Cinnamon Spiked Chickpea Flour Breakfast Bars

This recipe is the result of a friend looking out for me. My Housemate and good friend Jenna, knew I was on the hunt for a delicious use for my chickpea flour. While I have had one success, it has been mostly failures. On Sunday, she sent me a link to a recipe on the Edible Perspective. It was for a gluten-free "bread." I knew immediately I wanted to make it and made it later on that day.

I made minor tweaks mostly due to what I had on hand. The original recipe was gluten-free, but with my wheat bran addition these are no longer gluten-free. The texture resonated with me as more of a "bar" so that is what I am calling it.

Cinnamon Spiked Chickpea Flour Breakfast Bars slightly adapted from the Edible Perspective

3/4 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp olive oil
1/6 cup chopped dates
1/6 cup white chocolate chips
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup wheat bran
1 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine all ingredients in order and stir to combine.
3. Pour into a well greased 9x9 pan
4. Bake for 35-45 minutes until crackers and browned on the edges.

These seemed a bit more crumbly than those from the Edible Perspective, but I'm sure it has to do with the bran addition, or the olive oil substitution for coconut oil. I have to get my hands on some of that stuff.

I was a bit hesitant to replace the buckwheat flour (which I didn't have) with more chickpea flour as I thought I would find the chickpea flavour overbearing. I also wanted to make sure it was sweet enough for me based on my past experiences with chickpea flour. That is why I made sure to replace the dried fruit I didn't have with some chocolate chips. On my first bite I wasn't too sure but it really grew on me. It is great with peanut butter on top, and made a great quick breakfast for this busy week. Also, do not be shy with the cinnamon! I am happy to report, that with this recipe, I polished off 2 mason jars of pantry items! Again, it felt like checking off items on a to do list.

This will be my last post before I head off to Italy. I will not be blogging during my trip. Upon my return I will be finishing my move back into my parent's house, but hopefully I will be able to bring you a new post with a new recipe shortly after my return. While I won't be blogging, I will be tweeting, so you can follow me @foodforfuel to keep up to date!

See you in September! (wow, already?!?)

Steel Cut Oats with Dates

Those of you who follow me on twitter, or who follow me in real life, a.k.a. real-life friends/family, know this is a big week! I am working on my research study for my thesis (will be half done data collection after this week), am moving home for a year (I haven't lived at home for more than a few months in 6 years), and am heading to Italy on Friday (I have never been across the ocean).  I have been preparing for a while. Slowly moving some things home, packing here and there, planning for the trip, etc. etc. I have also been trying to reduce some of my pantry and freezer stocks. This has caused me to be a bit more creative as well as reduce my grocery lists. I have also had some help from my parent's garden for supplying me with fresh veggies.

While this week is all about quick breakfasts since I need to be at school by 6 am most days, I had some leisurely mornings last week. This allowed me to cook up the rest of the steel cut oats I had laying around. I also managed to use up a few dates in the process.

Steel Cut Oats with Dates

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup steel cut oats
4 small dates, chopped

1. Bring water to a boil. Add oats and stir.
2. Bring back to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
3. When the oats are 1/2 done (5-8 min) add the dates and stir in.
4. Continue to simmer until desired consistency is reached.

These oats were the perfect sweetness for me. I rarely sweeten my hot oats, and usually just top it with a dollop of peanut butter, so this was a treat! It was the perfect amount of sweetness as it was subtle and throughout the oats, due to cooking the oats with the dates. Even with the dates, I still topped it with some peanut butter. It's my favourite.

I made this a couple times and in this picture I used steel cut with some rolled oats since I didn't have enough of each. I finished off two canisters on this breakfast. To me, emptying canisters feels like checking off an item on a to do list. Call me crazy!

I will have at least one more recipe before the end of the week. Todays post is about leisurely breakfasts, but the next one will be a breakfast recipe for those rushed mornings. Stay tuned!

