Quick Tip-Oatmeal

While making one of my staple breakfasts this morning-- oatmeal-- it occurred to me to do the thing that makes all sweet things so delicious: add salt.  I've tried to be creative with my morning porridge, stirring in all manner of sweeteners (brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, molasses), fruit (dried or fresh), nuts, seeds and spices (cinnamon!)-- all at varying degrees and combinations.  But never have I gone back to the basics with this particular dish.  So, next time you're making oatmeal, throw in a pinch of salt.  It makes it more... three-dimensional.  I think you know what I mean.

In other news, today my mom sent me this wonderful quotation on happiness.  Like a good mama, she knew I needed it.

"Happiness is always a by-product.  It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it might be glandular.  But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness."  -Robertson Davies

What a Crock

For my first crock pot recipe, I tried something on the sweeter side: Rice Pudding.  Heretofore a recipe most commonly used when there was at least 2 cups of leftover rice (already cooked) sitting in the fridge, I've now got a recipe that calls for raw rice, which takes a lot longer to cook in a slow cooker, and which means you can leave the house while it simmers.  My recipe is also a lot healthier than the ones that call for condensed milk, cream, or eggs.  Now that I think about it, it's actually vegan.  But don't let that stop you: it's quite rich and delicious.

3/4 c. short grain rice (you could even try brown)

3 c. soy milk (try vanilla-flavored if you've got it)

1/4 c. white sugar

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3/4 tsp. salt

2 cinnamon sticks, or ground cinnamon to taste.

Put all ingredients into crock pot, stir well.  Cook on low for 2 1/2 hours, stirring once or twice if you're around.  And be careful: as is the case with regularly cooked rice, if you leave it on too long, you can over do it.  I was out running errands and came home to find my rice pudding quite firm and a tiny bit scorched on the sides.  It's still delicious, but I'll keep a better eye on it next time.  Enjoy for breakfast, dessert, or snack, chilled or warmed in the microwave.

Old Standby

Every family's got their old standby, the when-all-else-fails meal that, over the years becomes a sort of edible member of the family.  Ours is the Breakfast Burrito.  In fact, I think it was the first meal that Adam ever cooked for me, on a camping trip near the Bosque del Apache in New Mexico early in our courtship.  So intimate with the Breakfast Burrito have Adam and I become that we now affectionately refer to it simply as "BB."

It was living in Santa Fe that taught us to integrate the BB into our lifestyle; after all, the cheesy, spicy treat is offered at every cafe and coffee shop worth its salt.  The New Mexican tradition puts green chile and bacon into its BB, but as herbivores who no longer live in chile country, we omit both those ingredients.  This by no means limits us.  Which, I guess, is why the BB is so fantastic-- there is no limit to what you can include.

There is a base, however, which includes tortillas, scrambled eggs, potatoes, shredded cheese, and preferably salsa, though hot sauce will do in a pinch.  Beyond that, let your imagination fly.  Avocado, cilantro, sour cream or yogurt, beans (black, pinto, refried...), fried onions, hash browns, corn, tomatoes, squash, chives, oregano, quinoa, as many different kinds of hot sauce as you want.  Tonight, on a whim, I even supplemented our paltry potato supply with a quarter of a purple cabbage, sauteed in cumin, chile powder, and smoked paprika (which, by the way, was the best six bucks I've spent recently).  It turned out great!  Nice crunch to counterbalance the starch of the spuds and the soft tortillas.  Another tip: if you've got it, stir cream cheese or sour cream into your eggs when you scramble them-- they'll come out soft and fluffy. 

The cabbage looked so pretty in the pan, I'm enclosing a before- and after-cooking shot, along with the final product: the beloved BB.  

Hot for Pancakes

Whoa.  I just had quite possibly the best pancakes in the world.  Harkening nostalgically back to the occasional breakfast-for-dinner evenings created by my father (a bachelor during much of my youth), and desiring to get rid of the buttermilk used in cheesemaking last week, I looked up a buttermilk pancake recipe for dinner tonight on the old tried and true epicurious.com.  I like that site because you can type in whatever ingredient you're overloaded with, and a long list of recipes calling for that ingredient will come up.  They are rated with a fork system, and this recipe got four out of four forks, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I give it an enthusiastic four forks too.

The recipe actually includes this whole other part that sounds really good-- sauteed apples in maple syrup and cinnamon-- but I had yesterday-picked blueberries and blackberry jam, so I decided to try the apples another time.  But the pancakes themselves are really outstanding,  whatever you top them with-- a little crispy on the outside, and moist, fluffy and slightly sour on the inside.  Find the recipe here.

Also, I love it when you look up a recipe for something kind of random, something you wouldn't think of alone by just staring at the cupboards and fridge and hoping for inspiration, and then you realize that you actually have all the ingredients.  It makes me wonder how many meals-- good meals-- I could make with the contents already in the kitchen.  Hundreds, probably.  Thousands.