Recipe Round-Up: Oatrageous Oatmeals

I love oats, so when I heard there was a book dedicated to them I knew I had to have it. Oatrageous Oatmeals by Kathy Hester is packed full of all sorts of recipes. Of course, there is a hefty dose of warm oatmeals, overnight oats, granolas, and oat bars. But she also has soups, savouries, desserts, drinks, homemade basics, and even beauty products! I haven't blogged much from this book yet, but you can see a few recipes that I have put up in some other posts here.

So yes, this book has a whole bunch of exciting oat recipes! But this post is pretty much all breakfast oats, because they are what I have made the most of. Warm oats on chilly mornings, and overnight oats for a quick breakfast on summer mornings!

Dianne's Elvis Oatmeal: I love peanut butter, everyone knows this. Peanut butter, banana, and chocolate is a super was to start the day! It said it served four, but I made a half recipe and ate it all for one filling breakfast. I never have vanilla non-dairy milk around, so I used oatmilk (so on theme) with 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract added. I also added a tiny sprinkle of Wayfare Pig Out Grain Bacon Bits for the maximum Elvis experience. BTW, the Dianne in question is wonderful vegan Dianne Wenz!
Rating: :)



Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake Oatmeal: A fun little combination, the oats are flavoured with lemon and vanilla extracts, and then topped with some raspberry yoghurt. We can't get vegan raspberry yoghurt here (well, maybe there is some sort of coconut yoghurt, but they don't count to me), so I used some Kingland plain green yoghurt with some defrosted frozen raspberries. This recipe uses steel cut oats, for a bit of extra texture. It is pretty small servings, it says it serves three but I would say just one hungry Susan. I needed to add an extra splash of oat milk part way through cooking the oats so they didn't dry out. I also didn't need to add any sweetener, as I found it sweet enough.
Rating: :)



Kheer (Indian Pudding) Oatmeal: A lovely mix of cardamom, raisins, and saffron (I just used a teeny pinch of saffron, I'm not a millionaire). This also uses steel cut oats, and again I needed to add an extra splash of oat milk while cooking. I also left out the optional sweetener, the raisins make it sweet enough. I topped mine with sliced almonds.
Rating: :)



Candy Bar Overnight Oatmeal: This blends chocolate, coconut and almonds together... though I was a little underwhelmed. There aren't any actual almonds in the recipe (though I added some on top), so there isn't much of an almond flavour. I used the option of using plain soy yoghurt and oat milk, and adding vanilla and coconut extracts. Again, I left out the sweetener (which I guess makes it less of a candy bar). I topped it with coconut shreds, almonds, and cocao nibs.
Rating: :|



Peanut Butter Cup Overnight Oatmeal: This is one of the 'petite portion' recipes, though I don't hold with that. So I doubled it all to get it to my liking. It is meant to have vegan chocolate protein powder in it, but I don't use protein powders so I added some cocoa for the chocolate flavour. I drizzled this with a little dark agave and topped it with some raw cocao nibs and crushed peanuts.
Rating: :)



Coconut Cream Overnight Oatmeal: I hear your gasp of disbelief! Susan? Coconut Cream? But no, there was no actual coconut fat in my version because I took the option of using soy vegan yoghurt and oat milk and adding coconut extracts. I actually used some vanilla yoghurt, which was quite sweet so I skipped adding sweetener. Everything here is coconut flavoured, so I did find it a bit one note. Also, even though she uses chia seeds in most of the overnight oats to add protein and make them more filling, this one didn't keep me super full. This is topped with some cocoa-dusted coconut flakes that I got in a subscription box.
Rating: :|



Cinnamon Roll Overnight Oatmeal: Cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, and pecans are added to these oats. All these overnight recipes make one serve, and I added some extra oats to this one. I used plain oat milk, and a tub of vanilla soy yoghurt for my liquids. And of course I doubled the cinnamon - you can never have too much! I topped this with some pecans and more cinnamon.
Rating: :)



Banana Pudding Overnight Oatmeal: This is another petite portion recipe, but I made this for a little snack so I kept it small. A banana is mashed and added to the oats along with some yoghurt and vanilla. It was nice, and naturally sweet (I didn't add any sweetener). Topped with some sweet and salty coconut bacon flakes because, why not.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim looking so pensive and so cute. But then she is always cute, no matter what she is doing. She's had a bit of conjunctivitis lately, and has been not too pleased about having eye medication, but she is a good girl.

