Bircher Muesli aka Improved Overnight Oats

When I was in Australia in 2006, I kept running into a curious breakfast offering known as 'bircher muesli'.  I couldn't quite figure out what was going on - it was a delicious cold oatmeal dish with a nice blend of textures, from the slightly chewy oats and fruit to the crunchy nuts.  Garnished with fresh fruit, this became one of my favorites, and I brought the concept home.  It turned out that the secret was to not cook the oats, but instead to soak them overnight in the fridge with a mixture of other healthy breakfast items and fluids.  The oats absorb the liquid and become not only edible, but delicious and probably slightly more healthy than the cooked variant, although I would question their nutrient availability.

The other day I was talking about this dish with a food marketing friend, and she told me that the internet was currently flooded with prissy fitness instructors' recipes for "overnight oats".  Apparently a variation of this dish has caught on among American health-starved food fad folks, and they have stripped out some of the better elements and loaded it up with only the healthiest of liquids and additives.  I believe that the Australian version is far superior, as they like to add things like flavor and texture to their dish, and since they are very much a muesli and porridge culture, I trust their judgment.  So before overnight oats goes the way of the jello mold, let me see if I can reclaim the Australian flag here and rescue this dish from the fad category.


Bircher Muesli
By Flip Shelton (an actual Australian!)

"Tailor your flavours using any combination of dried and fresh fruit and nuts. If you don't like yoghurt, add more mashed banana and fruit juice. Double the recipe to make enough for several days' breakfasts - it tastes even better after a little time in the fridge." - Flip, proving that this is definitely not from America

Serves 1-2

• 1 cup rolled oats
• ½ cup apple juice (or freshly squeezed orange juice)
• ½ cup yogurt
• 1/8 cup currants, or golden raisins
• 1/8 cup slivered almonds
• a sprinkling of ground nutmeg
• a sprinkling of ground cinnamon
• ½ Granny Smith apple, grated (skin on), to serve
• ½ banana, sliced or mashed, to serve
• seasonal berries and mint sprigs, to serve

Combine the rolled oats, apple juice, yoghurt, currants, almonds, nutmeg and cinnamon in a large bowl and stir together. Chill overnight (or for at least two hours).

Te serve, stir in the grated apple and banana, put into a bowl and garnish with seasonal berries and mint sprigs.

I like the color contrast of the oats, the banana, and the green grated apple, so I don't stir to incorporate.

Now, the most important part - variations.  Here are a list of different things to add to this that I have come across, either from the Aussies or from the crazy health-conscious Americans.  See if you can guess who provided what ideas:

• Add passionfruit pulp
• Use dried cranberries instead of golden raisins
• Add dried apricots or dried pears
• Use pumpkin seeds instead of almonds
• Replace apple juice with almond milk
• Add chia seeds
• Replace apple juice with milk, add cocoa powder
• Add peanut butter or PB2
• Add maple syrup and blueberries

I also like the idea of serving this in a mason jar.  I'm going to try that and post more pictures soon.

Moroccan Lamb and Chickpea Stew

I've been on a chickpea (garbanzo) kick recently, since they're high in protein and flavor, and low in fat and cost.  But I can't quite kick the habit of including a delicious meat with the chickpeas yet, so those tasty legumes are still more of an additive than a replacement.  But whether you're on the garbanzo wagon or not, this stew was incredibly hearty and delicious despite being a fairly low-fat dish, and it came together easily.

Invest in a good dutch oven to make this, and definitely start with dried chickpeas, not canned.  There's a huge difference in flavor.  And read the directions thoroughly before you start - you need to soak the chickpeas overnight and then boil them for an hour, and since the rest of the dish comes together very quickly, that needs to be done pretty much first thing.

Moroccan-Style Lamb and Chickpeas
Cooking Light, December 2011

Yield: Serves 4 (serving size: 1 1/4 cups)

• 1 pound lean ground lamb
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cups vertically sliced onion
• 1/2 cup (1/4-inch) diagonally cut carrot
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 2 cups fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated lemon rind
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight OR 1 (15 1/2-ounce can) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• plain yogurt, to garnish

The day before, soak your chickpeas in a bowl of water and cover.  Approximately 1/2 cup of dried chickpeas will swell up to the same amount you'd find in a 15-oz can.  Before cooking, drain and rinse the chickpeas, and place in a pot of boiling, lightly salted water for an hour.  Drain, rinse, and have at the ready while you're getting the rest of this together.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add lamb to pan and cook for 6 minutes, stirring to crumble.  Remove the lamb from pan with a slotted spoon, and discard the drippings. Add the olive oil to the pan and swirl to coat.  Add onion and carrot to pan and sauté 4 minutes.  Add cumin, cinnamon, coriander, and pepper; sauté 30 seconds, stirring constantly.  Add reserved lamb, broth, and next 5 ingredients (through chickpeas); bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, and simmer 4 minutes or until mixture thickens.  Remove from heat.

