Brainerd Lakes Minnesota MN Inn Accommodations Lodging Bed & And Breakfast BB

oat cornmeal pancakes

My friend, Connie, shared this pancake recipe with me a couple days ago. I have already made it twice since then. One time using the original recipe and the second time with Connie's adaptations. Both ways produced equally light and tasty pancakes. Blueberries add a wonderful natural sweetness.

 

Oat Cornmeal Pancakes

Cut quantities in half if serving 2 people.

1 cup whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour.)

1/3 cup old-fashioned oatmeal run through flour grinder or food processor or use packaged oat flour (Connie used 2/3 cup oatmeal instead.)

1/3 cup yellow cornmeal (Connie used 2 tbsp.)

1/3 cup unbleached white flour (I used Gold ‘n White Flour.)

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

2 cups buttermilk

2 large eggs

4 tbsp butter, melted (I used olive oil.)

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. Whisk wet ingredients together. Add wet to dry stirring until just combined. Batter will be lumpy.  

 

ultimate energy bars

Tonight I packed a picnic lunch for Dick and I to take along to Avon (Minnesota) for Garrison Keillor's 35th anniversary performance at Lake Wobegon Park tomorrow. We're going to set our lawn chairs in place to mark our spot then hit the bike trail until the 4:45 live radio broadcast draws near. I made these bars to pack along with our sandwiches, boiled eggs, and fresh fruit and veggies. They are surprisingly extremely light considering the ingredients and they have one very strange ingredient... a can of navy beans! The beans, which are pureed in a food processor, are invisible to sight and taste but add a wonderfully smooth texture, bind the mixture together, and add a whopping amount of protein and fiber. The bars' ingredients include 4 out of 12 of the most potent micronutrient-rich foods recommended by Dana Jacobi in her 12 Best Foods Cookbook including beans, oats, walnuts, and chocolate. (She recommends black beans, but I think navy, kidney, pinto, etc. all fall into the nutrient-rich category).

  

Ultimate Energy Bars

2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal (not instant)

1 cup flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour.)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

19-oz can organic white kidney beans or navy beans, rinsed and drained

¼ cup Earth Balance (a non-hydrogenated buttery spread made from an oil blend)

1 cup packed brown sugar or Sucanat (I used ½ cup of each.)

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup chocolate chips (Next time I will chop up a dark chocolate bar with at least 70-72% cacao/cocoa content instead.)

½ cup raisins or dried cranberries

¼ - ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

2 tbsp ground flaxseed

My sister, Rita, thought some coconut would be a tasty addition. I agree.

Preheat oven to 350°. Place oats in a food processor and pulse until it resembles coarse flour. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and process until combined. Transfer to a large bowl. Put beans into food processor and pulse until puréed. Add Earth Balance, brown sugar/Sucanat), egg, and vanilla and pulse until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl. Pour bean mixture into oat mixture and stir by hand until almost combined; add chocolate chips, raisins/cranberries, nuts, and flaxseed and stir until just blended. Spread the batter into a 9- by 13-inch pan that has been oiled or sprayed with cooking spray. (To assure ease of removal, I lined the pan with unbleached parchment paper lightly oiling underneath and on top. Oiling the pan before laying the paper down keeps it in place when spreading the batter.) Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden around the edges. Cool in the pan before cutting into bars. (I cut the batch into 15 bars.)  

 

Friday, July 3, 2009

Today’s mileage: 0

Total Mileage for July: 4 miles (same as yesterday)

Bible reading? Yes.

 

 

 

buckwheat oat bran pancakes

Most mornings Dick and I have a bowl of oatmeal topped with a variety of fresh fruit, ground flax and nuts and seeds like walnuts and raw sunnies. My oatmeal supply was nearly depleted, so I decided to try a buckwheat oatbran pancake recipe. It is a vegan recipe because it has no eggs and uses orange juice instead of milk. What a treat they turned out to be... so light and fluffy, not what you'd imagine buckwheat pancakes to be! I sprinkled a few blueberries on top after pouring the batter onto the griddle and served them with chokecherry syrup made by Brambleberry Farm in Pequot Lakes (Minnesota) that I purchased at our local farmers market. You'll be eating breakfast as quickly as the time it takes to cook old-fashioned oatmeal.

The recipe came from my 12 Best Foods Cookbook by Dana Jacobi. The cookbook "identifies 12 of the most potent micronutrient-rich foods including broccoli, black beans, tomatoes, salmon, soy, sweet potatoes, oats, onions, blueberries, walnuts, spinach, and chocolate that can help protect you against major disease and provides over 200 recipes starring these ingredients". 

 

Buckwheat Oat Bran Pancakes

½ cup buckwheat flour

½ cup oat bran

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

¼ cup defrosted orange juice concentrate ¾ cup orange juice (I didn’t have any frozen o.j., so I substituted reg. o.j. I increased the amount because the batter was way too dry. ¾ cup is just perfect.)