ALQ Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale at The Green Edge

I organised another bake sale for Animal Liberation QLD on the 7th of May as part of the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. It happened a week after the official fortnight for the WWVBS due to public holidays, school holidays, work rosters and family events, but such is life. Once again, we held it at The Green Edge.

As usual, first here are the new things that I made for the bake sale. While I have a couple of tried and true favourites, I don't test everything before I make it for a bake sale. Live on the edge! There are too many recipes out there to try.

Banana Bread French Toast Cupcakes from Bake and Destroy by Natalie Slater. These banana bread cupcakes are topped with a maple buttercream frosting, which makes for a lovely combination. The frosting has the bonus of not being too sweet, and has a very rich maple flavour thanks to both maple syrup and maple extract. It also makes a good amount of frosting, I had about one cupcake worth of frosting left at the end, so if you just give an extra swirl with your frosting bag it should come out even for the twelve.
Rating: :)



Pepita Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bars from Oatrageous Oatmeals by Kathy Hester. I love oatmeal and raisin cookies, and these bars were just delicious. The pepita gives them a nice crunch as well. This recipe is baked in a 9x13 inch pan for 16 squares, though I cut them into 12 big squares for satisfying bake sale goodies. Though I confess I kept two, one for taste testing and another to cut and freeze for work day snacks. They freeze great!
Rating: :D



Caramel Nut Barley Squares from Wholegrain Vegan Baking by Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes. These tasty squares have a baked barley base topped with a caramel nut micture (almonds, cashews, pepitas) and a final sprinkling of chocolate chips. Mine turned out a lot flatter than the photo in the book, even though I used the specified size pan (an 8x8 inch pan, I cut them into 8 slices for the bake sale), but they still looked pretty nifty and they tasted good. I was a little lazy and used raw slivered almonds (instead of dry roasted almonds) and unsalted pepitas (I added a little bit of extra salt to the caramel). I needed to bake my caramel for a few extra minutes in the oven to get it to set up.
Rating: :)



Peanut Butter Black Bean Brownie Bites from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer. These cute little bites are gluten free and have no flour at all, instead they are based on black beans, peanut butter and cocoa! The recipe says it makes 16 servings in mini muffin cups, so I pulled out my mini muffin/cupcake pan but I ended up with 28! So I guess her mini muffin cups are a bit bigger than mine! I reduced the baking time from 30 minutes to 25 minutes due to the smaller size. On a practical level, the batter was super sticky to get into the cups! I had to use wet hands and wash them a lot. But they were a nice, rich little morsel. Soft on the inside and crunchy on top.
Rating: :)



Spicy Chocolate Cupcakes with Hot Candied Pecans from The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I'll save talking about these cupcakes for a future recipe round-up I am going to do from this book. They were part of a little self-challenge I am doing to cook one recipe for every holiday in the book. The bake sale was the 7th of May, so I made these from the Cinco de Mayo chapter. Stay tuned!



Carrot-Pineapple Sunshine Muffins from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. OK, so I have made these before. But the last time I made them was so long ago that I wasn't taking any food photos. So I remade them. This was not a problem at all, as these are delicious! I used a mango-peach flavoured yoghurt in them this time, which gave a nice flavour. They have crushed pineapple, shredded carrots and raisins in them. I was using some larger-sized muffin cups, so I made 7 rather than 12 this time. However, the cookbook says to fill them right to the top, as they don't rise much. This was a lie (or perhaps due to the larger volume), because they did rise and some of them dribbled down the side of the cups, so be cautious!
Rating: :D



Jelly Doughnut Cupcakes from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Another remake to get a photo of, these cupcakes are delicious and taste so much like doughnuts! I used a plum jam in them, which was lovely. You drop the jam on top of the batter and they are meant to rise and cover the jam all on their own, but you can see that a lot of mine did not (perhaps be a bit less generous with the jam?). But I think they still looked cute. I did have to top them up with a bit more jam before serving to get it right up level with the top of the cupcake.
Rating: :D



Triple Chocolate Gluten Freedom Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I make a variation on the GF chocolate cupcakes from this book every bake sale. This time I went simple. Chocolate cupcakes topped with the Oh-So-Rich Chocolate Glaze from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer, and pressed into some chocolate sprinkles.
Rating: :)



Lemon Olive Oil Cookies. I've made these GF cookies several times before as well, the recipe can be found on Allyson Kramer's blog here. They are so lemony and yummy.
Rating: :)



Here is what other people made!