Saute the meat, then add the vegetables, then aromatics for 30 seconds, then everything else.  Pretty easy.

You don't cook this for very long - it's not a full braise, since the meat starts off ground and doesn't benefit from long cooking times.  Start to finish is less than 20 minutes after the chickpeas are ready.

Just before serving, stir in cilantro and lemon juice.  Garnish with a spoon of plain yogurt, and serve over long-grain rice.  In the picture we used a saffron-infused rice, which was delicious here, but you could probably manage basmati or just plain ol' white rice.

Walnut Rosemary Oven-Fried Chicken

If you've been reading along routinely, you know that I'm trying to work my way through a recent purchase of a massive quantity of chicken tenders, obtained basically off the back of a truck in the hopes that I could learn how to make the perfect 'boneless wing'.  Well it turns out that frying chicken for every meal isn't very healthy, so I have been thinking about alternative, healthier methods to fill the gaps between random bouts of "fry everything", which often end both deliciously and with chest pains.

Consider instead this oven-fried chicken, soaked in buttermilk, breaded lightly with an amazing and fragrant assortment of herbs, nuts, and other crunchy bits, and then baked rather than fried but with fantastic results.  I would by no means call this a compromise from a fried chicken finger, but I wouldn't even put it in the same category.  These are so good that I hate even putting any of my traditional chicken finger condiments on them, although a nice honey mustard might complement them fairly well.  So thank you, Cooking Light, for helping me stay alive just a little bit longer.

Oven-frying is an excellent, healthy alternative to deep frying

Walnut and Rosemary Oven-Fried Chicken
Cooking Light, June 2010

• 1/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 4 (6-ounce) chicken cutlets
• 1/3 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
• 1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 3/4 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Cooking spray
• Rosemary leaves (optional)

Preheat oven to 425°.

Combine buttermilk and mustard in a shallow dish, stirring with a whisk.  Add chicken to buttermilk mixture, turning to coat.

Get your breading ingredients together

Heat a small skillet over medium-high heat.  Add panko to pan; cook 3 minutes or until golden, stirring frequently.  Combine panko, nuts, and next 4 ingredients (through pepper) in a shallow dish.  Remove chicken from buttermilk mixture; discard buttermilk mixture.  Dredge chicken in panko mixture.

Toast your bread crumbs briefly in a dry skillet

Toss this mixture together and bring the chicken nearby

Toss tenders to coat, then place on a baking rack set over a sheet pan.

Arrange a wire rack on a large baking sheet; coat rack with cooking spray.  Arrange chicken on rack; coat chicken with cooking spray.  Bake at 425° for 13 minutes or until chicken is done.  Garnish with rosemary leaves, if desired.

Serve plain, with sweet chili sauce, or with a honey mustard sauce

Cranberry Oatmeal Pancakes

Let me temper this recipe with a caveat - I'm not a huge fan of pancakes.  I feel like people who love pancakes are basically ready to stab their own mother for just one more hit of maple syrup-soaked cake goodness, and somehow they can devour a whole plate of these things without batting an eye.  I, on the other hand, usually get through about 3 bites of pancake before I'm ready to walk away in need of something with a bit more flavor.  Unless they're really good, which they most often are not, pancakes are just kind of vanilla.

In stark contrast to your average pancake recipe, I found a very bizarre-sounding recipe in a Vitamix blender cookbook, of all places.  It called for different flours, the use of oats, seeds, and berries, and generally all healthy stuff.  And since I don't think many of you have a Vitamix, or pore over the recipe book it came with if you do, I'm going to repost it here, with slight variations (I don't have a Vitamix either, is the weird part).  I thought this was really good, had an interesting consistency, and was rather healthy by pancake standards.  Also, with minimal tweaking I believe this is a gluten-free dish, but I can't back that up. 