2 tbsp walnut oil or canola oil

Mix dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, whisk orange juice and oil together then add to dry ingredients mixing just until blended. Don’t overmix. Pour scant ¼ cup batter on oiled heated skillet spreading it into 5” rounds. Sprinkle a few blueberries on top, if desired. When top is covered with small bubbles and dry around the edges, flip pancakes and cook on other side until brown. Serve immediately or keep pancakes in a 200° oven while making the remainder of the batch.

 

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Today's mileage: 2-mile walk

Total mileage for July: 2 miles

Bible reading? yes

hamburger macaroni hotdish #1

I love challenges, no matter how simple. Today I started my most recent one... to try different recipes for hamburger macaroni hotdish. It's such a basic comfort food but with so many variations. I googled it and chose a recipe link from the first few in the list that popped up. This one is from simplyrecipes.com, which is a blog hosted by Elsie Bauer. I discovered that her blog is a wonderful resource for tested, tried-and-true recipes with an index to quickly locate a particular food. In 30 minutes, you'll be sitting down to a hearty meal.

 

Hamburger Macaroni Hotdish #1

1 lb ground beef (I use buffalo from A & J’s Buffalo Ranch near Pequot Lakes, which is 17 miles from Brainerd, that I cook by adding a little water to the pan then brown after the water has evaporated. Buffalo is so low in fat that either oil or water is needed.)

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced  

½ tsp seasoned salt (I use Johnny’s seasoning salt.)

Dash crushed red pepper

½ tsp celery seed

2-14 ½ oz cans diced or stewed tomatoes with basil and garlic

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (I use Bragg’s Liquid Aminos.)

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley or 4 tsp dried parsley

2 cups uncooked macaroni (I used *Eden Organic Kamut Spirals.)

Cook macaroni according to directions on package. Brown ground beef (or buffalo) in oil or water. Add onions and sauté during final few minutes of browning time. Add remaining ingredients except macaroni and simmer for about 10 minutes. Mix in cooked and drained macaroni. Simmer for another 5 minutes. (For reheating leftovers, add a little water. I like to use the liquid byproduct from steaming veggies like broccoli.) Serves 4.

*Eden Organic Kamut Spirals is made from whole grain kamut wheat. Kamut (pronounced kuh-MOOT) is “an ancient grain revived by an organic farmer in the 1940s. Its plump, high protein golden kernels make whole grain pasta of surprisingly smooth texture. Many with sensitivity to modern wheat can enjoy kamut because of its highly water soluble gluten.” 

  

 

 

 

rhubarb almond coffeecake

For my year long cake-of-the-month challenge I set for myself, I sketched out a loose plan at the beginning of 2009 deciding what kind of cakes, cupcakes, and coffeecakes would be appropriate for each month taking into consideration in-season fruits and holiday or seasonal themes. For May I just knew it must be rhubarb, therefore May's cake-of-of-the-month is Rhubarb Almond Coffeecake. I used a recipe from allrecipes.com, but I tweaked it by adding three different spices, increasing the amount of rhubarb, and adding coconut in the topping. The recipe called for 3/4 cup rhubarb which I increased to 2 cups because each spring I have a seriously large amount of rhubarb to use up. I increased the flour amount to compensate for the additional rhubarb. There's no reason to be afraid of rhubarb's tartness. With a little sweetener, this early season treat adds such a wonderful moistness to baked goods. The aroma of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves wafting from the oven is reason enough to bake this moist delectable coffeecake with spring's first offering from the garden. 

 

Rhubarb Almond Coffeecake

Serves 12.

¾ cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup oil

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla

1 ¼ cups flour 2 ¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour (The extra cup is needed to absorb the moisture from the increased  amount of rhubarb that I chose to add to the recipe.)

½ tsp salt

½  1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp nutmeg, ½ tsp cloves (my own recipe additions)

½ cup milk

¾ cup 2 cups chopped rhubarb (approx. 4 large stalks)

Topping:

¼ cup sliced almonds

½ cup coconut (my own recipe addition)

3 tbsp white sugar (I use evaporated cane juice sugar.)

1 ½ tsp butter, melted

1 tsp cinnamon (my own recipe addition)

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease one 9-inch round springform pan. (I find that the cake is easier to remove if you line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper cut into a circle then oil the paper a bit.) In a large bowl beat brown sugar, oil, egg, and vanilla together until smooth. Combine flour, salt, baking soda, and spices; add to sugar mixture alternately with milk. Beat until smooth. (It’s not “proper procedure”, but I skip the alternating flour/milk step and mix all the milk at one time into the sugar mixture then beat in all of the flour at once. I find this prevents overbeating the flour which can result in a tough product.) Fold in rhubarb. Pour into prepared pan. In a small bowl, combine topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly over batter. Bake for 35-45 minutes until a toothpick poked into the center of the coffeecake comes out clean.

gluten-free muffins

I don't often use mixes because I find it's difficult to match from-scratch cooking in taste and nutritional quality, but I spied a gluten-free cranberry orange muffin mix that I decided to give a whirl. Some gluten-free baked goods tend to be tough, chewy, and flavorless... not this product. The muffins are especially good warm from the oven but still very tasty at room temperature. Dick gave them a thumbs-up, too.  