Chili Chocolate Slice. As well as my final contribution, the famous Berry Patch Brownies from Let Them Eat Vegan by Dreena Burton.



Scones.



Double Chocolate cookies, Oatmeal Raisin cookies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies.



Cottage Pies. These were ace!



Chocolate cupcakes.



Sausage rolls.



Rocky road. This was pretty amazing. It had honeycomb, biscuits, nuts and jellies in it.



Peanut Butter Fudge.



Gluten Free Brownie.



Now for some table shots!





There were also some jam drops and some fancy baked doughnuts that I didn't get photos of.

It was a bit slow at times, but we raised just over $700 for ALQ to use towards their campaigns. The next one will be in a couple of months, and I already have a list of new things I would like to make for it.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Yesterday was three months without Sahara. I miss her so much.

Dinners for Dad (Birthday 2016 and 2014)

I shared what I had made for my mum last year in a previous post, but what about my dad? I already shared the meal I made for Father's Day last year, it was the Indian Menu from 1000 Vegan Recipes and you can see my write up here. But he also had a birthday! My Dad loves Indian, so almost all his meals seem to have some sort of Indian component to them. Sometimes, I will make a specific menu from a book (like this), and other times I will mix and match from different books.

Last year, I picked a couple of different recipes.

Indian-Spiced Tomato Soup with Curry Cashew Savoury Granola from Oatrageous Oatmeals by Kathy Hester: The soup recipe says it serves four, but made three small starter size serves. It is made creamy by the addition of oats, and has a lovely spiced flavour. But be careful as it did start to burn on the bottom of the pan as I was simmering, so make sure to stir those oats occasionally! The addition of the granola was great. I only made a half batch, which gave me just over a cup. I used sultanas as I did not have any golden raisins. As well as being nice as a soup topping, it is also very snackable.
Rating: Soup :), Granola :)



Kofta Curry from Vegan Without Borders by Robin Robertson: Koftas are pretty fun, though these were very fragile. You need to be especially careful with the peas, as they did tend to make it falla part a little. But treat them with care, and you will be rewarded. The tomato and coconut spiced gravy is very nice. Served with rice and spinach.
Rating: :)



Coconut Sambal: This is quite tart, but makes a nice topping. I used dried coconut flakes (rather than grated fresh coconut) and some light coconut milk.
Rating: :)



German Chocolate Cake from Chloe's Vegan Desserts by Chloe Coscarelli: A very non-Indian cake. This cake is the reason why I scale everything down to just one layer these days. This two layer cake, stuffed with coconut pecan frosting, was HUGE. Far too big for three people to work their way through. It was a bit too sweet for me all up, but my parents loved it. I did need to bake things for about 25 extra minutes. I also added a bit of chocolate extract to the batter, and used a mix of coconut and oat milk for the liquid. Definitely could just have done with a single layer!
Rating: :| for me (due to sweetness), but :) from my parents



So that was last year, which I then realised was very similar to his birthday dinner from two years earlier. I realised that I had already shared the cream of mushroom soup I made in this post, but hadn't put up the rest yet.

Chandra Malai Kofta from Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: Having some deja vu? This recipe is similar, though the sauce has cashews as well as coconut milk and tomatoes in it, and was a lot saucier as well. The koftas themselves were very cute. There was a lot of sauce, which was perfect to serve over basmati rice and some broccoli as well.
Rating: :)



Just Chocolate Cake with Gooey Ganache from Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: This is a basic chocolate cake recipe, nothing fancy, using standard cake ingredients. It was a lovely chocolate cake, though was quite soft. I only made a half recipe of the ganache, which I found to be just enough for one cake. Classic chocolate cake goodness.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This little cutie is one of our adoption kittens. His name is Hobbes!

ALQ December Bake Sale at The Green Edge

Over the weekend I organised another bake sale for Animal Liberation QLD. Once again it was held at the wonderful The Green Edge. Buckle in, because there are a lot of photos! First up, the new things that I made for the bake sale.

