Lemon Blueberry Oatmeal

Another oatmeal recipe? Is Rugrat Chow becoming an Oatmeal blog? Rest assured that it isn't so. I'm simply having a summer affair with porridge. I've had a friend of mine tell me the same thing ... it's when you dream of having oatmeal for dinner .. or when you jump out of bed in the morning because you're excited about a new Oatmeal recipe you've found. 

In the past few weeks, I've become a huge fan of The Oatmeal Artist. Her recipes are mostly plant-based and when not, they're easily adaptable. I've bookmarked her page and often check her recipes for ingredients I have on hand. Do give her page a like on Facebook. Lauren posted this recipe yesterday morning after her visit to a farmer's market where she picked up some fresh blueberries. I used frozen berries in mine as I wasn't able to pay the Yoder farm a visit this weekend. Also, I like to use frozen berries in my oats because it helps bring the temperature down into an edible range. You see, I make my oatmeal in a microwave. It's usually scalding hot in 3 minutes. Adding frozen blueberries after removing the oats from the microwave prevents the berries from being reduced to mush and cools down the oatmeal surrounding each berry, one little pocket at a time :)

Lemon Blueberry Oatmeal

Adapted from: The Oatmeal Artist: Lemon Blueberry Oatmeal

Prep Time: 5-7 min

Ingredients (Serves 1):

1. 1/2 cup Old-Fashioned (Rolled) Oats
2. 1 cup Almond Milk
3. 1 ripe banana (sliced and mashed with the oats)
4. 1 tbsp Chia Seeds
5. 1 tbsp Slivered Almonds
6. 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
7. 2 tsp Lemon Juice
8. 1 tbsp Brown Sugar (optional)
9. A pinch of Coarse (Kosher or Sea) salt.

Directions:

Mix oats with sliced banana in a microwave safe bowl. Use a fork to mash the banana with and into the oats so that they make a combined mush (umm appetizing ;)!). Add Chia seeds, almond milk, almonds and brown sugar (if using) to top the banana-oatmeal mix.  Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Once the oats are done, remove from microwave, mix well, Mix in about half the blueberries, salt and 2 tsp lemon juice. I didn't use any sugar on my oatmeal today because a ripe banana is plenty sweet for me. Mix well, transfer to a serving bowl, top off with remaining blueberries. Enjoy!!

The original recipe called for Lemon Extract. I didn't have any handy so I ran a quick Google search on it. Lemon extract is a concentrated lemon flavoring used for baking. It has all the flavor of lemon without the tartness. It is more like the essential oils in lemon zest. A quick replacement for lemon extract would be lemon zest. I didn't have that either but I found several sites with baking tips that said that lemon juice can be substituted in about a 1:2 ratio. So I added 1 tsp of Lemon juice and I couldn't taste anything. I promptly added another 1/2 and then another 1/2 tsp and the results were phenomenal. Not tart at all and the lemon flavoring seemed to bring out a refreshing flavor in the blueberries and made them taste sweeter.  

Nutrition Facts (Per Serving, without Brown Sugar): Calories 428 (Fat Calories 124)
Total Fat 13.8 g; Carbohydrates 72.0 g; Fiber 15.6 g; Sugars 22.1 g; Protein 12.2 g

Pistachio Peach Pie Oatmeal

Peach Bounty in the Coder Yard

Our two peach trees are dripping with fruit. We're the kind of careless carefree fruit tree owners that do nothing with the trees and the trees selflessly provide us with this incredible bounty every year. We are truly blessed. We harvested a big basket on Thursday evening and there's still a few more baskets remaining to be harvested that will go to friends, family, coworkers :)

In past years, I've made peach pie, peach cobbler ... pretty much every fattening dessert you can imagine. Last year's harvest was not great due to the weather and we mostly ate our peaches fresh. Today I decided to look into making an Oatmeal recipe since I am into that these days. Here's what I came up with after exploring a few recipes on the internet including this one by The Oatmeal Artist. Since I already had an idea in my head and I pretty much stuck with what I thought would work for this recipe, I'm taking the credit for my concoction this morning :) 

Prep Time: 5-7 min

Ingredients (Serves 1):

1. 1/2 cup Old-Fashioned (Rolled) Oats
2. 1 cup Almond Milk
3. 2 Medium Peaches, diced (almost a cup)
4. 1 tbsp Chia Seeds
5. 10-15 Dry Roasted (no salt) Pistachios, crushed/halved
6. 1 tbsp Brown Sugar (optional)
7. A pinch of Nutmeg (ground)
8. A pinch of Cinnamon (ground)
9. A pinch of Coarse (Sea or Kosher) Salt

Directions:

Mix oats, almond milk, peaches and chia seeds in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Once the oats are done, remove from microwave, mix well, add nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and brown sugar (if you like it sweet). I didn't use any sugar because the peaches were sweet enough for me.  Mix well, transfer to a serving bowl, sprinkle another dash of ground nutmeg on top and garnish with a few slices of peach and roasted pistachios. Enjoy!!

Nutrition Facts (Per Serving, without Brown Sugar): Calories 354 (Fat Calories 125)
Total Fat 13.9 g; Carbohydrates 51.6 g; Fiber 13.5 g; Sugars 14.9 g; Protein 12.1 g

Herb & Spice Fact of the Day

Green Cardamom (Elaichi) is a small green triangular (in cross section) seed pod, with a thin and papery outer shell, with the inside containing small, aromatic, dark brown to black seeds. It is the third most expensive spices by weight, out-priced  in market value only by saffron and vanilla. It has a strong, unique, intensely aromatic, resinous and quite surprisingly refreshing fragrance. In India, it is often used as a mouth-freshener or after-mint. In cooking, it is used both in savory dishes as well as desserts and imparts characteristic flavors to both. Interestingly, while it is used primarily in Asian, Middle-Eastern and a few Nordic countries, the current world's largest producer of Cardamom is Guatemala - which produces 25,000 to 29,000 metric tons. India and Sri Lanka produce about half that quantity (together) and perhaps use most of it ;) 

In the US, although few Americans have probably tasted cardamom by itself - I would estimate that a large percentage of Americans have tasted it in the form of Starbucks Spiced Chai where Cardamom is a major ingredient (along with cinnamon, ginger root and cloves). While the ground spice is sold in the US and in other countries, this spice is best stored in pod form which helps preserve the essential aromatic oils. Although the pods may lose their distinctive green color over time, the seeds will retain most of the flavor. 

Medicinally, green cardamom is used as a broad-spectrum anti-microbial and is used to treat a variety of infections of the teeth, mouth, gums, throat etc. It is believed to help in reducing heartburn, chest/lung congestion (hence its use in Chai) and a variety of digestive disorders (intestinal spasms, IBS, gas, constipation etc.). A quick Google search revealed a whole host of essential oils in cardamom - close to 15 listed on Wikipedia alone. Chewing on the seeds or fresh pods has been used in Ayurvedic medicine as an antidote for bad breath and as a way of maintaining oral hygiene and health. Some people believe that Cardamom may even be an aphrodisiac .. I haven't yet tested, or known that property to work ;)