Puppy Chow Oatmeal

A few weeks ago I stumbled across an interview with Kath from Katheats.com about her interest in oats. The interview was interesting and I've been eating oats almost every day since I tuned in. Kath creates delicious and sometimes unusual recipes with oats, fruit, nuts and nut butter. She's inspired me to get creative using a variety of ingredients. My most recent concoction is below. I'm somewhat jokingly calling it "Puppy Chow Oatmeal." Maybe if I give it a cute name my kids will eat it, right? Anyway... I had the idea to create a chocolate, peanut butter bowl of oats for night time when I'm craving something sweet but don't have the energy to whip up a homemade gluten and dairy free dessert. I found a  recipe on Pinterest and tried  it, but decided it wasn't quite what I was looking for. So I tweaked it and came up with something that suits my taste buds. You can almost halve this recipe for a night time snack portion or you can eat the whole recipe as a sizeable afternoon snack. Here it goes.

1/2 cup gluten free oats
1 cup vanilla almond milk
1 TBSP cocoa powder
1 TBSP light brown sugar
1-2 teaspoons peanut butter
1-2 teaspoons chocolate chips

I like Kath's method of cooking the oats, but I don't use the cut up bananas in this particular recipe.So, put oats and milk in a pan at the same time. Let it reach a boil and stir it a few times. Lower heat and let it simmer until desired texture. Stir in cocoa powder and brown sugar. I like to pour the oats into a big bowl, set the spoon with peanut butter in the bowl and cover it with the lid from the pot. I let it sit for a few minutes to allow the peanut butter to melt. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top and enjoy!! Savor. Mmmm..So yummy on a cool afternoon or evening.

Over the last few weeks we've had a bundle of apples to eat, so I made a "Caramel apple" oatmeal using chopped apples, brown sugar, a tiny squirt of caramel sauce, a drop of peanut butter in the middle and about three walnuts broken into pieces on top for crunch. Mmmm. So good! The fruit and oat recipes are so warm and comforting in the morning and keep me full until lunch without needing a snack.

GFDF Lasagna (pasta bake)

I found this recipe on Pinterest for a gluten free, dairy free lasagna. It looked very tasty and somewhat easy to follow, so I tried it. When I got to the store to buy the lasagna noodles I realized just how much more expensive they were than the macaroni shaped gluten free noodles, so I opted for the macaroni noodles instead. That is where this isn't exactly lasagna, but more of a pasta bake. The original recipe is here. You can see that I simplified it by using a jar of sauce rather than making the sauce and I didn't use quite as many veggies as certain family members do not care for onions or red peppers. So, here it goes....

1 pkg sliced mushrooms (chopped)

3 cloves garlic (pushed through garlic press)

1 pkg turkey Italian sausage links (removed from casings)

1  26  oz jar spaghetti sauce

1 bag gluten free macaroni noodles (*)

1 cup cashews (soaked 30 min or as long as six hours)

3/4 cup water

1 egg 

1 handful fresh parsley

Pinches of salt, garlic salt

Turn on pot of water for noodles.

Saute mushroom and garlic in olive oil.

Add Italian sausage to skillet.

Once sausage is cooked through, add the jar of spaghetti sauce. Simmer for twenty minutes.

Cook pasta while red sauce simmers.

Cashew sauce...After cashews have soaked, drain them. Place in blender with 3/4 cup water. Blend until nice and smooth. Add egg, parsley, salt and garlic salt. Blend just until mixed, but not too long as the parsley will turn the sauce green. 

Layer in 8x8 dish as follows (below).Cover dish with foil. Cook in oven at 350 for thirty minutes. Remove foil, turn heat up to 375 and cook for additional 10 to 15 minutes, until bubbly.

Red sauce in bottom of pan

Top red sauce with cashew sauce.

Noodle layer

Cashew sauce on top of noodles.

Red sauce.

Noodles

Cashew sauce

Red Sauce (end with red sauce on top)

*  I ended up using about 3/4 of the bag of noodles in the "lasagna" and saved the rest for lunch the next day. 

**I did this recipe in steps. I made the red sauce and cooked the pasta during L's nap time and stored them in the fridge. I made the cashew sauce right before I was ready to assemble the dish and cook it at dinner time.

Busy Weekend

We stayed busy last weekend! Daddy left early Friday morning for a tractor show and didn't return until Sunday evening, so the boys and I did some fun stuff to pass the time. Friday afternoon L and I picked N up from school and headed to a nearby town for their annual pumpkin festival. Our plan was to eat some sort of pumpkin treat (N wanted pumpkin ice cream) for our after school snack, but the tent selling those treats wasn't open yet. We got a funnel cake instead and were just as pleased with it. I splurged and ate some funnel cake (major glutenous moment!) and enjoyed it too. We bought twelve tickets to use for the carnival rides. The boys had lots of fun going around and around on the boats, motorcycles and the green caterpillar. They bounced in the pumpkin shaped bouncy house and all three of us went down the huge slide together. That was fun! I've always loved that big slide! Our former music class teacher teaches music classes and also performs at festivals. She was singing while we were there, so we watched her for a bit. All three of us sat in the firetrucks that were open before heading home for the night. We ate fast food in the car on the way home and played outdoors with the neighbors for a bit before going into the night time routine. I'm so glad I took the boys to the carnival! I was nervous to take them without D, but the crowds weren't too bad, the boys were good and we took our time doing everything. It all worked out!
Saturday morning we headed out to a nature center about 45 minutes from our house. We ate a picnic lunch on the outdoor stage, looked at all the reptiles inside the nature center building and played in the outdoor kids' area. The outdoor kids' area is so fun because it has a log cabin, a little house, a tree house, a balance beam, monkey bars, an enormous dirt hole, a sand box, a zip line, a tree swing and a big tree to climb. The kids' area wasn't busy. In fact, we had the place to ourselves most of the time. A blacksmith class was taking place while we were there and a wedding was starting as we left. There were people around, but it wasn't crowded. It was a gorgeous, memorable day!
On Sunday morning we invited Grammy and Grandpa over to celebrate Grandpa's upcoming Birthday. They came over at ten and hung out with us until after lunch. We had a really nice visit while the boys dug in our dirt pile and played with their tractors. We had an easy lunch of pizza and ate brownies for dessert. We put three candles in the brownies, one for L to blow out, one for N to blow out and one for Gpa to blow out. Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles is one of L's all time favorite things to do, so we sang once, blew out the candles, relit them and blew them out again. The boys and I took it easy Sunday afternoon. Daddy was supposed to get home around 2:00, but didn't get home until 5:00, so we headed to N's school playground around 4:30. He's really been wanting to show me the new tricks he can do on the monkey bars for a while.We were really glad to see Daddy when he met us at the playground! We ate dinner, hung out and hit the hay. It sure was a busy weekend, but the boys and I had fun!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites

I made this recipe with one change and they turned out realllly yummy! In fact, the boys and I liked them so much we immediately made a second batch.

Raw Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites
2/3 c raw cashews
1/3 c gluten free oats
3 Tbsp honey
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 c Miniature Chocolate Chips (this was actually too much, so I'd start with half this amount and adjust as you stir.)

Chop cashews and gluten free oats in the food processor until they're almost a flour consistency. Add honey and vanilla extract. Mix until it clumps up into one or two large pieces. Pour into a separate bowl and stir in miniature chocolate chips. Use a cookie scoop to portion them into equal sizes. Roll between hands. Refrigerate.