Tomato, Walnut and Basil Sauce on Raw Zucchini Pasta

The garden is booming! My parent's garden that is. My little planters on my patio have yielded 0 fruit, and it will stay that way unfortunately. There was a lonely little pepper growing a few days ago, but it looks like the neighbourhood animals beat me to it. Oh well, it was worth a try. At least I have access to my parent's and grandparent's garden this time of year. Every weekend I have been coming home with lettuce, kale, swiss chard, and radishes. Yesterday, I came home with the first of the tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, green pepper and chili pepper.

I wanted to make a dish that was light, raw, and would really highlight the freshness of the veggies. I have made raw zucchini pasta in the past, but wasn't a huge fan. Since I don't have a mandoline, the zucchini was irregular shaped and not as thin as it should have been. I also didn't have the right kind of sauce for it. With the though of gazpacho in mind I remembered this recipe, which is where I originally saw 'raw pasta'.  I made a few changes and it turned out wonderful. Extremely flavourful and perfect for these hot summer days we have been having.

Tomato, Walnut and Basil Sauce on Raw Zucchini Pasta adapted from Mis Pensamientos

1/2 cup walnuts
1 handful of basil
1/2 tsp parsley
1/4 large onion
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 zucchini

1. Add walnuts to food processor and pulse until finely chopped.
2. Add basil, parsley, onion, lemon, olive oil and garlic. Process until a pesto forms, scraping down the sides as neccesary.
3. Add tomatoes and pulse until combined (I only pulsed 3 times). Drain any excess liquid.
4. Use a mandoline to thinly peel the zucchini, or use a peeler to make the 'zucchini pasta'. Top with the pesto sauce.

After taking a look at this photo I realized the sauce doesn't look too appetizing, but I can assure you it tastes wonderful. I almost added some chili peppers but I am glad I didn't because it already has quite the bite from the basil and garlic. I also would have topped this with some goat cheese if I had some on hand. that bowl is 1 small zucchini and about 1/3 of the sauce. I think the leftover sauce would be wonderful in a cold pasta or quinoa salad.

**Update: Zucchini pasta is not for everyone. I really don't find raw zucchini all that appetizing, I much prefer it cooked. Maybe I would like it better if I had a spiralizer? As I was eating this for lunch I really wished I had real pasta, or cooked zucchini at least. Maybe some cheese would have made it better. Anyway, definitely give zucchini pasta a try at least once, but if it isn't your thing, I don't blame you, but don't forget about the tomato, walnut and basil sauce...it goes nicely with lots of other things.

I hope everyone had a great long weekend. Mine was low key and fairly relaxing. I spent some time with my family and made more preparations for moving into my parent's house, and for my trip to Italy. It is becoming more of a reality that I will be moving out of my current house and leaving my awesome housemates :(

I will leave you with a picture I took today of Tew's Falls in Hamilton.

Kale and Pasta Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

How is everyone handling the heat? I am handling it okay, but only because of the decision to finally turn the air conditioner on in our house. I am unsure if it has turned off since the heat wave began. That should be fun when the bill comes around! With all the heat, it is hard to get motivated to cook. Yesterday I made the mistake of making tea (to ultimately chill it), kale chips, and veggie burgers. The kitchen was a HOT MESS! Literally though, I spilt tea everywhere at one point. Luckily, I had an amazing lunch which was nice and cold. A kale and pasta salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

The salad came together rather quietly. It was the result of a series of fortunate events.

1. First it was just a container of leftover pasta. Maybe I will eat it with some pesto? Maybe I will just eat it cold straight from the fridge if I get THAT hungry?

2. But, when I was making a salad for dinner Wednesday night I saw the kale I had from my parent's garden. "Let's just throw that in there!" I said. So I did.

3. As I was chopping up some cucumber (from my Grandfather's garden) for the dinner salad, I had some extra. "Let's just toss that in the leftover pasta container too."

4. Kale is best raw when it has been in some dressing at least a few hours. Well, I was already dressing a salad, "why don't I just pour some of it on the pasta too?"

