Perfect Sunday Dinner

Today for dinner I made Tortilla de Tapas (recipe from Rouxbe.com), which is sort of like an omelet, but mostly potatoes. I served it with a spinach salad. I added pomegranate berries, a small thing of peaches with juice, and roasted pecans. It was a hit! We also had some leftover pumpkin and cream cheese frosting so I made my first pumpkin roll. We hid it from the kids!

How to cook oatmeal

Days that I am feeling way ambitious I pull out the oat groats and Marga Mill (pictured above) and roll my own. Days I am in a hurry, I use quick oats. Supposedly it is more nutritious to mill your own because once the oat groats are broken open, the nutrient content goes down just like wheat flour. You can read about it rolling your own oats and purchase a Marga Mill here.

1 3/4 cup water

dash of salt

1 cup oatmeal

Boil water and salt. Add oats and bring to boil. Once it is boiling, turn heat to low, put a lid on it and set your timer for 5 minutes. It is done when the water is absorbed and it is chewy.

P.S. Has anybody had success soaking their oatmeal for 24 hours? I tried with kefir and it tasted like.. well, let's just say we threw it away! I read about it here.

Naturally Sweetened Oatmeal (well, with raisins :)

I'm not a huge fan of oatmeal without some sort of sweetener, but I am trying to find alternates to concentrated sweeteners. Here's what a I came up with. First bite is a far cry from sweet, BUT once you bite into a raisin the rest is delicious!

1 cup cooked oatmeal (click here for directions)

1/4 cup original almond milk

1/4 cup raisins (any dried fruit would be good)

1 teaspoon flax seed

4 or 5 chopped pecans ( I just crack 'em with my fingers right then)

cinnamon

nutmeg

cardamom if you like it

Kefir blender pancakes

1 cup sprouted, dehydrated wheat kernels
1 cup kefir (could use buttermilk if you do dairy)
1/4 cup water
2 eggs
1/4 cup sunflower oil (preferably coconut oil.. unless your son is allergic to coconut!)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum free)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar (could use sucanat)

Mix kefir with water. You should have 1 1/4 cups total. Mix 1 cup of kefir/water mixture with wheat kernels in blender until you can see that the wheat is ground down. Add the rest of the kefir/water mixture, and all other ingredients on high for one minute. Pour onto griddle and flip just before you see the bubbles popping.

Top with whatever, but we love pumpkin maple butter spread from Costco and if they stop making it we might die!

Eat so many pancakes that you make yourself sick but you don't care because they are the best freakin' pancakes you've ever had.