Resolution-friendly recipes!

For the many of us who have resolved to treat our bodies a little better this year, here are some healthy recipes from the past year. (I can’t believe this blog is already almost a year old!)

More new recipes to come, promise!

I’m making these Chewy, Chunky (& Lowfat!) Oatmeal Bars for us to snack on as we walk around Disney World this weekend. They’re so hearty & delicious (we all love them), it’s hard to believe they’re so low in fat!

Start the day off right with yummy Oatmeal Raisin Pancakes. You just might want to skip the butter syrup.

Now, a couple vegetarian dinners: Pasta with Arugula & Tomatoes…

…& Skinny Veggie Ziti.

If your Munchkins are joining you in your resolution, help them get some more veggies with some Veggie Latkes. (I can’t believe how young The Munchkin looks in this picture!)

Then finish it off right with the almost entirely nonfat Skinny Banana Bread for dessert!

Best of luck keeping your resolutions — health & otherwise — this year!

Oatmeal-Raisin Pancakes.

Our first Valentine’s Day as new parents was a family occasion: we went to breakfast at the highly-touted Uptown Cafe in Bloomington. There I tried the special of the day, oatmeal-raisin pancakes. They were sublime… probably the best pancakes I’d ever had.

So tonight, for “brinner” (breakfast for dinner — any other Scrubs fans out there?), I decided to make my own. I found an oatmeal pancakes recipe over at Bees Knees Recipes as my jumping-off point. The result? Well, let’s just say that if they were this tasty even with an uneven-heating electric range & my atrocious pancake-flipping skills (if you could even call them that), they’ve gotta be great!

• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 2 cups skim milk
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup raisins (or to taste)

1. In a large bowl, combine oats & milk & let stand 5 minutes. (I let it stand while I got my frittata ready to go in the oven.)
2. In a smaller bowl, combine dry ingredients.
3. Add vanilla, eggs, & applesauce to oat mixture & mix well. Then blend in flour mixture. Finally, stir in raisins.
4. Use a 1/4-cup measuring cup to ladle batter for each pancake onto your nonstick griddle. You’ll likely need to stir the batter up again with each batch to keep the raisins from settling at the bottom.
5. Serve with delicious butter syrup (below). For some reason, regular old plain syrup doesn’t cut it anymore for us!

Butter syrup:

Just put a 2:1 ratio of syrup (doesn’t need to be pure — we use Log Cabin) to butter in a Pyrex measuring cup & melt in the microwave. Swirl, pour over pancakes, & enjoy!

Birthday French Toast!

Today is My Husband The Wonderful’s birthday! Here he is on a daddy-daughter date at the American Museum of Natural History (the “die-sawer bones moosem”) with The Munchkin a couple weeks ago, getting chewed on by a T-Rex:

He’s such a wonderful husband, father, & best friend that I wanted to do something extra special for him this morning, so I started looking up Creme Brulee French Toast recipes in my Google Reader. I came across a recipe on my friend Mandy’s blog that looked delicious! Plus, I even had the cookbook it came from!

That cookbook is The Essential Mormon Cookbook, & I’ve found that pretty much every recipe in there is designed to feed the hungry masses, so I always halve the recipes & end up with plenty left over. But I’m giving you the full recipe in case you’re planning to feed your teenage son’s entire lacrosse team or something.

 Overnight Creme Brulee French Toast

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. corn syrup
• 1 loaf Texas toast or your favorite bakery bread, sliced at least an inch thick (My Husband The Birthday Boy chose cinnamon-raisin bread from our local bakery that I sliced about an inch-&-a-half thick, & it was AMAZING — it tasted a lot like Kneaders French toast!)
• 5 eggs (when I halved it, I used 3)
• 1 1/2 cups half & half
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 recipe Syrup Butter (see below)

1. Melt butter, sugar, & corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat until smooth, stirring occasionally. (I let it boil a little to make it extra caramel-y!)
2. Pour onto a large, greased jelly roll pan (for halved recipes, a 9×13 baking dish is fine) & spread to coat the bottom.
3. Place 12 slices (or whatever fits) of your bread in the pan in a single layer. Squeezing to fit is okay.
4. Whisk together eggs, half & half, salt, & vanilla until well blended.
5. Spoon or pour mixture over each slice of bread, covering evenly.
6. Cover with plastic wrap & refrigerate overnight. (Mandy served this for “brinner” & said 4-5 hours of fridge time worked great.)
7. Bake uncovered at 350 for 30 minutes or until golden on top.
8. Remove from the oven & immediately flip the slices to allow some of the sugary, caramel-y deliciousness to get on both sides. It also keeps them from sticking to the pan, which is a nice perk.
9. Serve with Syrup Butter (below).

