what’s in that cup?

This morning was a bit rushed, but my breakfast couldn’t be compromised.

I made a large pot of plain cooked millet Monday night, for easy leftovers.  Millet is one of my very favorite grains.  I love everything about it.  However, I’ve never eaten it for breakfast.  It always seems like more of a lunch/dinner grain to me.

But if you cook it plain [water only] you can easily whip it into breakfast.

The millet was heated up in a pot this morning, with almond milk.  I also added frozen cherries + blueberries and cooked it until the liquid was absorbed.  This created a very creamy + thick consistency.

Layered with: banana/almonds/currants/raw buckwheat groats/salted honey cashew butter/maple cinnamon almond butter 

Breakfast was ready in 8min flat and gobbled up in no time.

Millet Porridge

• ~1 – 1 1/4c precooked millet [cooked in water]
• 1/2 unsweetened almond milk
• 1t cinnamon
• 1t vanilla
• 1/3c frozen blueberries
• 1/3c frozen cherries

1. In a pot over medium heat, add millet + milk together.
2. Stir and bring to a simmer for 3-5min.
3. Once it starts to thicken, add in frozen fruit, if using. 
4. Done when fruit is cooked through and desired consistency is met. 

Love the crunchy buckwheat groats on top!  The 2 nut butters were DEEvine.  I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve eaten the maple cinnamon almond butter.  I savored every little bite!

In other breakfast news….Chris’s breakfast was a toasted bagel with smoked paprika almond butter.  I was shocked when he wanted this for breakfast, but he confirmed it was “delicious.”  FYI – this nut butter is also delicious on pan sautéed broccoli.  Yum.

Tons of progress made today!  The kitchen is fully primed, as is the bathroom.  It was a long + tiring day.  Bathrooms are no fun to paint.  You basically turn around on yourself a million times and get paint everywhere.  It takes forever and tomorrow I get to put two coats of actual paint on! Yaaay [sarcasm]  We’re slowly making progress on the packing.  It’s hard to tell exactly how much more there is, and we don’t have too much to purge, since we’ve moved 3 times in the past 1.5yrs!  At least we’re not doing a long-distance move this time! 

Off to relax for a few + then get to bed!

Ashley

creamy dreamy

I’m definitely hooked on cooking my oats with water or water + almond milk.  I can’t get over how delicious and strong the oat flavor is.  By strong, I do not mean harsh.  It’s very smooth, nutty + slightly sweet.  I absolutely love it and am not missing my 1tsp of cinnamon I was dumping in it before.  I’m also much preferring the banana on top, rather than mixed in. 

Today I made steel cut oats, with half water + half almond milk.  Steel cut oats are such a fun change of pace.  They take a bit longer to cook, but have a fabulous texture.  Crunchy + creamy…a breakfast dream!

Simple Steel Cut Oats [serves 1]

• 6T steel cut oats
• 3/4c water
• 1c unsweetened almond milk

1. Combine ingredients into a pot and bring to boil.
2. Stir + reduce heat to simmer, stirring occasionally, until desired consistency is met. ~12-18min

Toppings:

• 1T raw buckwheat groats
• Coconut Almond Butter
• Crofters fruit spread
• walnuts
• 1/2 banana

This mini pie dish was scraped clean.  You’ve gotta try the water/milk only cooking method.  Obsessed!

I’m trying to make time this week, to stock up on some staples, while we’re without a kitchen at the new house.  We move on Saturday, but most likely won’t be in full-working kitchen mode, until the 2nd week [or so] of April.

I was already running low on nut butters, even though I made 2 batches last week!  I did give about half of the nut butter to friends though.  One of my favorite nut butters, also one of the simplest, was my salt kissed cashew butter.

I wanted to make that again, but with a sweet twist.  I’m totally loving the local, raw clover honey I picked up a few weeks ago.  Honey perfection!

Back-lit photo love.

cashews + honey + salt + vanilla

That’s all you need! 

Salted Honey Cashew Butter

• 2c raw cashews
• 3T honey
• 1/4-1/2t fine grain sea salt
• 1/2t vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325*
2. Line a pan with parchment paper.  Trust me, you want to do this.  Do not use wax paper or foil.
3. Spread cashews on the pan and toss with honey.
4. Spread into a single layer on the pan and roast for about 15min.
5. Turn once or twice, while cooking, and remove when golden brown.
6. Let cool no more than 5min.
7. Scrape into your food processor and turn on.
8. Process + scrape as needed until buttery.  ~12-15min
9. Add in salt + vanilla and process again until smooth.

*This took quite a long time to process because of the sticky honey.  If it’s been 15min and it’s still not smooth, you can add 1/2-1T of oil to help smooth it out.  This nut butter was very thick, but creamy + smooth.

*I use an 11c food processor.  If you have a 7c, I would not process more than 1.5c of nuts.

This almost tasted like sugar cookie dough or chocolate chip cookie dough without the chocolate chips. 

Love the sweet + salty contrast with a delicious thick texture.

To stock up even more, I made my all-time favorite nut butter.  I haven’t made this in months! 

This is my Roasted Maple Cinnamon Almond Butter.  I think this has been my “most made” recipe by YOU guys! 

I forgot just how delicious it is!

