Better Home Cooking Basics: #69 Top Your Ice Cream with Spices to Add More Flavor (Not More Fat!).

It's ice cream weather! While hot fudge, whipped cream & extra sprinkles all offer extra deliciousness to everyone's favorite summer treat they also add extra calories. Today, I'm asking you to put down the typically delicious & caloric toppings & visit your spice rack instead. Spices aren't just for cooking any more. You can jazz up any kind of ice cream with spices which means more flavor without added fat! Keep reading for my ice cream & spice pairing suggestions.

(No-Cook) Swiss Oatmeal

Warmer weather makes me want to eat cooler food - as in chilled like salads & smoothies. If you follow me on Instagram you probably have noticed that I was on a smoothie bowl kick for a while. Then I had the Swiss oatmeal at Gregory’s Coffee (by way of recommendation from my team at work) & I knew I would have to work this into my morning routine at home.

Swiss oatmeal is served chilled, which makes it more appealing (to me) to eat during the spring & summer than a hot bowl of oatmeal (or anything for the matter).  Oh & you don’t have to cook it- that’s right a no-cook oatmeal. You only need to know how to cut up some fruit & stir & then get your beauty rest while it does it's thing in the fridge overnight.

It’s super simple to make & it’s another recipe you can use for that yogurt in your fridge too! This recipe makes enough for about 4 breakfasts. I stored mine in an airtight jar & portioned some out each morning during the week.

Apple Dutch Baby

I love pancakes, I do. They do take some time to make as you have to make one individually. If you don't have that time to make a dozen pancakes when you're serving guests or more than two people I suggest a dutch baby pancake. It's basically a giant pancake you bake in the oven & then cut up like a pie to serve. So with the time you save flipping your cakes you can get your kitchen clean (because you really don't need to dirty that many dishes to make a dutch baby) & you can actually relax after brunch.

Have you made a dutch baby? What do you put in yours?

Spicy Beef & Acorn Squash Winter Stew

I’m not a huget meat eater but I’ll have the occasional burger or meatball if the mood strikes me. If you’ve been following my blog (thank you!) you’ll probably notice that most of the recipes involve veggies, chicken & fish with very little meat in between. Which means that that’s what my husband eats too. Last night I opted to throw Chris a bone & make a beef stew. Given his positive reaction I may have to make this & meat more often.

Soft Serve Vegan Pumpkin Ice Cream

I had some extra pumpkin in my fridge (after making these pancakes) & was craving something sweet so I made a cross between pumpkin pie filling & ice cream for dessert. Soft serve pumpkin ice cream.

It’s vegan. It’s dairy-free. It's gluten-free. (Read: guilt-free) It’s delish!

It’s a take on my usual go-to frozen banana ice cream trick that I’ve made here & here.

Perfectly Fluffy Pumpkin Spiced Pancakes

This weekend the idea was to carb load so Chris could prepare for the Grete’s Great Gallop Sloan Kettering Half Marathon.  Even though I wasn’t running in the half marathon (I was a great cheerleader instead) I’ve never been one to say no to carbs. So we started our rainy Saturday with pumpkin pancakes. I’m not a huge fan of drinking sweet coffees (sorry for the buzzkill pumpkin spiced latte lovers) but I do love to chew things that taste like pumpkin like pumpkin pie, pumpkin loaf & now these pumpkin pancakes & drink regular flavored coffee with them. I jazzed up this recipe I found with some variations on the ingredients & the great tips I talked about here for making the fluffiest pancakes & the result was carb & flavor-tastic!

How are you celebrating with pumpkin this fall?

Peanut Butter & Banana Boats

More often than not, if it’s breakfast time I’m eating avocado toast.  Yesterday was the rare day that I didn’t have avocado toast for breakfast, so I had it for lunch.  I opted to make a quick (yet somewhat fancy looking) protein packed breakfast centered around banana & peanut butter.  I remember seeing something like this on the web - I can’t remember where but I took a mental photo & stored it in my memory bank. Yesterday I pulled that memory out & I must say I’ll be revisiting this quick breakfast that kept me from a growling stomach into the middle of the afternoon. It’s also a great snack or dessert.

Best Ever Turkey Chili

Apparently the mild 50 degree weather we had this past weekend was all a delicious dream because it’s cold again! So warm up with this chili recipe that I found & have been making all winter (when I'm not making this one). It has some really great flavors (spoiler alert - there's cinnamon & beer in there!). The best part is that it’s a pretty quick cook so you don’t have to let it simmer for hours but I’m sure if you have that kind of time in your day it will only taste better & better the longer it cooks - but it tastes great right off the bat. Naturally, I bulk mine up with extra veggies - so I’ll note in the directions which are optional.