Syrup Butter

Melt together 1 part butter & 2 parts maple syrup (it doesn’t need to be pure; regular old Log Cabin works great too) in a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave. Swirl in the cup & pour over French toast. Yum!

Happy birthday, My Husband The Greatest! I love you!

Get Your Craft On Tuesdays

A Father’s Day breakfast your kids will WANT to help you make.

Sometimes I think Father’s Day would be more appropriately named Husband’s Day. I know you know what I’m talking about. I don’t see many 9-year-olds perusing craft blogs or back issues of Martha Stewart Living looking for cute presents to make for Dad, do you? Mom does it all.

Well, fortunately for you, I’ve got a delicious breakfast you can make for Dad that your kids will beg to help you with. Why? Because it’s messy. Unbelievably messy, if you’re doing it right (or wrong, I guess, depending on your point of view). They’ll get to run their fingers through cinnamon-sugar & sprinkle it over gooey, butter-dredged muffins. Have the Dustbuster ready, ladies!

This recipe comes from ranch wife-turned-blogger-turned role model Ree Drummond’s cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks! She calls them French Breakfast Puffs, but My Husband The Patriot prefers the term… (& they are for him, after all, so we’ll go with it…)

Freedom Puffs

• 3 cups flour
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. (plus a pinch — this is me saying this, not Ree) nutmeg
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup shortening
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 2 sticks butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat your oven to 350 & lightly grease a muffin tin. (Ree says this makes 12 muffins, but I always end up with at least 16, even overfilling the muffin tin slightly.)
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, & nutmeg.
3. In your mixer bowl, cream together sugar & shortening. Add eggs; mix.
4. With the mixer on low, add flour mixture & milk, alternating 1/3 of the flour, 1/3 of the milk, 1/3 of the flour, 1/3 of the milk, etc.
5. Fill muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden & a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Melt butter in a large shallow bowl or glass baking dish in your microwave (this takes a minute or so).
7. Combine cinnamon & sugar in another large shallow bowl.
8. Dip warm muffins one at a time in the butter, coating thoroughly, then let your kids roll them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture to coat. The Munchkin kept calling it “sand.” Maybe my bowl should’ve been the size of a sandbox in order to contain it all…
9. Wake up Dad & enjoy these babies warm! Maybe with a topper or flag like this free printable one from Amy Locurto. Or wrap in Saran Wrap, stick in a Ziploc freezer bag, & freeze for later. As Ree says, “They’re in the ‘reheats beautifully’ section of my life.” Just zap one in the microwave, wrapped loosely in a paper towel, for 45 seconds or so!

What are you (& hopefully your kids!) making for Dad this Father’s Day?

Chewy, Chunky Oatmeal Breakfast Bars.

First, I want to take a moment to give a Web shout-out to all of my dear friends (& readers!) in the Midwest & South. A possible tornado hit Bloomington, Indiana, where we spent three amazing years, & where The Munchkin was born. Reading my friends’ Facebook updates last night about tornado sirens, thunder, & hunkering down in the bathroom into the wee hours turned my stomach in knots. I’m just so grateful to know now that all of my friends are unharmed! I know that right now there are so many who aren’t so fortunate.

One of my fond memories of our time in Bloomington was an unlikely visiting teacher named Sue. (The LDS Church gives members the opportunity & responsibility to care for & serve one another by assigning them certain people to visit once a month & generally look out for.) I had never had a visiting teacher so different from me: I was a new mom; she was older & had no children. At first I had misgivings — how could we have anything in common to talk about? — but she served me so well at such a stressful time of my life that I knew it was meant to be.

One of those ways she served me was by bringing me these breakfast bars so I’d have a nutritious snack that was easy to munch on. They’re low in fat, high in protein & fiber, & seriously addictive!

