Slow Cooker Fall Morning Pumpkin Oatmeal

I recently bought a large bag of organic locally grown rolled oats.  We are trying to spend more of our food dollars locally to support farmers as well as reducing the transportation emissions associated with our food.  Eating locally is not always easy in Canada, unless you live in more southern regions.  Where we live, I am grateful for any and all locally grown foods that I can access.  So although I am accustomed to using quick cooking oats in the kitchen, I decided it was worth it to make these oats work for us.

I know that I could have processed the oats in the food processor for a few seconds to make them "quicker cooking", but I decided to branch out and try out some new ideas.  The first day that I cooked the rolled oats, I was pretty annoyed at how long they took to cook.  Having cooked steel cut oats in the slow cooker before, I thought I would give it a try with my new bag of oats.  Also, since it is fall, I had to put a pumpkin-y twist on my breakfast oatmeal.

Fall Morning Pumpkin Oatmeal

2 large apples, peeled and sliced (about 2 cups)

2 cups pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon

1/4 cup maple syrup (or brown sugar, brown rice syrup, etc.)

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups rolled oats

2 1/2 cups water

Beginning with the apples, layer the first 6 ingredients in the slow cooker.  Pour water over the ingredients.  Do not stir.  Cook on low overnight for 8 to 9 hours.  Serves 6.  Breakfast will be waiting for you when you wake up!

I used my smaller sized slow cooker, and so the ingredients filled it about 3/4 full.  If using a large slow cooker, you may need to reduce cooking times to prevent the edges from becoming too dark or crispy.  Keep leftovers in the refrigerator and microwave before eating.  I found this better the second day!

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Weekday Soup

For a few years, we rarely ate soup at our house.  Our oldest daughter had been newly diagnosed with Celiac Disease and we were transitioning to a gluten free diet in our home.  All of the soups that we were used to buying contained gluten, and so they were out of the picture.  I was slowly moving towards making more and more of our foods from scratch, but soup was not one of them.  As a mother who worked full time and had to cook every night to make sure that our meals were completely gluten free, I was not prepared to spend my weekends cooking soup.  I mean, that would take forever.  Right?

Maybe not.  At first I began to cook big batches of soup on weekends and freeze them in meal sized portions to take out and thaw for weekday meals.  I still do this for more time consuming soups such as pea soup and the very labour intensive borscht that I make twice a year.  However, I now also make soup from scratch on a weekday after work.  From start to finish, it's ready in an hour.  Of that hour, most of the time is spent simmering on the stove while we do homework, tidy up or just relax.  In the fall and winter months, I make this soup about once a week.  It is fast and versatile - perfect for using up whatever veggies you have in the pantry or refrigerator.

Weekday Soup

1 cup diced onion

1 cup diced celery

2 tablespoons olive oil (or oil of your choice)

3 cloves minced garlic

2 cups diced carrot

6 cups stock or broth (chicken, veggie, beef, whatever you have around)

1 large can tomato sauce (the ones I use are about 2 and 1/2 cups)

1 cup frozen peas

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Other add ins: 1 cup corn kernels, 1 or 2 cups shredded cabbage, 1 cup diced zucchini, 1 cup baby spinach leaves, etc.

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat.  Add in celery, onions and carrots.  Stir every minute or so.  Once the onions are cooked, add in garlic.  Cook for one minute.  Add in broth, tomato sauce, oregano and thyme.  Cover.  Reduce heat to low and allow to simmer for 20 minutes or until carrots are almost cooked.  Add frozen peas and any other add ins you like.  Bring to a simmer again.  Allow to cook for five to ten minutes or until the peas and add ins are cooked to your liking.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

I have also thrown everything in the slow cooker and allowed it to cook for ten hours on low while I was at work, and it turned out very well.  Something else we do is throw in a pound of lean ground beef with the onions, celery and carrots.  Make sure it is cooked through before adding the next ingredients.

At our house, we always eat these with grilled cheese on rye bread for the adults or gluten free bread for our older daughter.  A great and simple dinner on a chilly fall evening!

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A Plethora of Bibs

The baby's room, which has been turned into my temporary sewing room, has exploded with bibs.  

Our little one is still sleeping in her crib in our bedroom, taking up the space where my sewing table used to be.  I keep saying that I will move her into her own room "next week".  Next week always seems to come and go, and as a result, my sewing table has been set up where her crib should be.  In all seriousness, I will move her within the next month- just as soon as I finish up a few more projects and complete her room.