5. In the morning, I threw in some orange tomatoes, some goat cheese, and called it a day. A great day that is...because of this salad of course.

Kale and Pasta Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

farfelle pasta, cooked (penne, Conchiglie or rotini would also work well)
kale
tomato
cucumber
zesty balsamic vinaigrette
crumbled coat cheese

1. Toss together (everything except goat cheese and tomato), the night before. Refrigerate overnight.
2. Add tomato, goat cheese, and serve.

When I opened up the container for lunch I was so excited, and also very hungry. It looked so beautiful and vibrant that I had to take the 10 second to take a picture with my phone. I think it captures the colour rather well! The salad was really good and very filling. Be sure to use whole wheat pasta to get the same effect ; )

By the way, you should really check out this link. Deciding what pastas would work well led me to that wikipedia page. So many pasta types! I think I better brush up on my Italian pasta vocabulary!

Overnight Oats with Cottage Cheese

I have been back on an overnight oats kick lately. I hadn't had them in a while until a couple weeks ago. I rekindled my love for them inspired by this recipe by the Healthy Foodie. I made some changes, but it got me hooked again. I have also seen some recipes for overnight oats out there using cottage cheese. Before I left for the weekend I wanted to use up the last bit of cottage cheese I had in the fridge, so I thought, what better time to give it a try. I love cottage cheese but only recently (last few months) have enjoyed it in a sweet state. I used to only enjoy it on pasta, or salads, on its own, or maybe with some nuts. But now, I like it with sliced strawberries or nectarines. Yum.

I started out with my usual standard overnight oats recipe, and substituted 1/2 cup of the soy milk for almost 1/2 cup of 2% cottage cheese. I absolutely loved the modification. I was quite full so I think next time I would scale it down, but it sure did pack a protein punch, 27 grams to be exact. Woah.

Overnight Oats with Cottage Cheese

1/2 cup oats
1 tbsp ground flax (or chia seeds)
1 small banana, chopped
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese

1. Chop banana into bottom of bowl.
2. Add oats and flax on top of banana.
3. Add soy milk and cottage cheese.
4. Mix, trying to keep the banana on the bottom (prevents browning).
5. Chill overnight (or for a few hours).

It was just the right about of cheesiness. It was a bit thick in the morning so I added a dash of milk until it was the consistency I like. I also added a little bit of almond butter (peanut butter would be good too).  Like I said, I would probably scale it down to 1/3 cup oats next time because I was too full after eating it all.

Overnight oats are a great breakfast for the summer because they are quick, cold, and require no cooking. There is so much potential for this kind of breakfast. Let your imagination run wild!

....And then come back here and let me know what you come up with!

Chickpea and Kale Multigrain Pizza

I have shared before how making pizza on the BBQ is awesome. It gets the crust nice and crusty, which sometimes doesn't happen in the oven. Plus, it is the summer and I'd rather cook outside on the BBQ than assist in making this house of mine any hotter. I have been wanting to make my own pizza dough for a while now, so I finally did. I made a batch of this recipe by Eat, Live, Run. The only change I made to Jenna's recipe was substituting a 12 grain flour instead of the whole wheat. This substitution made the dough a little more tough and it didn't rise quite as much, but it was still delicious.

I divided the dough after rising into 4 balls and put them in the freezer. Each one makes a small pizza which serves two.  With the doughs I have made 3 different kinds of pizza. I brought along some dough to the cottage and made classic veggie pizzas with tomato sauce, cheese, peppers, and mushrooms. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

The next was a veggie heavy pizza. I topped it with some mozzarella, cooked spinach (previously frozen in nuggets), and tomato slices. It was actually REALLY good. I have never put spinach on my own pizza before, but I loved the mozzarella and spinach combination.

The next pizza I made without having quite as many ingredients on hand. I had some leftover sauce still, but that was about the only "normal" pizza topping I used. After the sauce I plopped on some cottage cheese, chickpeas, dukkah, and kale. I could have gone without the dukkah truthfully, but chickpeas and dukkah go hand in hand. 