(By the way, yes, I do recognize the fact that this makes 4 oatmeal recipes in a row here on Make Myself at Home. I seem to be on a bit of a kick lately. & I’m not the least bit sorry. Neither is My Husband The Volunteer Taste-Tester. Or The Munchkin, apparently…)

Sue’s Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 6 oz. fat-free vanilla yogurt (I used Yoplait Light Very Vanilla)
• 2 egg whites
• 2 Tbsp. skim milk
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil or applesauce (I used oil this time, only because I didn’t want to open a whole new applesauce container)
• 1/2 to 1 tsp. vanilla (I just used 1/2 since I used Very Vanilla yogurt)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour (or use just 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 cups oats
• 1/2 cup raisins &/or Craisins
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (or use 1 cup of all raisins/Craisins… but where’s the fun in that?)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9×13 pan.
2. In a large bowl combine sugars & wet ingredients.
3. In another bowl combine flours, baking soda, salt, & cinnamon.
4. Add flour mixture to wet mixture; stir well.
5. Stir in oats, fruit, chips, & nuts.
6. Spread dough into bottom of prepared pan.
7. Bake 22-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
8. Cool before cutting & enjoying.

Do you have any dishes that bring back fond memories of old friends or places you lived?

The best banana muffins. Ever.

I never have just the right number of bananas. It seems like if I buy a bunch, they’re brown in 3 days, but if I only get like 3, they’re gone the next day. It irritates me to no end. (I know, how boring does my life have to be for brown bananas to send me into a hissyfit?)

So anyway, I had six — count ‘em, six — brown bananas & was looking around blogland for something new to do with them. (How did we ever cook before the Internet, seriously?) That’s when I saw The Best Banana Muffins EVER (her title, now being adopted by me because it’s true — like how the state of Utah was allowed to keep “The Best Snow on Earth” on its license plates despite a lawsuit from Barnum & Bailey) featured on These Chicks Cooked.

Now, I’m generally not the type to walk into a bakery with cases full of Napoleons, eclairs, & other such pastries & say, “Hey, that banana muffin looks like the tastiest thing in here!” I’m also not the type to say, “Hey, I think I’ll whip up some banana muffins” if there are cookies or brownies to be had. But when I pulled those muffins out & bit into one (or two… or several…), all I could say was “Wow.” Husband bit into one when he got home. “Wow.” Definitely The Best Banana Muffins EVER.

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups flour (next time I’ll try half all-purpose, half whole-wheat to see what happens)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 3 bananas, mashed

1. Preheat oven to 350. Place paper baking cups in a muffin tin. (They’re sticky enough I would definitely not skip this.)
2. Combine dry ingredients.
3. Mix in wet ingredients until well blended.
4. Spoon into muffin cups; bake 25-30 minutes.

The next morning, The Munchkin was playing quietly in her room, so I took the opportunity to photograph my handiwork in the one spot in the apartment with any direct sunlight (& we only get it for a few hours, so it’s a precious commodity). I took the picture above, then reset a little & saw this through my viewfinder:

You can’t make this up.

She didn’t say “Wow,” probably because that’s not in her few-dozen-word vocabulary yet, but she ate like 3, so in my book that counts. Definitely The Best Banana Muffins EVER… Or at least Banana Muffins Worth Thieving.

Now, what do I do with those other 3 bananas?

Dr. Seuss breakfast.

This Wednesday is Dr. Seuss’ birthday! Did you know that? It’s also Read Across America Day. “On March 2, the National Education Association calls for every child to be reading in the company of a caring adult” (their website). This week I hope to bring you a few ways to get your kids excited about reading.

How about we start with the most important meal of the day?

Let’s have some Green Eggs & Ham (& cheese & sauteed onions) omelettes with some Cat in the Hat Pancakes!

We just made our usual weekend breakfast (or “brinner,” or in this case, “brunch”) the same way as always, except I added 4 drops of green food coloring to our 2-egg omelettes (The Munchkin’s 1-egg omelette got 3 drops), & my husband, the Pancake Master, made the white pancakes (including a slightly larger “brim”) & then added “lots” of red food coloring to the pancake batter for the last couple batches. Easy & fun!

The Munchkin was so excited to pull the books out for me to photograph. I didn’t take as much time as usual to set up the shot because we were hungry & the BYU-SDSU game was starting. Priorities, people!

