness and crunch. Will including the nutritional powerhouse of teff grain and superfood of flax seeds in your daily breakfast bring you health and superhuman powers? Maybe not. But taking the extra few minutes in the evening to start a warm bowl of oatmeal for the following morning, and infusing your house with the fragrance of buttery, toasted grains in the process, will make you feel cared for, which apparently accounts for a great deal of the healing power of placebos. A good breakfast when you'd like a little extra insurance for getting through a demanding day.

Teff Grain, Flax Seed and Oatmeal Breakfast

1 serving

porridge
1/4 cup Scottish oats (or use rolled oats, or a mixture of rolled and steel cut oats)
1 scant Tbsp teff grain (or substitute chia seeds)
1 scant Tbsp flax seeds
1 tsp butter
small pinch salt
1 cup boiling water (divided)

toppings
dried apricots
hazel nuts
maple syrup
splash of milk

1. The evening before, heat a small saucepan and set a kettle with 2/3 cups water. When the pan is warm, melt the butter. Then add the grains, and cook, stirring, for about five minutes, until they are toasted and very fragrant. Turn off the heat. Carefully add 2/3 cups boiling water (it will splatter), stir, and cover.

2. The next morning, add 1/3 cup water to the pan and reheat (for a richer porridge, use 1/3 cup milk). Let the oatmeal and teff mixture simmer for about five to eight minutes until it is the desired tenderness and thickness. Serve warm, sprinkled with the toppings and a splash of cold milk.

For a family of two adults and two kids, I triple the recipe:
3/4 cups oats
1/8 cup teff grain
1/8 cup flax seeds
1 Tbsp butter
pinch salt
3 cups boiling water

You can of course cook this all at once if you have more time in the morning. Simply add all of the boiling water to the toasted grains and cook for about 15 minutes.


Other whole grain breakfast recipes
Buttery Five Minute Oatmeal Breakfast
Homemade Granola
Rye Waffles with Clementine Syrup
Swedish Oatmeal Pancakes
Gluten-free Waffles
Buckwheat Blini
Buckwheat Crepe

Homemade Granola

I spent part of spring break visiting my twin sister in Chicago. We've always been co-conspirators in the kitchen, and she's always inspired me with her culinary vision. As a kindergardener, thanks to a teacher with communist enthusiasms, she developed a taste for borscht, and insisted on perfecting the recipe at home. One Christmas in high school, after reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, she recreating a magnificent version of Mrs. Ramsay's boeuf en daube. And her various sojourns in Germany during her studies have been a source of cooking inspiration.

Now that she's in the midst of the great adventure of toddler parenthood, overly-ambitious cooking projects have to take a back burner. We cooked some family favorites like crepes, both savory and sweet, and tried this delicious pasta with sardines. But mostly what we wanted to do with our precious time together was talk. Granola-making is perfectly conducive for chatting, and with this in mind, I had brought her some Eugene Scottish oats. 

We tested out a simplified version of this granola recipe, with Scottish oats, flaxseeds, pecans, maple syrup, and olive oil. As we sat around admiring her son's confident new steps, a toasty fragrance enveloped the apartment. The final granola was delicious over yogurt as a German ex-pat breakfast. And it's so easy to cook that we both plan to make it on a regular basis. Maybe while chatting on the phone.

Granola

1 cup Scottish oats (or use rolled oats)

1/3 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup pecans (or slivered almonds)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/8 cup olive oil 
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Mix together all of the ingredients. Use parchment paper to cover a baking sheet with a rim. Spread out the oat mixture on the baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake for a total of 30 to 35 minutes, stirring the oats about every 10 minutes, until they are nicely toasted. Cool and store in a glass container.

Buttery Five Minute Oatmeal Breakfast

A warm bowl of oatmeal is a fitting breakfast for St. Patrick's Day. We've been savoring the whole grain, traditionally milled oats from our Lonesome Whistle Farm CSA, which are wonderful for leisurely weekend breakfasts of porridge and pancakes.

But I've wanted to find a way to enjoy these oats for a quick weekday breakfast. They aren't quite substantial enough for overnight oatmeal in a slow cooker, but they require about 20 minutes of stove top cooking to become tender. I was in luck when I came across this recipe from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks. First, she toasts her grains in butter and then soaks them overnight and cooks them in the morning.

The butter treatment gave these oats a lovely toasty richness. I next tried soaking them in boiling water to jumpstart their morning cooking, and this worked well. The oatmeal was done in just the time it took to prepare a well-brewed pot of tea. All that was left was choosing toppings. I'm partial to pecans, dried cranberries, and brown sugar.

Buttery Five Minute Oatmeal

serves one

scant 1/3 cup Scottish oats
1 tsp butter
1 cup water (divided)
pinch of salt

toppings such as nuts, dried fruit, and brown sugar

1. The evening before, heat a small saucepan and set a kettle with 2/3 cup water. When the pan is warm, melt the butter. Then add the oatmeal and cook the grains, stirring, for about five minutes, until they have toasted to a darker beige and are very fragrant. Turn off the heat. Carefully add 2/3 cup boiling water (it will splatter), stir, and cover.

2. The next morning, add 1/3 cup water to the pan and reheat (for a richer porridge, use 1/3 cup milk). Let the oatmeal simmer for about five to eight minutes until it is the desired tenderness and thickness. Serve warm, sprinkled with your favorite toppings and a splash of cold milk.