The first time I had kale on pizza was at Earth to Table Bread Bar on Locke St. in Hamilton. The pizza also had olives on it and it was a winning combination. The kale got really crispy, which was welcomed, but was lacking some moisture. I think the oven method would have gotten the desired effect in this case. Either way, still a good pizza, and definitely not ordinary.

The fact that I have no more dough left makes me sad. I will probably make some more soon because it makes for a pretty quick dinner. Even with nothing else on hand, simply olive oil and spices is really all it takes to make a good pizza. I wonder how it will compare to the pizza in Italy? Probably won't come close but I can't wait to find out!

Banana Chocolate Chip Chickpea Flour Pancakes

In about 5 weeks, I will have completed part of my research study for my Master's thesis, move out of my current house and into my parent's house, and depart for Italy for a 2 week trip with my Nonna and cousin. I am really excited for it all to happen, but I feel like a lot needs to happen in the next 5 weeks. One thing that needs to happen is that I need to use up a lot of my pantry and freezer items. This will not only make my move easier, but I will reduce the risk of wasting food and I will save some money. I am going to start making the conscious effort to use up what I have and attempt to make-due rather than taking those oh so tempting grocery trips.

What have I done in the past few days to accomplish this:

1. I made some granola. I made a version similar to the crunchy quinoa granola, but I added some oats and different nuts.
I have lots of yogurt in the fridge that needs to get eaten in the next week or two. Normally I add some fruit and I am good to go. However, I want to save some of those frozen berries for in the future when I may not have any fresh fruit available to me. Plain yogurt is a bit boring on it's own however so I made this high protein and fairly low sugar granola. It also used up lots of nuts that I had as well as some dried cranberries which I will not eat on their own.

2. Used up that big bag of frozen vegetable scraps.
For the past few months, I had been keeping some veggie scraps in a ziploc bag in the freezer. It had a little bit of everything. I kept aspargus ends, parsnip tops, carrot peelings, bruised zucchini, mushroom stems, and wilted celery. I had been doing this since I wrote this post on wasting less food, but I have not kept everything. I figured it was about time to make the vegetable stock I was keeping these veggies for. Soup is literally the last thing I would want to be making this time of year, but it had to be done. I will write about making vegetable stock in the near future, and what I end up using it for.

3. Developed a yummy pancake recipe using chickpea flour.
Once my oats run out, pancakes are the next order of business for breakfast, which will also help with using up some flour. However, I'd like to save my wheat flour for baking bread, and I have a lot of chickpea flour to play with. I wanted to figure out a good recipe that is quick and also delicious. After first trying chickpea pancakes with blueberries, I knew I needed to up the sweet factor if I was going to enjoy them for breakfast. My first try was a great success and after one more tweak I have settled on the following recipe.

Banana Chocolate Chip Chickpea Flour Pancakes
serves 1

1/2 cup chickpea flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk (I think the sweetened soy milk might be neccessary)
1 banana, chopped
1 tbsp dark chocolate chips - an extra tbsp doesn't hurt ;)

1. Whisk together the first three ingredients.
2. Slowly add the soy milk, whisking in to remove any clumps.
3. Stir in the banana and chocolate chips.
4. Heat a greased pan on medium heat, and add 1/4 of the batter to the pan (I like to cover the pan). Once the bubbles no longer close up, it is time to flip the pancake. After 2 minutes or so the pancake should be about done.
5. I eat them plain or with a bit of almond butter on top.

These pancakes are really good, especially the bites which have lots of banana and chocolate. I have a feeling the use of the chickpea flour is an acquired taste, and definitely needs to be sweetened to be used as a pancake flour. I have been having these for breakfast for the past few days and have really been enjoying them. It is a great way to use up my chickpea flour as well as some frozen bananas kicking around. If you don't like banana, adding a tbsp or two of coconut is also good.