Quick Homemade Breakfast Oatmeal

We saw some family this weekend. Lucky for me, my family members are my biggest fans & they notice when things aren’t up to par - & usually tell me (thanks for calling me out Melissa Donnelly - I needed to hear it).  Lately, I haven’t been blogging a whole lot & that is going to change. Truth is I was sidetracked but other projects that I thought I wanted to try my hand at - & while they taught me new life lessons what I really learned is that this is where I want & need to be right now at this point in my life - here blogging about what I love on a daily basis.  So without further adieu, I’m posting more recipes & other things that lift me up more regularly. Will there be days where I don’t - probably - I’m human after all - but I will do my very best to bring you more of my original posts here. Thanks for sticking with me.

Today, I’m talking about breakfast - a meal that I can usually do without, but I’m trying to be better about eating it as it has been deemed the most important meal of the day.  The one person that I know who eats breakfast on a regular basis (for the past 87+ years!!!) is my Grandpa Paul.  He eats oatmeal everyday for breakfast, except for Sundays when he eats bacon & eggs.

Granted my oatmeal isn’t Grandpa’s - because I like more toppings (he just eats his plain). In the past I’ve eaten oatmeal - mostly instant. You know the package that you tear open & it has oatmeal & other dried counterparts in it - usually semi-identifiable.  Well guess, what Grandpa doesn’t eat that powdery stuff in the package - so I’m going back to basics & making mine from  scratch - well kind of - I’m using the microwave. Instead of taking 2 minutes in the morning to make your instant oatmeal this heartier & healthier way will take you about 5. I think the 3 extra minutes in the morning are worthy of knowing what exactly you’re putting in your body. Plus, it tastes better.

Simple Rice Pudding

In case you haven’t been watching the news because you live a warm sunny area & have been spending any of your free time outside & at the beach - it’s blizzarding in the northeast… again. Since I hit the grocery store on Sunday, our fridge & pantry were fully stocked & I headed straight home after work as opposed to standing on line to pick up some basics at the super market.

Fortunately, I stock up on basic things on a regular basis. For all those that don’t - this a practice I’ve adapted to in the past few years - so don’t worry if you’re not there yet.  Not too long ago I used the word “pantry” very loosely, as I used a bookshelf to store food in my 500 square foot little Italy apartment (man, that was a great apartment!). Said pantry also housed our silverware & other paper goods. Did I mention that it was actually a “street treasure” that I found on the side of the road & carried home with my sister - yeah I did & it was great.  Now that I’m (ahem) an adult, we have a pantry & it is built into the kitchen & I didn’t have to go out & hunt for it so now I try my best to keep it stocked.

Some easy things to stock up on are rice, quinoa, pastas, canned beans, raisins & other baking needs that don’t need to be refrigerated. I used some of these basics to whip up some rice pudding for dessert last night using this recipe. So grab some basics (milk, eggs, rice, raisins) on your next super market trip & try this recipe next time you are snowed in your house.

Pear Pie

We've been buying a ton of fruits & veggies, even more so than normal. We've been juicing! But that's not what this post is about. We had a ton of pears (because they make for a very delicious juice) so I decided to use some of them for dessert number two for Easter Sunday dinner (this was the first).  I know you don't normal hear pear pie as a dessert, apple pie, cherry pie sure but not pear. Pear tart yes, but not pear pie. Well you're hearing it now. I made pear pie.  I didn't know how it was going to turn out but my overly stuffed family & I managed to get it down just fine. Now only if I had taken the leftovers home with me. #kickingmyself

Apple Crisp

Apple season is upon us. We embraced it in our house by eating an early September Apple Crisp.  I basically adapted this recipe that I made at the beach with blueberries this summer to make it with apples instead.  Find the complete recipe after the jump!

Almond Butter with Cinnamon

Last night was Fashion's Night Out, but I opted to go home & make butter out of nuts. (God I'm getting old!)

But seriously, ever walk by the fresh peanut butter machine in your grocery store & think I should do that at home with my food processor? [crickets, do I hear crickets?]

Ok, so maybe I'm alone here but I'm into eating non-chemically things, I think they just taste better (& give me better peace of mind & don't have crazy side effects). So I give you HeatherOMade Almond Butter with Cinnamon. 

Ingredients:

• 3 cups raw almonds
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Make it!

1. Add whole almonds to food processor.
2. Blend well. At first it will look like almond powder, keep blending.
3. Scrap the sides of the food processor occasionally.
4. Add cinnamon & salt when large clumps form.
5. About 15-20 minutes later you'll have rich creamy almond butter.
6. Store in an air tight container in your fridge.

Things I plan to do with my almond butter:

• eat it with slices of green apple
• make these yummy treats
• swirl it with vanilla ice cream
• spread it on some bread & top it with honey & sliced bananas