Cranberry and Almond Cookies: This is actually the Soulhaus cookies I make all the time from Great Gluten Free Vegan Eats by Allyson Kramer, but as my chocolate chip stash was low I swapped them out for cranberries and almonds for yummy variation.
Rating: :)



Chocolate Cherry Slice from Vegan Indulgence by Leigh Drew. One of my favourite recipes ever, I love the chocolate cherry combination. Plus they are topped with a cream cheese based icing, so they are basically chocolate cherry cheesecake bars. I have made this recipe before, but not for a while and not for a bake sale.
Rating: :D



Chocolate Orange Gluten Freedom Cupcake are a variation I made from the chocolate GF cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I added one and a half teaspoons of orange essence to the batter, which results in a very chocolate orange kind of taste. I glazed the top with some chocolate glaze (see below) and some leftover orange buttercream that I had hanging around in the freezer.
Rating: :)



Chocolate Brownie Slice topped with Oh-So-Rich Chocolate Glaze from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer. The cake is an oil free cake, with banana and applesauce in the batter. I could taste the banana in the cake, but most other people couldn't. I liked the flavour, but I did find the cake a touch dry. But the glaze... oh, the glaze. It is so quick, so simple, firms up so nicely, and is perfectly rich and chocolatey without being too sweet. I will be using this a lot, like when I made another batch to put on the cupcakes above.
Rating: Cake :), Glaze :D



Carrot Applesauce Muffins from Naturally Lean by Allyson Kramer. These were OK, but a little bland. They were crying out for some sultanas and nuts to make it a bit more like a carrot cake. My muffin cases were quite large, so I got nine rather that 12, and baked them for 30 minutes rather than 25.
Rating: :|



Nut and Fruit Granola Bars from Oatrageous Oatmeals by Kathy Hester. I really liked these. They are held together by tinned pumpkin and flaxseeds and are oil free, with oats and nuts and fruit mixed through. They are also sugar free, but I added a bit of maple syrup. I used a mix of cranberries, sultanas, almonds, walnuts and pepitas for my mix. They are a bit gummy right after baking, but the texture improves with a day or two in the fridge. There were some of these left over, and they have made great snacks to have on hand.
Rating: :)



Pistachio Rosewater Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. These re very sweet and delicate cupcakes. I love rosewater, so I used the full amount. The recipe calls for chopped pistachios, and talks about chopped nuts in the cupcakes in the description, but the instructions don't seem to mention adding the nuts, so I just stirred them through at the end before putting into the liners. These cupcakes rose quite nicely. The glaze ended up being more like an icing, quite thick. I tinted it pink as well for fun. The recipe calls for pink decorating sugar crystals, which I could never find, but I did get some pink sprinkles. But I didn't end up using them as I made the glaze quite pink.
Rating: :)



Elvis Cupcakes from The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. These are banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, coconut bacon and a caramelised banana slice. I will do a full write up of these when I get to doing my Superfun Times recipe round up. I changed the icing around so that I could leave out the coconut oil, so stay tuned for that.



And of course I made some Berry Patch Brownies.



And now, on to the other things that were there!

Gluten Free Lamingtons.



Vanilla Oreo Cakes.



Chocolate Caramel Tarts.



Cookie Dough Doughnuts.



GF Gingerbread Cookies.



GF Lemon, Macadamia and Apricot Fudge Slice.



Blueberry Pecan Breakfast Cookies.



Jam Drops.



Shortbread and Peanut Butter Fudge.



Lemon Curd Cupcakes. The lemon curd is based on sweet potato. I bought one of these and it was delicious!



Peanut Butter Stuffed Cupcakes.



Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes.



Walnut Brownies.



GF Fluffernutters. Peanut Butter Cookies with Marshmallow filling.



Chocolate Covered Meringes.



Mini Scones with Jam and Cream.



Mini Pavlovas.



Table shot.



Gluten Free Table Shot.



It ended up being a pretty slow day, not quite as successful as our previous bake sales. Perhaps the heat of the day or the fact that it is December meant there weren't as many people who could come along. Still, we made over $700 for ALQ, which isn't too shabby. I am so thankful to everyone who baked, helped on the stalls, came along, and of course to The Green Edge

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This little girl is called Shari Rose, and she is looking for her forever home! She is one of the adoption kitties at our Clayfield clinic. She is very cheeky and very cute, so if you are in the area and thinking about adopting a special friend, why not check her out?