My next-in-line favorites are as follows:

• chocolate chip cookie dough almond butter
• vanilla bean maple flax almond butter
• pumpkin spiced almond butter

My food processor is my favorite kitchen tool.  Yes, I love it more than my Vita-Mix.  Shhh, don’t tell! 

There wasn’t much to do at the house today, so I stayed home and got a HUGE to-do list 85% done.  I also hit the gym and lifted legs.  I’ve been working out about 4/5 times per week, instead of 5/6.  It’s been really important for me to de-stress by working out.  It’s not always convenient to fit it in the schedule right now, but I feel so much better when I do.  Like I’ve mentioned a few times, my appetite has increased from all the extra movement, so I’ve definitely been eating more.  I haven’t been to the pool in over a week, but will get back to that once we’re moved in.  The rental house is about 50% packed.  I just started the kitchen, which is always the hardest.  I’m so excited that we won’t be packing again for quite some time!  Back to painting tomorrow.  The kitchen drywall + a few other patches are complete, so it’s time to get busy.  Crunch time!!

Recipe page is updated!!

Ashley

breakfast muffins

A frequent question I receive is about what to bake the buckwheat bakes in.  Any small oven-safe dish will do!  I use a mini soup crock that is 4-5” diameter and about 1.5” deep.  If you have ramekin dishes, you can split the batter in half and bake in two of them.  If you have a mini pie dish, that will work too! 

Or, you can just make them in a muffin tin.

1 buckwheat bake fits in 3 regular sized muffin tins.  I showed it a few weeks back with this recipe and here is another version today.   

I doubled the recipe and added a little surprise inside!  Emily’s latest muffin creation gave me this fabulous breakfast idea.  Why not stuff the buckwheat bakes with coconut almond butter + jelly??

I filled the muffin liners halfway, and then added 1t nut butter + jelly.

I love Crofters fruit spreads!!  They have a huge variety of flavors and I love that some have no added sugar, but are fruit-juice sweetened. 

I wonder what would have happened if I just baked them with this on top?  Looks pretty good raw, but the batter doesn’t actually taste very good at all.

All covered up with a surprise inside!

I made these in the morning, just like the buckwheat bakes.  It takes no longer to make a double recipe or plop them into a muffin tin and you’ll have breakfast made for the next day too!

All baked up!

I kept the basic buckwheat bake recipe pretty much the same, but one thing I did add was 1T unrefined coconut oil.  Typically you put oil in muffin recipes, so I just wanted to experiment and see what happened. 

There was no coconut flavor, but I think it helped keep them even more soft + moist.

3 muffins for breakfast?  Sure thing!

The nut butter is hiding but it was definitely detectable!

Do you think I used a light bounce in this photo?

What about this one?

You could definitely make this into 2 large buckwheat bakes, or cut it in half and make 1 buckwheat bake or 3 muffins. 

Stuffed Buckwheat Muffins [serves 2]

• 1/2c buckwheat flour [ground in a blender from raw buckwheat groats]
• 2T raw buckwheat groats
• 2T chia seeds
• 2T ground flax meal + 5T warm water
• 2t cinnamon
• 1 banana
• 1T vanilla extract
• 1T unrefined coconut oil, melted
• 1T maple syrup
• 1/3c unsweetened almond milk 
• 2T nut butter
• 2T jelly

1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. Line 6 muffin tins + lightly grease with cooking spray.  Or, if you don’t have liners just great the pan well.
3. In a small bowl whisk flax + water together and set aside for 5min.
4. In a bowl, mash banana until wet.
5. Mix in almond milk, melted coconut oil, maple syrup, cinnamon and vanilla.
6. Mix in buckwheat flour, buckwheat groats + chia seeds, until just combined.
7. Mix in flax/water mixture, until just combined.
8. Drop a spoonful into each cup.
9. Top each muffin with 1t nut butter + 1t jelly.  Try to keep them right in the center.
10. Add a spoonful of batter on top, and spread so the bottom and top layers of batter meet.  If you don’t do this, the muffin might split in half after baking.
11. Bake for 28-30min, until set.

I rode to the new house early this morning and took my buckwheat muffins to-go style!  I couldn’t wait to dig in once I hopped off my bike.  I didn’t want to ride with the big camera on my back, so please excuse my 4.5yr old point-n-shoot photos. :)

Time to start putting cabinets together!!

IKEA instructions make me feel dumb.  I mean it’s pretty easy, but they definitely could add a few steps or a few more detailed photos!  I’ve messed up a few times already.

Our sink base cabinet…can’t you tell??? ;)

Windows arrived today.  Super exciting!!  We only have 2 windows out of 14 that actually open right now, so these will be quite the improvement!

The cabinet to the right is a 15” base cabinet with 3 drawers. 

We actually got quite a bit of packing done tonight and will continue Friday night as well.  Saturday + Sunday will be consumed at the new house, getting as much done as possible.  This is our last weekend before moving in!  I can’t even believe how fast the time has passed.  Things are definitely taking a bit longer than we anticipated, but this is obviously, 100% typical.  We’re over the fact that the kitchen tile won’t be down and there really won’t be much of a kitchen at all for a good week once we move in.  I’ll have to get creative, grilling or using our camp stove!  

Back at it bright + early! 

Happy Friday!!

Ashley