INGREDIENTS: brown rice flour, potato starch, white rice flour, sweet dried orange rind, sweet dried cranberries, turbinado sugar, sweet rice flour, Montina™ pure flour, tapioca flour, baking powder, vanilla powder, sea salt, xanthan gum.

  

The muffin mix has 2 grams of fiber per serving. To pump it up, I added 2 tbsp ground flax. Also, for the 1/2 cup oil called for on the package directions, I substituted 1/4 cup applesauce plus 1/4 cup oil.

The mix contains Montina. I learned from the Gifts of Nature web site that Montina™ is a native bunch grass called Indian Ricegrass, which is high in fiber, protein, and iron. It is marketed by the company as a baking supplement and it is also an ingredient in their all-purpose flour blend. Both products are available online. I purchased my muffin mix at Jewel's Health Food Store in Brainerd (Minnesota) which stocks a wide selection of gluten-free products.  

hotdish competition

Maybe it was the flashbacks of the Plymouth Playhouse "Church Basement Ladies A Second Helping Musical" we attended last Wednesday...

  

Maybe it was because it is so small town... so Minnesotan that, when I saw an ad announcing a hotdish competition at Prairie Bay Restaurant in Brainerd, I knew I wanted to participate. Win or not, it was such a novel idea that I wanted to support and be part of the fun.  

 

Last night I browned ground buffalo from A & J's Up North Buffalo Ranch in Pequot Lakes (Minnesota), cooked Canoe White 'n Wild Rice from Mille lacs Wild Rice Corp. in Aitkin (Minnesota), boiled eggs from my free-roaming organically-fed laying hens Olga, Pearl, Flossie, Opal, Henny Penny, Cora, and Phoebe, and shredded, chopped, diced, and simmered the remaining ingredients so that this morning I could assemble my hotdish to pop into the oven after serving breakfast to my B&B guests.  Here I am with hotdish in hand excitedly on my way to Prairie Bay. I thought the 1956 fridge on my backporch, that we use for guests' evening desserts and beverages, enhanced the nostalgia of the hotdish theme so I chose to have my photo taken there.

  

No... my Beef & Cabbage with Rice Hotdish wasn't chosen by the panel of five judges consisting of 4 chefs and the father of another chef, but the waitresses were rooting for me because of my overall presentation... apron and vintage casserole dish. They thought I looked authentic... that I looked the part. The winning entry was a chicken wild rice  hotdish. If I had been judging, it would have been my 1st choice, too. It was colorful with julienned carrots and the chunks of chicken breast created a striking contrast to the darkness of the wild rice. It had a nice crunch from slivered almonds and it was very tasty. (After the judging was completed, all participants were invited to sample the hotdishes.) The restaurant's owners stated that they are planning monthly competitions with salads and desserts coming up next. I had better start planning. Note: Since today is the 31st and my hotdish event took center stage, I will share my recipe for May's Cake-of-the-Month (Almond Rhubarb Coffee Cake) in June.   

spring's asparagus

My first asparagus of the season... not from my garden, but freshly cut from a local garden and sold at Brainerd's food co-op. It's pretty just to look at, but it's destined for the soup pot.

kaprina's scones

This afternoon, my niece Kaprina stopped by with some orange cranberry scones for Dick and I. Her adapted version of a traditional scone recipe is a definite keeper.  

 

I'll share the recipe in this post tomorrow. The day has slipped away...

chocolate layer cake

Each evening, our B&B guests enjoy a snack or dessert set out on our inn's porch. Today I decided to bake a cake using a Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcake Recipe with Light Cream Cheese Icing Recipe from Martha Stewart which yields 24 light, moist cupcakes. By doubling the recipe, I had enough batter to make a two-layer 6" round cake. The icing recipe, without doubling it, makes enough to frost between the two layers as well as the cake's outside.  

  

A clipping titled "little helper" from an April 2003 issue of Country Home Magazine came in handy. It  is a chart showing mold (cake pan) volume, batter amount needed to fill the cake pan, and baking time. To find the volume of my pan, I filled it with water and determined that the pan held 3 1/2 cups. Of course, you wouldn't put 3 1/2 cups batter in the pan because there needs to be room for rising. Referring to the chart, a 3 1/2 cup baking pan requires 1 3/4 cups batter. However, the chocolate buttermilk cupcake recipe (before doubling) makes 2 cups batter. I had a really tough decision to make. Do I eat the extra 1/4 cup of batter or pour it in the pan and hope it didn't overflow? The batter is seriously so good that I was tempted to sit down and gorge myself, but I didn't. I poured it into the pan after first lining the bottom of each pan with a circle cut from natural unbleached parchment paper. (Spreading a little oil in the bottom of the pan before laying the paper down helps it stay in place. I also spread a little oil onto the top of the paper, too, to ensure that it can be easily removed from the baked cake.) At the conclusion of the baking time, it had risen level with the top of the pan. Perfect... (I did need to add an additional 5 minutes to the baking time because of the added depth.) The chart is so useful, so I've included it in this post for you to print off and place in your cake recipe file for that moment in time when you'll be glad you had it too.