Now you can have your whole oats on busy weekday mornings: McCann’s has introduced a quick-cooking steel-cut oatmeal that takes a mere 5 minutes to prepare and tastes almost exactly like its longer cooking version.

With steel-cut oats the outer husk is removed from the oat kernel and the kernel is cut into pieces using steel discs. The kernels are not steamed and rolled into flakes, like regular oatmeal, hence they are hardier in texture and they tend to keep you full longer. They look similar to bulgur wheat.

We eat them with brown sugar, raisins, sliced banana, a dash of cinnamon and nonfat milk. You could also add fresh berries or the microwave berry compote listed here under “Desserts”.

In the Midwest they can be found in the health food section of Hy-Vee supermarkets, but I’m sure they’re available in all parts of the country. They’re definitely worth looking for. If you like oatmeal and haven’t tried steel cut oats, you’re in for a very pleasant surprise. BTW, they’re a product of Ireland, so expect to pay a wee bit more.

You fill muffin cups with whatever vegetables you like, maybe add some cooked sausage or ham, a bit of grated cheese and then pour on some beaten egg and bake. Kalyn’s Kitchen suggests using silicone muffin cups (which come in 6-cup forms and can be purchased at Target or Walmart), sprayed with nonstick spray. If you use regular muffin tins, line them with 2 paper cups each. Here are several variations I made this morning. Use your imagination with ingredients. Mushrooms? Great. Egg Beaters? Even less fat, but they may be a bit rubbery.

Egg Muffins

12 eggs
Any combination of the following:

Chopped green onions (I highly recommend these)
Red bell pepper, diced
Turkey sausage links, cooked and crumbled
Broccoli florets, blanched
Pickled jalapeno pepper slices
Cheddar cheese, grated (at least 1 cup; I used Cabot 50% Less Fat Cheddar)

Spray 12 silicone muffin cups with nonstick spray, or line regular muffin pans with muffin papers. Sprinkle some chopped green pepper on the bottoms of each cup, then some sausage, or cheese (or both!) and whatever vegetables you’re using. The cups will look more than half full.

Beat 12 eggs in a large bowl and generously salt and pepper. With a ladle, fill the cups with egg to almost full. Gently stir each cup and bake at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Cool and place in a plastic bag and refrigerate. When you’re ready to head out the door to work, take a couple out and microwave. Pretty easy, huh?

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Here’s what’s going on: instant oats are processed into little bits that cook quickly. Because they digest more quickly, they’re higher on the glycemic index than regular oats and they don’t keep you satisfied quite as long. Old-fashioned oatmeal, or rolled oats, take longer to cook but are more filling because they have more fiber and are less-processed. It’s a trade-off between time and satiety.

And here’s yet another option: steel cut oats, which are favored in Ireland as the only way to eat oatmeal. Unlike old fashioned oats, in which the oat kernels are flattened into flakes with rollers, steel cut oats are cut into chunks with steel blades. They require longer cooking still, up to 30 minutes, and that’s more time than most Americans will tolerate for preparing breakfast (but have you ever considered how long you sit in your car in the drive-thru lanes awaiting an Egg McMuffin or a Starbuck latte?).

But steel cut oats are so worth it, utterly filling and delicious and the nuttiest tasting member of the oat family. Here is a way to prepare them that requires less effort and delivers both great taste and convenience. You boil water and oats for one minute the night before, let them stand covered overnight and then finish cooking them the next morning.  If you’re really pinched for time on weekday mornings, cook them on Sunday and refrigerate the leftovers for the upcoming week, microwaving  individual servings each morning. That’s what I do and they taste just like new.

1 1/2 cups steel cut oats
6 cups water
big pinch salt

Bring water to a boil in a 2 qt. saucepan and add oats and salt. Boil for one minute, then turn off the heat, cover the pan and leave overnight. The next morning, remove lid, bring to a simmer and cook until done, about 10 minutes.

You can also cut back on the total quantity, but keep the oats-water ratio at 1/2 cup oats to 2 cups water.

Serves: 6

WW Points per serving: 2 (without milk, brown sugar or maple syrup, raisins, banana, almonds, you get the picture!)

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Here is an easy way to make baked apples in your slow cooker that involves very little effort and results in wonderful fall flavors, not to mention cinnamon-y kitchen aromas. I baked these yesterday and refrigerated them in a glass dish. This morning I cut up one apple into wedges, microwaved it until it was warm, and served it with plain (home made) yogurt and (home made ) granola on top. I would have taken a picture before eating it, but this fall weather isn’t cooperating in the early morning hours. It was still dark out. Plus the aroma was so wonderful I couldn’t wait to eat it!

I used whatever apples I had on hand, and several of them look wrinkled; those are probably not baking apples. The rest of the bunch are Fujis.  Golden Delicious apples work well too. It really doesn’t matter, because they taste delicious regardless of their appearance. I didn’t peel their tops, which I will do next time.

Here is how you peel it.

6 medium baking apples, washed and cored
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 T. golden raisins (dark raisins work well too)
1 t. fresh grated lemon zest
1 t. cinnamon
A pinch of salt
1 T. butter
1/4 cup apple juice (or orange juice)
1/4 cup water

In a small bowl mix together the brown sugar, raisins, lemon zest, cinnamon and salt. Place the apples into a 6-quart slow cooker and full each core with some of the sugar mixture. Dot tops with butter. Pour the apple juice and water around the apples. Cover and cook on low for 7 to 9 hours.

