Oats

38 Power Foods, Week 23 — Oats — Porridged Eggs

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I’ve never heard of porridged eggs, though my experience is that very little is truly new.  We’ve just lived too long.  For a few weeks, off and on, they kept coming to me.  I love the idea of oatmeal because I know my body, my heart, needs whole grains and oatmeal’s tops.  (Read about the great oat here.)  But I also find that I operate better (and eat less) during the day with a protein for breakfast.  Especially in cold Minnesota.  Hence oats and eggs.  But how?

I grew up with the occasional bowl of take-no-prisoners buttered, salt and peppered grits with my eggs fried to a crispy lace in bacon grease.  Along with biscuits slathered with sour cream and honey.  And the very best fried fish in the world.   Lest you think things were always that wonderful, there was the occasional pot of squirrel gumbo, as well.  And often there was dove that required careful chewing lest you bite into buckshot.  While I seldom indulge these days, my displaced southerner living-in-Chicago parents provided me with a culinary heritage upon which I still draw.  (Phew.  That grammar’s a killer.)

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Add that to my natural love of all things Scots (I’m a McClendon), and the oats and eggs just seemed right.  While I may try them in a few different ways upcoming, I think the single cook  might enjoy this simple repast that could be, with the addition of a piece of fruit and a glass of milk, a complete breakfast.   Of course I’ve made it for two, but haven’t tried it in larger quantities. To get your mind around eggs with oats, take away the thoughts of oatmeal with brown sugar, raisins, apples, bananas, whatever.  Take away the idea of sweet.  Replace it with a meal more on the order of eggs and grits, with wholesome and tastier oats to replace the grits.  A tiny bit of butter graces the finished dish, and a generous dusting of salt and pepper completes it.  Not only that, but here the egg cooks right in the pan of oats for ease of clean-up.  Here’s how:
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Porridged Eggs  serves 1

1/2 cup uncooked regular old fashioned oatmeal (not instant or quick)
1 cup water
1 egg
1 teaspoon salted butter
Salt and pepper to taste

In a small sauce pan, heat the water and the oats over high heat until boiling.  Turn  heat down and simmer for two minutes or so.  Carefully break egg into the center of the oats.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cover tightly.  Let cook another 3 minutes or until the eggs and oatmeal are done to your liking.  Spoon carefully into a deep cereal bowl and add the butter to the top of the eggs.  Salt and pepper to taste.  (originally posted on Dinnerplace.blogspot.com, 12-15-2011)

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 I blog with a great group of writers every Friday where we cook our way through the list of foods from Whole Living Magazine’s Power Foods:  150 Delicious Recipes with the 38 Healthiest Ingredients:    Read more about tasty oats tomorrow at these sites:
Minnie Gupta from TheLady8Home.com

Sarah – Everything in the Kitchen Sink

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                                                                            this week on dinnerplace:
 wine and lemon-steamed salmon on broccoli

 
 During the calorically dense holiday season, it makes sense to have a great, quick fish meal in your pocket….This one’s a winner.   Saute onions, garlic, and broccoli.  Add wine, lemon juice and salmon filets.  Cover and cook just a few minutes.  Dinner’s served!

Sing a new song! Cook something new!
Alyce

Bannocks — A Tribute to Marion Cunningham (Reposted from my Dinner Place blog)

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A little apricot preserves…

 I never knew Marion Cunningham personally, but after my Mom, she pretty much taught me to cook and, perhaps more truly, to bake.  She died this last week (July 11, 2012–Read the LA Times obituary here) at the age of 90 after a lifetime of cooking, writing, and testing recipes for her cookbooks (Fanny Farmer, Fanny Farmer Baking Book, The Breakfast Book, etc.) and for her long-lived column in The San Francisco Chronicle.  She encouraged several generations of home cooks to… well, to just go on and cook.  Set the table and eat at home, please and thank you.



Her books and recipes were not cute, though they were entertaining.  They weren’t novelesque, though they were terribly readable.  They were always sort of like Goldilocks’ favorite bed–just right.  Accurate, concise, occasionally gently witty…above all correct, well-tested, and usable. If I couldn’t remember the formula for cobbler topping, I grabbed The Fanny Farmer Baking Book.  For goodness sake, I STILL grab it.  If I was testing my own blueberry muffin recipe, I looked no further than Marion Cunningham for comparison. Not just because I knew the recipe would work, but because her entire life’s belief in feeding oneself and one’s loved ones well was warmed up, stirred in, and firmly baked into each and every page.

Food is a topic of conversation, she said. It can be an imprint that you pass onto someone else. It can be a shared experience. Sitting down and eating together is a binding quality for a family. Eating on the run doesn’t cover all the bases it should.

She never was a star chef on “Chopped,” (though she did have a cooking show, “Cunningham and Company,” on the Food Network) and she didn’t have lots of restaurants named after her, but all who knew her work respected and loved both her and the food-at-home she championed.  She worked with James Beard as his assistant for years, traveled with Alice Waters, and claimed Judith Jones as an editor.  Why she didn’t make Gourmet Live’s list of the 50 Women Game-Changers in Food was always beyond me.  So, Marion, my very own hero, in your tasty and fine memory, I today share your great Bannocks recipe for all far and wide.  I know there are delectable aromas whispering your name wafting toward heaven from all over the world today– and always.  Thanks for the food and even more for encouraging the life that goes with it.  God speed.

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 A bit about Bannocks:  A Scottish, gluten-free flat and buttery bread that can be used as a breakfast treat with butter and jam or honey, it’s also a fine cracker for cheese, and a crunchy-buttery (not sweet) shortbread for anytime.  Before home had ovens, bannocks were cooked on a girdle..like a griddle, but hung over the heating surface with chains.  Bannocks were then cooked more like pancakes.  You might try it when camping.   If you’re a Dorothy Sayers fan, the British mystery writer mentions bannocks being cooked on a girdle in the book HAVE HIS CARCASE. 

Bannocks perhaps are a bit like scones in shape as they’re triangular, though they are not tall and bread-like, and rather only about a crispy  1/4 -1/3″ thick.  Lovely with soup.  I make these in the food processor in just a few minutes.  The recipe works fine at sea level and at altitude as is.
 

photo courtesy Gourmet

Bannocks by Marion Cunningham from The Breakfast Book
 
 

  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 1 cup oat flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
  • 1/2 cup water

 
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, toss the oats, flour, and salt together with a fork. Cut the cold butter into small pieces, toss it into the flour mixture, and rub it in until coarse bits form. Stir in the water until all the flour is absorbed.  (Can be done in the food processor if desired.) 
Gather the rough dough together and put it on a board lightly dusted with oat flour. Knead about 6 times. Divide the dough in half and pat each half into a circle about ¼- inch thick. Cut each circle into 4 wedges and arrange the wedges 1/2 inch apart on the baking sheet. Bake about 20 minutes or until lightly colored.

 “Cooking is one of the legacies we can leave to the future, and I would like to be remembered for my baking. We all know we’re not immortal, but after I’m gone, I would like my son and daughter to be able to say, ‘Our mother made real yeast bread for breakfast.’”
  ~Marion Cunningham

Have fun cooking and taking care of yourself,
Alyce