1/10/2018: This is the updated recipe I use now (with or without the Instant Pot)- it’s thicker and more hearty!
Now that cooler weather has hit us, I’ve been transitioning into warm, roasty toasty breakfast foods. One comfort food that I am happy to welcome back is this warm-ya-to-yer toes apple cinnamon oatmeal!
Mmmm! This is a delicious and heart-healthy way to start your mornings! I prefer steel cut oats over other types because I like the toothsome texture better, and also because they’re less processed (i.e. better for you) than other oat varieties.
A few years ago, a friend hosted a soup swap, where a bunch of us met and swapped quarts of soup. It was an impressive affair, with soups ranging from oxtail soup to clam chowder to Tom Ka Gai.
I was relatively new to cooking and had never really made soup before, so it took me a while to figure out what I could manage. I decided to go with butternut squash soup. I actually thought I was going fancy, because for me, peeling and cutting up all that squash seemed so labor-intensive! I packaged my soup with some “homemade Acme baguette croutons” on the side, hoping that it would convince people to PICK MINE!! 🙂
The event was pretty fun, and I came home with a nice variety of soups to sample. I did, however, decide that butternut squash soup was too much work to make, so I didn’t really consider making it again… untilllll…
I DISCOVERED PRE-PEELED AND CUBED BUTTERNUT SQUASH AT COSTCO!
I feel it is my duty to introduce you to my latest pastry fav: The Kouign Amann (queen ah-MAHN “queen-yah-manh”). Imagine a croissant, but instead of thin sheets of dough layered with butter, it’s layered with butter and sugar. Together, they bake up into a delightful pastry with golden layers of caramelized goodness crisping and flaking in your mouth. MmmmmMmm!
My favorite is the chocolate kouign amann. Just imagine the one above with some chocolate in the middle. I have no good pictures because I keep polishing them off before remembering that I wanted to snap a picture for you. Oops =P.
I tried my first kouign amann two years ago after one of my BFFs (and fellow dessert-lover) emailed me: i want to take you to get a kouign amman (have you had one yet??) from a neighborhood store!
Truth be told, I wasn’t all that excited about it. I couldn’t figure out how to pronounce the words in my head or out loud, which somehow made it less exciting to me. But do you see those two question marks? That was her subtle way of saying “Have you had one yet? Because if you haven’t YOU REALLY SHOULD! YOU WOULD LOVE IT!!!” I know this because we’ve been BFF-ing it for over 15 years. Yup.
And she was totally right. She took me to get one the next day, and I LOVED IT:
yummmmmmmmmmmm the toasted chocolate kouign amman was SO yummy! we toasted it and ben devoured almost the whole thing. he loves it. you’re right, it develops such a nice crunchy crust! i told him i’d ask you to bring one down with you next weekend… and he asked me to ask for two haha :).
I love the way the whole house feels when I make this banana bread loaf cake. Every room is infused with this amazingly warm, spicy aroma that makes you feel all cozy and homey and delicious and wonderful when this is in the oven. Sometimes I make it a point to bake it before Ben gets home from work so that I can look forward to him walking into the house, inhaling deeply, and saying, “Mmmm smells gooood in here! …Banana bread?!?!”
If that’s not the very picture of domestic bliss, I don’t know what is.
I’ve been eating this for breakfast for the last couple of weeks. Getting my probiotics in… some fruit, some protein, chia seeds… good stuff! I guess “pudding” makes it sound more like a dessert, but I definitely think of it as a yogurt. It’s made with healthful ingredients: almond milk, yogurt, and chia seeds!
I like the texture of the chia seeds once they’ve absorbed some of the liquid. It reminds me of small tapioca pearls I enjoy in desserts. The hint of maple syrup is just right, and this is a nice alternative if you’re trying to avoid refined sugars. The original recipe calls for Greek yogurt, so I’m sure that works well, but I’ve been using plain whole milk yogurt. It’s a bit runny when I first stir everything up, but thickens up nicely by the morning.
1/23/2023 Update: This is the blend I’ve been using for the last few years! Lipton Orange Pekoe. It’s delicious!
3/17/2020 Update: Make sure the tea is “Orange Pekoe.” The original link seems to point to a normal black tea now– not sure how that will turn out. I’ve updated the link, hope it sends you to Orange Pekoe tea! Also, this blend ($$$!) and this blend also look good, thought I have not tried them. This content may use referral links. Read my disclosure policy for more info.
I LOVE MILK TEA! 🙂
I love cold Taiwan style milk tea AND hot Hong Kong style milk tea. As long as there is a strong tea flavor and it’s not too sweet, I love it. A few months ago, I found a Taiwan style milk tea recipe I love, but had yet to nail the HK-style one.
It’s not for lack of trying. I have tried a number of “silk-stocking” milk teas using condensed milk, evaporated milk, Lipton tea, Ceylon teas, and other blends of teas, based on various recipes I found online. None were to my satisfaction. My biggest problem was that I couldn’t hit the right tea flavor, so I gave up. Various people had told me the secret was to use Lipton tea, but um… there are several varieties of Lipton tea, so without a specific TYPE of tea, I was still pretty lost.
First of all, thank you for your responses in my last post. I felt like I just made a bunch of new friends, and now I want to visit y’all in Australia and the UK and throughout the U.S.! I really do appreciate that you’ve joined me here on this blog and I hope you continue to benefit from what I share here. 😀 – JoEllen
This recipe is DELISH and I had to share it with ya while the zucchinis are still big and ripe and ready to go this season! I made it this week and brought some to our friends who just had their second child (NEWBORNS ARE SO FRESH AND SWEET AND CUTE TO HOLD!) and received this adorable feedback from their two year old son:
We thoroughly enjoyed your meal! Isaac kept saying “Joellen did not cook the soup. No no the chef cooked it.” I kept telling him auntie Jo cooked it but he kept insisting it was a chef. lol. he really loved it.
See? Kid-approved. And simple to make. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Maybe it’s just me, but zucchini in soup form tastes nothing like sauteed zucchini. I like it both ways, but I would have never guessed that the soup version would taste the way it does! It’s bright and creamy and smooth and even a little sweet.
I have been a sucker for scones ever since my Auntie S. made a batch of blueberry scones when I was in elementary school. I begged her to share her recipe with me, and I even invented my own little technique for stuffing blueberries in the middle of the scones. It was my solution for the messy, purple, staining mess that came with mixing blueberries into the dough. I don’t do that anymore (although my mom says she liked it that way), but I do still love to make cream scones!
I have always dreamed of opening my own bakery. It’s probably not going to happen, because in addition to loving baked goods, I also love to sleep, and I hear being a baker + sleeping in are not compatible. Still, I love the idea of making treats and seeing that people would actually be willing to pay money for my stuff. That means they’re not just eating it out of niceness, but because they really LIKE IT!
A few summers ago, I decided to open up a virtual bakery, and I called it Sweet Dreams.
Last week, my friend Kevin dropped off several bottles of juices for me to try— what a treat! I felt so spoiled, and thoroughly enjoyed the fact that we were instructed to finish them all within a few days. Normally, I’d spread out such an extravagance over days and days… but hey, I had to follow the “Best by 8/22/14” sticker, right? So I gulped away, day and night, and drank to my heart’s content. It was GREAT!
Then I finished the last one, and there were no more in my fridge.
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