Homemade Cereal

MMMM Cereal. The ultimate frenemy. Its packed with protein and fiber, yet the fat content and sugar content on a lot of cereal AND in a lot of granola is out of control (as my pant size can attest, I really haven't been giving much of a shit about fat content these days)... The thing I love most about this is its free of all the crazy shit they put into commercial cereal and of course.. its DELICIOUS and your house will smell like it should belong in Better Homes and Gardens.

We have been on a homemade yogurt kick in our house this week and this on top of it is just Nirvana.. This recipe makes a TON of Granola cereal. So while initially if you dont have wheatgerm, etc in your house it may be a little pricey, it all evens out when you consider its making you an enormous amount of granola.

We store this in super cute airtight containers (because face it everything is better when its stored in cute containers) to add a little happyness in my grumpy mornings..This recipe is totally interchangeable.. it comes out crunchy and is great with some milk like regular cereal.

So here it is, enjoy!
Ingredients

7 cups quick cooking oats
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped dates (I use raisins)
1 cup chopped pecans (I use almonds)
1 cup flaked coconut (Yuck. I hate coconut but this was in the original recipe but I just left it out and put in some flax)

Directions

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C).
In a large bowl, mix oats, wheat germ, and wheat bran.
In a medium bowl, blend brown sugar, vegetable oil, honey, and water. Mix in vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Stir the brown sugar mixture into the oat mixture until evenly moist, and transfer to a large, shallow baking dish.
Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, until lightly brown. Mix dates, pecans, and coconut into the dish, and continue baking about 15 minutes. Allow to cool, and store in airtight containers.

The Best Brownies You Have Ever Had (aka salted fudge brownies)

Dudes. First of all, I apologize for the crappy picture but who has time to get artsy fartsy when you have this chunk of chocolate nirvana sitting infront of you. It was calling me.. JESSSICAAAAAAAAAAAA.. so I thought of you first and snapped a pic with my iphone and quickly inhaled this beauty. Now, I have made a LOT of brownies in my lifetime. Infact, brownies are sort of my "thing" in terms of baking. My daughter and I love nothing more than a tray of brownies and a good movie. Srsly. Im no joke.

But this recipe right here.. THIS right here.. from Food and Wine, was knock your ass out of your seat delicious amazing good. Infact when I made these, my daughter took a bite and said to me "I love you just a little more now". No joke. Thats totally what she said.

Again, I found this through that betch over there at eat live run who Im sure has been sent by either one of the girls who tortured me in High School, my mother or my ex to make me fat. And its working. She got it from Tasty Kitchen who got it from Katie Krader at Food and Wine. Whatever. All of us agree, that these are like little bars of crack and I have no control. If I had any more time, these would be made every night.

To prove how out of control we are in my house, we didnt even get to take a picture, however, Im making another batch possibly tonight and will post a pic of those. There is also a pic at the food and wine site

I am going to give you the food and wine original recipe but my notes are in parenthesis. I found that this needed longer to cook than indicated on the recipe and a few others found this to be true as well. I cooked for 50 minutes and nothing was burned. Also be prepared for a thicker batter. Not thin watery pourable batter.
I also used a crazy good cocoa powder from Cocoa Supply since the owner of that company is one of my besties I got a sweet deal on some GREAT cocoa powder.

So here it is, Salted Fudge Brownies (with my recipe modifications)

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate,
finely chopped 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt


Preheat the oven to 350°.

Line a 9-inch square metal cake pan with foil, draping the foil over the edges. Lightly butter the foil (I hate messing with that madness so I used pam).

In a large saucepan, melt the butter with the unsweetened chocolate over very low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat. Whisking them in one at a time until thoroughly incorporated, add the cocoa, sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Sprinkle the salt evenly over the batter. Using a butter knife, swirl the salt into the batter. (Note: the batter is pretty thick. It takes a little muscle work to stir this up. Its more like folding the salt into the batter than stirring)

Bake the fudge brownies in the center of the oven for about 35 minutes (Seriously I needed 50 minutes), until the edge is set but the center is still a bit soft and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out coated with a little of the batter.