These pancakes have all kinds of surprises inside - seeds, oats, and cranberries.  It's like a piñata for your mouth

Cranberry Oatmeal Pancakes
From: Vitamix blender cookbook

Yield: 10-12 pancakes
Total Time: 25 Minutes

• 1.5 cups milk, soy milk, rice milk, or almond milk (I used rice milk)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp light olive oil or vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup (60 g) uncooked, rolled oats
• 1.25 cups (150 g) whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup (26 g) flax seed meal
• 1/4 cup (30 g) dried cranberries
• 2 tablespoons (15 g) unsalted sunflower seeds

Not your average pancakes!  This is kind of the royal family of pancake ingredients, including flax meal, a very  interesting nutty product made from ground whole flax seeds

Place milk, egg, oil and ¼ cup (20 g) rolled oats (NOT ALL OF THEM!!!) into a blender or food processor bowl.  Blend / chop / whatever you've got on medium speed for about 20 seconds to incorporate.

I didn't know if my food processor would properly pulverize the oats, but there was so little compared to the amount of liquid that this was no problem

In a large bowl, combine the remaining oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and flax meal, stirring to combine.

Crazy pancakes - when a big bowl of white flour just won't do.  Clockwise from top: salt, baking powder, oats, flax meal, whole wheat flour

Add the wet to the dry.  The order matters!

Pour wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix gently by hand to combine.  Stir in the dried cranberries and sunflower seeds.  Allow mixture to set for 10 minutes before cooking.

Fold in the seeds and berries, and let this sit for a few minutes.  You want the double acting baking powder to act once, creating air bubbles that will give you a nice fluffy product before cooking.  The second 'act' of the baking powder happens when you heat it.

I found that this batter was a bit thick, so you can dilute with a bit more milk if you like thinner pancakes.  Cook in melted butter on a skillet, ideally one of the electric variety, until bubbles around the edges start to set.  Flip and cook for another couple of minutes.

Look for the bubbles around the edges to set up

To serve, I would use a berry-based syrup such as boysenberry or blueberry.  Or if you really want to drive home that you're eating something different, use cranberry sauce!

Crunchy, nutty cranberry oatmeal pancakes.  Treat your body to a healthy breakfast.

Salmon with Thai Rice Salad

Based on the somewhat artery-clogging food I've been eating lately (see my upcoming pot pie posting), I wanted something simple and healthy for dinner tonight.  This broiled salmon and Thai rice salad comes together quickly and has very few ingredients - fish, rice, some vegetables, and that's just about it.  Not a bad idea for a light weeknight meal, and you can't beat the freshness of the rice salad, which is more like a slaw than anything else.  The crispness of the cucumber and the pungent cilantro and green onion balanced the strength of the salmon perfectly, and the chilled vegetables and rice made me wish it was summer and I was eating outside.

The only magic here is broiling the fish.  Though not too complicated if you've done it before, you can easily ruin dinner if you do this wrong.  First of all, find your broiler.  For those of you who don't cook, this is probably the drawer at the bottom of your oven where you've been storing your baking sheets, although in some ovens (mostly electric) there is a broiler rack at the top of the oven by the element, rather than underneath by the fire.  Wherever it is, it's always somewhere that food can cook directly through intense radiant heat.  I like to broil fish skin side down first to cook it most of the way through, then flip it over to crisp the skin for the last few minutes.  Keep a close eye on it, because burnt fish is one of the worst smells to deal with in the kitchen, not to mention a senseless waste of expensive protein.

If you can, shell out for decent salmon - it needs to stand up on its own

Easy Salmon with Thai Rice Salad

• 1 1/2 cups long-grain rice
• 3 tablespoons lime juice (from about 2 limes)
• 3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc mam)
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 3 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• Pinch cayenne
• 1 cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 3 carrots, grated
• 4 scallions including green tops, chopped
• 6 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 2 pounds skinless center-cut salmon fillet, cut into 4 pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

The setup - one of my more healthy meals recently

Stir the rice into a medium pot of boiling, salted water and cook until just done, about 10 minutes. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain thoroughly.

In a large glass or stainless-steel bowl, combine the lime juice, fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of the oil, the sugar, and cayenne. Let sit for about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice, cucumber, carrots, scallions, and cilantro.

The finished rice salad.

Heat the broiler. Oil a broiler pan or baking sheet. Coat the salmon with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Put the salmon on the pan. Broil until just barely done (the fish should still be translucent in the center), about 5 minutes for a 1-inch-thick fillet. Put the rice salad on plates and top with the salmon.

After broiling the salmon, the skin should start to get nice and crispy.  Discard it if you like before serving - it's home to many of the nutrients, but also the toxins, in the fish.