Gourmet Ramen

Ah, Pintrest. You spark my cooking creativity and make me want to try so many new things. What’s a girl to do? Try as many of them as possible, of course! This has definitely become one of my all time favorites. Refrigerator Oatmeal, also referred to as Summer Porridge, is a great way to get your busy day off to a great start and have it taste good, too! Gone are the days of nasty energy bars that you’ve convinced yourself taste good. This stuff is actually delicious and super good for you! Here is a link to the blog Pintrest led me to.

When I made it the first time, I didn’t have any adorable mason jars to put the breakfast into. So I used a Tupperware with a lid that didn’t match up with the container. Oops. I eventually caved and got the jars. They’re dead useful for other stuff, too. 

Anyway. So 1/4 c whole grain rolled oats. Not steel cut, not instant, not oatmeal. Oats. 1/4 c of that with 1/3c skim milk, 1/4 c plain greek yogurt (if you like really sweet stuff, swap that for Vanilla), a tablespoon of honey or some other kind of sweetener. That’s the base for all of these delicious guys. If you’re doing something with cocoa, now is the time to add a tablespoon of cocoa powder. Working with Peanutbutter? Add a tablespoon of that now. Put the lid on your container and shake! Have a dance around the kitchen, get out some pent up anger, go crazy! The oats tend to get caught in the honey so you really need to go to town to make sure it all gets incorporated. It gets even stickier when peanut butter joins the party. 

Open your container back up and add your fruit. This can be a diced half of a banana, a bunch of diced mango, some berries, cherries, or just about anything else you can come up with. The possibilites are endless and not just limited to the flavors in the recipe! Put the fruit in, stir/shake it up again, close the container, and put it in the fridge.

My favorite part comes next. 

Go to sleep, wake up, remove container from the fridge, enjoy a delicious breakfast of refrigerator oatmeal. This stuff is delicious. In the photo above, I made chocolate banana raspberry. I felt like I was having dessert for breakfast! Since then, I have also made: plain chocolate and banana, peanut butter and banana, chocolate mango almond, cherry vanilla, and mango cinnamon. They are all absolutely delicious! I love each and every one. 

Mornings are so much easier now. All I do is take it out of the fridge and eat! More time to do… well, whatever I feel! 

As you will notice in the post on that blog, the recipe calls for chia seeds. They’re apparently these little seeds packed with a serious nutritional punch. That’s all fine and dandy but they’re expensive. Try again next time. 

Happy Eating! 

-Dannie

Everybody and their grandma seems to have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that they default to, that they remember from their childhood, or that they crave. While this may not be my own recipe, these cookies are still magnificent and are now requested of me by a number of people. 

Here is the recipe, courtesy of Food Network. the only thing I do differently than the recipe is I let the dough hang out in the fridge for a few days. It lets everything meld together and created a different cookie texture than letting it sit for an hour. I’m a crispy cookie fan but I still like my cookies a touch cakey. This makes them more crispy than cakey and extra delicious. 

Happy eating!

-Dannie

Everybody loves a s’more. They’re absolutely delicious! And there’s something intensely fantastic about roasting a marshmallow over an open campfire enjoying a quiet evening with friends outside. Really, it’s just so fantastic. 

Sometimes, though, your campfire gets rained out and you’re stuck inside with a bag of mallows, some chocolate, and graham crackers. It’s times like these you wish you had a way to make those delicious s’mores inside. 

Well, now there is a way! You will need: a muffin pan, kitchen shears, muffin liners, a broiler set on LOW, marshmallows, something melty, and something crunchy. 

Step one, line your muffin pan wherever you are going to make these little personal delicious delights. Add the “something crunchy” to the bottom. This cam be crumbled graham crackers, broken up pretzels, rice krispies, etc. I used Peanut Butter Cheerio’s and for my dad, who is not a nut fan, I used corn flakes. 

Next up is “something melty.” Mini chocolate chips work best here but you could also use regular chips, or any other sort of chip, nutella, peanut butter, etc. Something melty. Extra points for creativity! 

Things should be looking something like this now: 

Grab those kitchen shears and your marshmallows and cut them in half along the round side so that when they sit on top of the melty and crunchy, the flat side looks up. Here is a photo to guide you: 

Put three mallows per muffin cup (one if you’re working with a mini tray) sticky side down and put the pan into the oven. Set your broiler to low (do not do this sooner or the mallows will burn long before the chocolate melts) and leave them in there until the mallows have arrived at your desired level of golden brown, burnt, etc. However you would normally do them outside is how you should do them now SHORT OF setting them on fire. Please do not ignite your oven. 

When they come out, they should be nice and golden and delicious. Insert spoon to use as vehicle for getting mallow to mouth and enjoy! These are super easy and really great for parties. Everyone can customize their own! 

Enjoy!

-Dannie

My hands-down favorite question/reaction whenever I bake brownies is “did you make these from scratch?” and the amazed/shocked/oh-goodness-these-are-heavenly facial expression that follows. 

The recipe for these is pretty basic. It comes from Good Housekeeping’s Comfort Food cookbook and is your standard brownie recipe. butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, cocoa, flour, baking powder. The usual. Something about them, though, apparently has an added level of magic. Due to a lack of a smaller pan, I always have to make a double batch of these (such a tragedy, I know).

This batch was made for the theatre camp I work with. A double batch makes somewhere around 40 brownies. the camp seemed to approach them with a “take no prisoners” sort of flair. There were none left when I left rehearsal that day. I think it is, thus, safe to declare this mission a success. 

-Dannie

This is a great standby for snacking. It may not be the healthiest of snacks but it tastes so good. I remember making and devouring bags upon bags of this on various Girl Scout trips. The level of delicious found in this food is higher than the average sweet snack. 

Chocolate chips and peanut butter are melted together over a box of rice chex to coat. This can get messy so if you don’t like getting your hands dirty, wear gloves (or employ small children. This is a great one for them!). Mix the melty goodness together over the chex in a large bowl. 

Once mixed, portion the snack into plastic bags and begin adding the powdered sugar. Seal the bags and toss around to coat. This is another great activity for getting small children involved in the kitchen- gets them playing with their food in a positive way! 

Let the chow cool for a few minutes (if you can wait that long) and devour. A word of warning to sneaky snackers- use less powdered sugar or be caught red… erm, white handed. 

-Dannie