The bib sewing arose out of necessity.  And cheapness on my part.  Nearing the six month point, the baby is drooling everywhere.  She is constantly soaked.  For some reason we have almost no hand me down bibs from our older daughter, and I was getting pretty tired of changing the baby's outfit five times a day.  While shopping a few weeks ago, I almost bought a huge pack of bibs.  Holding them in my hand, I thought, "I can make these.  For free."  I knew there was tons of cotton, flannel and nylon ripstop in my fabric stash.  I knew I had both velcro and metal snaps.  I also knew I had thread in pretty much every colour under the rainbow.  Free bibs it was.

The hard part was getting around to it.  I dug out a pattern I had from when our older daughter was a baby and cut out many, many bibs in both cotton and flannel.  Then the cut fabric sat on the coffee table for over a week.  Naptime is a precious time, and the bibs didn't make the cut for a while.

I decided not to use the ripstop as a semi-waterproof backing since the stuff I had in my stash was all in masculine colours.  These were to be girly bibs.  Instead, I used three layers to make each bib.  If I used cotton to make the bib, I made sure to include a layer of thicker flannel between the layers to make the bib more absorbent.  The flannel bibs are extra absorbent with three layers of flannel.  Good for those extra goobery days.

I was going to write a tutorial on making bibs.  Then I thought, there are so many out there and I didn't want to be too redundant.  Instead I decided to link to my favourite patterns and tutorial. 

• A pattern for a small sized bib from Chickpea Sewing Studio  

• My favourite pattern from Juicy Bits

• A tutorial from Juicy Bits - it begins about halfway down the page

Once you get used to making these, you can add designs to the front with applique, ribbons, ric rac, etc.  For now, I just made a pile of plain bibs to save me from piles of baby laundry.  They were quick and easy and just the right price.

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Experimenting with Almond Milk

I love almond milk.  The love affair began when my youngest daughter was unable to tolerate dairy for a year or so while her body repaired itself after a diagnosis of Celiac Disease.  Of all of the non-dairy milks we tried, unsweetened vanilla almond milk was by far our favourite.  She can tolerate dairy now, but for the most part we haven't gone back.  We generally avoid dairy in our home - I just don't think it's all that great for us.  But almond milk...that's a different story.

Whenever it went on sale, I would stock up on my favourite brand.  I still have at least five cartons in the pantry.  Then I started hearing about this thing called carrageenan.  I've heard whisperings about it for years, and mostly didn't listen.  But now more and more people are questioning the safety of this food ingredient found in many non-dairy milks to help the texture become closer to that of cow's milk.  As a precaution, I do my best to avoid products with carrageenan as best I can.

In my corner of the country, none of the brands of almond milk in stores are without carrageenan.  I have still been drinking up my stash of almond milk cartons, but a little more slowly.  And I've been keeping this recipe in the back of my mind for a rainy day.  I decided to take the plunge yesterday after buying a huge bag of raw almonds at the bulk food store.

I have to say, it was so much easier than I had anticipated!  I did not have a nut milk bag, but I used a jelly bag that I had bought to make crabapple jelly last summer and it worked perfectly.  The hardest part of making my own almond milk was to remember to soak the almonds overnight.  I forgot three days in a row.  I remembered once while laying in bed and was just too lazy to get up, so it got pushed to the next day.  Again.  Once the almonds were soaked, the rest of the recipe literally took five minutes.  I used pure vanilla extract, and this was my result:

You can see all of the delicious flecks of cinnamon slowly settling to the bottom of the jar.  This stuff is good.  Really good.  But - I don't really know that I'll make it often.  Here's why:  I don't eat cereal often, and I don't drink my almond milk on it's own.  I consume most of my almond milk in coffee.  About 1/3 of a cup per mug of coffee.  When I tried to use my homemade version in my coffee, it separated.  It looked gross.  I could stir it back together, but within 20 seconds it was separating again.  Not fun.  Maybe that's what the carrageenan does?  Next time I'm on a cereal or smoothie kick I will make this, but not for everyday coffee consumption.

If you drink your almond milk by the glass, in cereal or a smoothie, I definitely recommend this recipe.  It is so simple and fast.  As for me, I'm still on the hunt for something to add to my coffee.