Let the brownies cool at room temperature in the pan for 1 hour, then refrigerate [NO EATING RIGHT AWAY! THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS!] just until they are firm, about 1 hour.

Lift the brownies from the pan and peel off the foil. Cut the brownies into 16 squares. Serve at room temperature.

Make Ahead The salted fudge brownies can be refrigerated for up to 3 days, and frozen for up to 1 month.

Fo Yo Tummy!

So there is nothing I love more than weeknight food stuff that doesn't LOOK like weeknight food stuff. Case in point, homemade yogurt. The reason why homemade yogurt is perf for the week is because you can start the process before bed, go to sleep, wake up and VOILA Yogurt! Stick it in the fridge before you go to work and nosh on your homemade creamy treat when you get home. I swear its like the grownup version of the tooth fairy coming to visit.

So recently I have been on a shitload of antibiotics. I apparently got Ecoli poisoning and didn't realize it and it went to my digestive tract and moved to my kidneys. No bueno. Not fun. Its been since June that we have been trying to treat it and since June I've been on many rounds of antibiotics that upset my already sensitive tummy. It took us months to diagnose and the whole time I was taking the wrong antibiotics. Needless to say my already sensitive stomach is not happy and I keep living in fear of the yeasterbunny coming to make an appearance. So with my current meds, which will be the last round before I have to get an IV of antibiotics, I am able to tolerate dairy. So what could be better than homemade creamy yogurt with fresh fruit and honey and tons of probiotics?

The very overly complicated explanation of this is making yogurt is essentially growing bacteria. You are heating the milk, then taking the temp down to 100. At 100 it is a good warm temperature for the cultures in your starter to grow and multiply. Your aim is to hold a 100 degree temp for at least 7 hours. This is going allow for the bacteria and lactic acid to grow.

This is the same process for making cheese. Infact, you could turn this very recipe into cheese by straining it for 5 hours over a cheese cloth. You will get a yummy cream cheese by doing this.

For those all freaked out over this, calm the fuck down. Go get a pot, get a thermometer and cup of milk and a container of yogurt and lets get started.

What you need
4 cups of milk
3 tbs plain yogurt (any brand will do as long as it has active cultures- you can use your own next time)
Thermometer
Container

Put a kettle of water on the stove. When its done boiling pour it into the container you will be storing your yogurt in to kill and germs. Let it sit there while you do the following.

Put your milk on a pot on the stove. Heat it to approximately 180. You want almost boiling but not yet boiling. So some people get all crazy about what temperature to heat their milk but I can safely say because I make soap I have a good gage as to what approx 180 is. Its almost boiling but not quite.

Once your milk hits 180, turn off the stove.

Fill your sink with cold water about 1/4 way full. Stick your pot in that. You are trying to now cool down your milk to about 100 which to me is slightly warmer than room temp this time of year. Once your milk has hit around 100 degrees, add three tbs of yogurt and stir to dissolve. Once dissolved cover your container, wrap in a towel and leave in the oven for 8 hours with the light on. The longer you leave the yogurt incubating the more tart it will be some people like tart yogurt and leave it for 12 hours. Its totally a personal choice.

Once your incubation time us up, remove the yogurt. You will find that the milk is thick and custardy. There may be some liquid on top. This is whey and its jam packed with vitamins. You can either strain out the whey with a cheesecloth (creating a thicker Greek yogurt) or you can stir it in for more vitamins and good stuff. I usually stir it in. Place your container in the back of the fridge for 3 hours to get the good probiotics growing.

After a few hours, eat and enjoy.

It has been argued that you don't NEED to heat your milk of your using pasteurized milk, but I'm a bit of a germaphobe and I think this also lends to the thickness of the yogurt.

Note: Your yogurt is not sweetened. It is suggested you sweeten with honey or vanilla or fruit after you make the yogurt. Not before.

Homemade yogurt is a different consistency than store bought yogurt which is often loaded with gelatin or pectin to thicken. It is a creamier fresher taste.

4 cups of milk = 4 cups of yogurt.

And yes that is my new vintage pyrex casserole dish. Isnt it KEYUUUUTE?!?