Serve these for breakfast with yogurt, or for dessert, either on their own or with low-fat ice cream. Be sure to warm them up first.

Serves: 6

WW Points per apple: 2

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Isabel and Lulu prefer the Dry Creek Kitchen's buttery granola!

If I were to guess where granola was invented, I’d have to say California. Doesn’t it just sound like the appropriate birthplace for this most venerable of hippy foods? Last week I had the most delightful version at the Hotel Healdsburg. Its adjoining restaurant, the Dry Creek Kitchen, graciously emailed me their recipe. No wonder it was so tasty–there was a stick of butter in it.

Store-bought granola is notorious for being high in fat, and there’s a reason for this. Fat coats the oats and gives them a crunchy yet tender bite after being baked in the oven. The less butter or oil you use, the less tender the bite. I tried versions with no oil, (tasty but with a bit of a buckshot texture) a moderate amount of oil, and finally, with the stick of butter. Who could resist?

The surprise was that the buttery granola, while delicious, was not hugely tastier than the one made with a small amount of oil. Hooray for that. Here, then, are two versions that are equally delicious with yogurt, milk, or on its own as a snack. Remember that granola is a nutritious but calorie-dense food. A little goes a long way.

Almost all granola recipes call for adding raisins or other dried fruit after the cereal is baked, but I didn’t add them until I served it, as the dried fruit tends to de-crisp the granola when they are stored together in a container.

Low-Fat Granola

5 cups rolled oats (old fashioned, not quick cooking)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup real maple syrup
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Combine first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Combine brown sugar, syrup, water and oil in a small saucepan and heat until brown sugar melts; pour over oat mixture; stir well and spread onto two baking sheets sprayed with nonstick spray (I line my pans with large sheets of parchment paper for easy clean-up).

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and stir; continue baking until granola is golden brown, about 30 minutes more, but watch it as oven temperatures vary and yours may either cook more quickly or take longer. Cool completely, add dried fruit if you wish and store in an airtight container.

Makes 10 cups
WW points for 1/4 cup: 2
WW points for 1/2 cup: 5

A Richer but Fabulous Granola From the Dry Creek Kitchen

6 cups rolled oats (not quick cooking)
2 cups almonds, whole or sliced (I use whole almonds from Costco)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 1/2 t. salt
1 T. cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Combine first 8 ingredients in a large bowl. In a pot, melt together brown sugar, honey, maple syrup and butter. Stir well and pour over dry ingredients and toss to coat everything evenly.

Spread in even layers onto two large 10″ by 15″ sheet pans sprayed with nonstick spray.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so, until golden brown. Cool to room temperature and transfer to sealed containers. This granola keeps well and makes a wonderful gift, packaged in a clear bag with a decorative bow. It ships well too.

If you want to be more heart-healthy, you can make this granola with vegetable oil instead of butter, and even halve the recipe, although once you get everything out you may as well go for broke and make the whole batch.

Remember also that you can use whatever nuts or fruits you have on hand. You can also use either all honey or all maple syrup instead of the combination.  Me, I’m a combo kind of gal. I like honey and maple syrup. Yum, yum, yum.

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I’m visiting my girlfriend Kaye in Vail, Colorado, and after only two days I know first-hand why Colorado has the nation’s lowest adult obesity rate.  People come here to be active, skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer. The most common way to get around town is either on foot or bicycle. I know–I have the sore shins to prove it. I don’t think there’s anywhere we haven’t walked (and I’m afraid to ask for fear that Kaye will think of a place we missed and make me walk there). And when we aren’t walking, we’re riding bicycles. No wonder everyone here looks so fit.

Being active is just one facet of Colorado’s healthy lifestyle. They eat well here too. Kaye introduced me to a delicious home made yogurt which we’ve been eating for breakfast with fresh local peaches. Sublime. The recipe comes from an article in the New York Times by food scientist and writer Harold McGee, The Curious Cook.  It’s easy to make, it’s much better than anything you can buy and it costs a fraction of what commercial yogurt costs. You won’t want to settle for anything else once you’ve tasted this.

Breakfast on a sunny Colorado morning

Home Made Yogurt

1 quart 2% milk
2 T. plain commercial yogurt (any kind of commercial yogurt will work)

1. Heat milk in a saucepan to 180 to 190 degrees. (It should just be steaming and beginning to form bubbles)

2. Remove milk from heat and allow to cool to 115 to 120 degrees. (It will feel very warm but not hot)

3. Place the 2 T. of yogurt into a bowl and add a bit of the warm milk. Stir to dissolve the yogurt and add the remaining milk. Cover and keep warm until it sets, at least 4 hours or up to overnight.

There are several ways to keep the yogurt warm. You can wrap several towels around the bowl and place it in a draft-free place, or put it in a turned-off oven with the light on.

Harold said it will set up in 4 hours, but Kaye kept hers in the oven overnight and it turned out perfectly.

Kaye and I experimented with both whole milk and 2 % milk. The yogurt made with the 2% milk was a bit less thick than the whole milk version. I took the 2% yogurt and made Greek-style yogurt, which is thicker than regular, following Harold’s suggestion to spoon the fresh yogurt into a fine-mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth (a paper coffee filter works too), set it over a bowl and let drain an hour or so. This results in a thick, creamy yogurt that tastes much richer than it actually is, and can be used in all sorts of recipes. For more information, go to Harold’s article in the link above.

WW points for 1 cup of low fat yogurt: 3

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