Swedish Oatmeal Pancakes

Some recipes have a wonderful way of following you around like a tenacious honeybee. This is one I clipped from the San Jose Mercury News during graduate school, thinking it might be a hit with my then boyfriend, now husband, because of its reputed Swedish origin. We even made them for his parents, who doubted the providence but loved the pancakes. Then somehow the clipping went missing. Several years later, when we departed the Bay Area to start our jobs in Oregon, my best friend gave us a book of San Francisco recipes, and flipping through I discovered the recipe again, from Town's End Restaurant and Bakery in the Embarcadero. Now in our permanent library, these pancakes have become a signature dish for us. I shared the recipe with my friend Renee, who wrote about how they made her a little more tolerant of combining fruit into baked goods in her great blog Every Pot and Pan.

When our Lonesome Whistle Farm bean and grain CSA came with a bag of Scottish oats, I wanted to see if I could use them in this recipes. The original recipe calls for soaking uncooked rolled oats in buttermilk, but I thought these would need a little more softening up, so I mixed in a small amount of boiling water, and then warmed up the buttermilk before soaking (I discovered that microwaved buttermilk separates out, but you can simply stir it back together). This treatment worked great and the final pancakes had just enough bite inside with a lacy, butter crust and delicious toasted pear and almond finish.

Swedish Oatmeal Pancakes with Almonds and Pears
From Town's End Restaurant and Bakery
(makes about 32 pancakes)

2 cups Scottish oats

1/2 cup boiling water

2 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup flour (I used Red Fife Wheat Flour from Lonesome Whistle Farm)

2 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 Tbsp melted butter

1 or 2 pears sliced

sliced almonds

1. The night before, put the oats in a large bowl and pour over the boiling water. Mix well. Microwave the buttermilk until warm (it will separate) and add this to the oats. Cover the mixture and let stand until it has cooled, the leave it overnight. If using rolled oars, omit the boiling water step and simply soak the oats in cold buttermilk for 30 minutes or overnight.

2. The next morning , stir the eggs and then the melted butter into the oats.

3. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Stir the dry ingredients into oats.  You can thin with a Tbsp or two of buttermilk if necessary.

4. Heat a skillet and butter lightly. Use a soup spoon to ladle out pancakes, sprinkling first side with almonds and placing sliced pears on top. Let the pancakes cook until bubble on the edges are stable and they have lost their pale, raw batter appearance. Flip them and cook on second side until the pears have browned. Serve warm with maple syrup.

Other recipes for locally grown grains

Creamy Barley Risotto with Dandelion Greens
Barley Risotto with Grilled Vegetables

Buckwheat Blini

Buckwheat Crepes

Gluten-Free Waffles

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets and Kale

Swedish Rye Cookies

Swedish Rye Knäckebröt

Teff Grain and Ricotta Pancakes with Apple Topping

Wheatberry Tabbouleh with Green Beans and Feta

Wheatberries with Snap Peas

Warm Apple Breakfasts for Chilly Autumn Mornings

Many thanks to Tom and Rachel from SLO Farm for braving the elements and bringing their fresh produce to our neighborhood last Sunday. Note that starting this Wednesday they will have a weekly booth on the University of Oregon campus at the EMU. The SLO Farm apples are really extraordinary, and well worth a march through the rain (I notice that yet again, you can see my son's hand grabbing for them in the picture). Here are a couple of warm apple-inspired breakfasts, now that the mornings are turning so dark and chilly.

Saturday morning my two year old got me up early and wanted to make pancakes.

We mixed up a batter with some corn meal in it for heft, and sliced apples to layer on top for some apple flapjacks. On a warm griddle with a generous film of melted butter, so that the apples would get a little once the pancakes were flipped, we spooned out batter and doled out the apple slices. 

We flipped them and made sure to cook them long enough on the second side to let the apples begin to caramelize.

They were delicious with a drizzle of maple syrup and a handful of hazelnuts.

Apple Flapjacks

1 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat white flour

1/4 cup medium ground corn meal

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

sparse sprinkle of cinnamon

2 apples (such as liberty apples from SLO Farm), cored and thinly slice

butter for the griddle

hazelnuts as garnish

1. Mix buttermilk and eggs. Combine dry ingredients and mix into wet ingredients until they are just incorporated.

2. Heat griddle and butter. Spoon on batter and layer on a couple of apple slices per pancake. When cooked, flip and cook well on the second side. Serve with maple syrup and hazelnuts.  Makes about 16 pancakes. 

Another nice pairing with apples is steel cut Irish oatmeal. If by chance your sister has recently moved to Berlin and has not yet quite figured out the time change between Germany and Oregon, so you are up anyway, by all means start a pot of oatmeal for the family, and while it is simmering for 30 minutes, saute up some chopped apples in butter with a sprinkle of cinnamon and brown sugar to mix in at the end, and serve with hazel nuts for a delicious breakfast with a substantial, nutty flavor and texture. 

On the other hand, if you'd like to wake up to a prepared, warm breakfast, and the house smelling deliciously of cooked apples and cinnamon, then you can start a pot of steel cut Irish oatmeal in the slow cooker the night before. This recipe is adapted from a Cooking Light Slow Cooker recipe book.

Slow Cooker Irish Oatmeal with Apples

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cup water

2 apples, such as liberty, cored and chopped

1 cup steel cut oats

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp butter

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Combine all of the ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on low overnight. Serve with hazelnuts and a sprinkle more of brown sugar or a drizzle of maple syrup.