So here we go! With a big "Thanks" to Ed Brown and Mollie Katzen--Ed for Tassajara Cooking, where he said, "A recipe is a framework" and a whole world opened up, right in my kitchen; and Mollie, for those wonderful drawings in the Moosewood Cookbook, the welcoming voice on every page that said, "Dive in. Have fun!" and not only got me cooking but probably also got me started in creativity development. Because one of the best places to express your creativity is your very own kitchen.
In addition to cooking for friends and other loved ones, I've been a breakfast cook for a sorority house, a prep cook for a natural foods cafe, and a private chef.
My mother's a great cook, but she never said, "Do this. Don't do that." By the time I really started cooking, I was not only out of the house; I was across the country. (And long-distance calls were something you thought about first. "No, I can't hold on," you'd say to a receptionist. "This is long distance!").
Still, Mom has taught me many valuable lessons. Once, I found something rather firm in my soft-boiled eggs.
"Ma," I said, "There's a shell in the egg."
"No charge for the shell," she said.
Enough about eggs. Let's talk about oatmeal. I grew up with Quaker Oats. Great packaging, but these days I save rolled oats for cookies and oatmeal soup. For breakfast, I'll have steel cut oats, thank you. In fact, I had some this morning--the last of yesterday's batch. I reheated them with a bit of orange flower water. (You can get it at Middle Eastern markets; in San Francisco, you can get it and most of the ingredients below at Rainbow Grocery.) Sometimes I open the bottle of orange flower water on my counter just to smell it. It is straight heaven.
"Laynie's Morning Miracle":
2 tablespoons walnuts
1-2 tablespoons raisins (I like Thompson for this)
2 pieces dried fruit, diced (I like to use Deglet Noor dates and either a Bartlett pear, a Turkish apricot, or a Frog Hollow nectarine)
2 teaspoons dried orange peel*
Pinch cinnamon (if you don't use cinnamon often, try buying small amounts in bulk or buy cinnamon stick and grind it; you'll notice a big difference in flavor)
1-1/2 cup water
Pinch salt
1/2 cup steel cut oats
1 tablespoon raw wheat germ
Dry-roast the walnuts in a skillet. Place the raisins, orange peel, dried fruit, and cinnamon in a saucepan. Pour water over these and, when the water comes to a boil, add the salt. When it returns to the boil, stir in the steel cut oats. Simmer, covered, for 10-15 minutes (check after ten minutes to see that it doesn't get stuck to the bottom of the pan, if your pan is like mine). Once cereal is cooked, add the wheat germ to the skillet with the walnuts and gently toast. Then combine the walnut-wheat germ mixture with the cereal and serve. If you want to gild the lily, add some maple syrup.
*If you can't find dried orange peel where you live, just save the peels from organic or unsprayed oranges and tangerines you buy. When you have a half-dozen or so, preheat the oven to 250°, pull out a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper. Take a scissors and cut the peel into 1/4-1/2 inch squares. In no time at all (1/2 hr.-1 hr.), you'll have plenty of homemade dried orange peel, and your house will be filled with the loveliest fragrance.
©2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena.
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