BYU games aside, though, we do make time for reading every day. The Munchkin loves her books, & we love reliving some of the stories we grew up with (like those Dr. Seuss books — I had forgotten exactly how little of One Fish Two Fish really was about fish), as well as enjoying new ones (my parents brought Who’s in the Loo? back from London a couple years ago – it’s a riot!). It’s a great learning, cuddling, & bonding experience for all of us.

What’s your favorite thing about reading with your kids?

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Valentine’s breakfast.

Almost no effort, & so cute! (Yes, I know I should’ve gone with the pink plate, but a certain small human was getting hungry.)

Heart-shaped Egg in a Hole

1. Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat.
2. Use a cookie cutter to cut a heart shape out of the middle of a piece of whole-grain bread.
3. Melt about a teaspoon of butter in your pan, distributing it evenly.
4. Place the piece of bread into the pan & fill the hole with egg. I scrambled my egg in a small bowl first because runny yolks creep me out, & since I was using regular sandwich bread I only used half of the egg in each slice. But you could use Texas Toast & a sunny-side-up egg if it doesn’t give you panic attacks.
5. After a minute or two, when the egg is set on the bottom, carefully flip your toast. Place the heart shape you cut out in the pan too so it can toast as well.
6. Enjoy a balanced Valentine’s breakfast with a glass of milk & some of I am Mommy’s ingeniously festive heart-shaped strawberries! Just make sure you use the pink plate.

How to make a frittata.

I’ve been mystified by the frittata ever since seeing this frittata pan set in a Williams-Sonoma catalog. Something so special it needs its own pan? Granted, Williams-Sonoma seems to think everything requires a special pan, & my specialized egg pan fetish began & ended with my incredible All-Clad omlette pan, but still, this mystical frittata intrigued me.

Then my mom gave me the Cooking for Baby cookbook (fabulous cookbook by the way — so much more than baby food in here), & there was a frittata recipe inside! Guess what? It didn’t even require a special pan set!

Why make a frittata? Other than the culinary street cred it’ll give you, it’s actually quite easy, & the oven time makes it so that you don’t have to be flipping pancakes & making sure eggs don’t burn at the same time. Look at me looking out for you. Also, it keeps well in the fridge. The Munchkin likes eating it at room temp, so it makes for a protein-packed snack on our city jaunts: just pull out a wedge, nuke it for several seconds so it’s not cold anymore, stick it in a baggie, & pack it in the diaper bag.

Just look at that. The herbs & cheese float to the top, & the meat (& veggies, if you’re using them) stay on the bottom. Layers & layers of incredible edible egg goodness.

Here’s what you need. The recipe leaves lots of room for improvisation based on what you have on hand & what your kid likes to eat. There are suggestions below.

• 6 large eggs
• fresh herb of choice, 1 tsp. minced (or heaping 1/2 tsp. dried herb of choice)
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. pepper
• 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup finely diced onion
• veggies &/or meat of choice, 3/4 cup diced or grated, precooked or quick-cooking
• cheese of choice, 1/3 cup crumbled or grated

Ingredient suggestions (keep in mind these are Williams-Sonoma suggestions; take them with a grain of salt & use what you’ve got):
Cooked diced ham & potatoes, grated Gruyere cheese, & minced fresh rosemary (I use chopped deli ham, shredded Colby/Jack, & dried rosemary).
Grated or finely diced uncooked veggies of choice (zucchini, red bell pepper, tomatoes), crumbled goat cheese, & fresh basil or thyme. Or use cooked diced veggies.
Chopped black Nicoise olives & sun-dried tomatoes, crumbled feta cheese, & fresh dill.

1. Preheat oven to 350. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, herb, salt, pepper, & 1 Tbsp. water.

2. In a large ovenpoof frying pan over medium heat, melt butter. Add onion & saute until soft & translucent, about 3 minutes. Add veggies & meat, if using, & saute 2 minutes to warm through. Shake pan to spread veggies &/or meat evenly in pan.

3. Remove pan from heat & pour in egg mixture. Sprinkle cheese over top.

4. Bake until center is set & cooked, & edges are browned & pulling away from pan sides, 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven & let stand for 5 minutes. Slide (or if you’re feeling really daring, flip) onto a plate; cut into wedges or squares with a pizza cutter.

That’s it! Really!