cherry cobbler

 Moving into a new refrigerator, I realized I have a bunch of frozen not super great cherries to eat up. they're fine and I ate a lot fresh when I picked them from a new friend's backyard, but they're not the best ever.  They need some doctoring.  this cherry cobbler to the rescue.  As always, cutting the sugar drastically. 

Ingredients

Fruit

• 4-6 cups pitted cherries, fresh or frozen
• 1/3-1/2 cup sugar
• 2-3 T corn starch (use 3 T if frozen cherries)
• 2 T (fresh) lemon juice
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract 

Cobbler

• 6 T butter
• 1 cup flour
• 1/3-1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup milk

Put fruit mixture on stove top and simmer briefly, stirring.

Heat oven to 350 degrees and put butter pats into 9x13 pan.  Put pan in oven as it preheats to melt.

Combine dry cobbler ingredients, then add milk just to mix and spread over butter in pan.  Put fruit mix on top.

Bake about 40 minutes, until browned on top. 
 

baked oatmeal

This was super tasty, though I found it too sweet with 1/3 c. maple syrup and 1 T sugar over the top, and more desserty than breakfasty (I never have sugar for breakfast).  Excellent with yogurt!

Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

Ingredients

• ⅔ cup roughly chopped pecans
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt (or ½ teaspoon regular table salt)
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 ¾ cups milk
• ⅓ cup maple syrup or honey
• 2 large eggs or flax eggs
• 3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter or coconut oil, divided
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 12 ounces or 1 pint fresh or frozen blueberries (or 2 ½ cups of your preferred berry/fruit, chopped into ½” pieces if necessary), divided - I used 3small gala apples on bottom and blueberries on top and it was super tasty.  I think it might be good with carrots and apples, too. 
  
• 2 teaspoons raw sugar (optional)
• Optional toppings for serving: plain/vanilla yogurt or whipped cream, additional maple syrup or honey for drizzling, and/or additional fresh fruit

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9-inch square baking dish. Once the oven has finished preheating, pour the nuts onto a rimmed baking sheet. Toast for 4 to 5 minutes, until fragrant.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the oats, toasted nuts, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Whisk to combine.
3. In a smaller mixing bowl, combine the milk, maple syrup or honey, egg, half of the butter or coconut oil, and vanilla. Whisk until blended. (If you used coconut oil and it solidified in contact with the cold ingredients, briefly microwave the bowl in 30 second increments, just until the coconut oil melts again.)
4. Reserve about ½ cup of the berries for topping the baked oatmeal, then arrange the remaining berries evenly over the bottom of the baking dish (no need to defrost frozen fruit first). Cover the fruit with the dry oat mixture, then drizzle the wet ingredients over the oats. Wiggle the baking dish to make sure the milk moves down through the oats, then gently pat down any dry oats resting on top.
5. Scatter the remaining berries across the top. Sprinkle some raw sugar on top if you’d like some extra sweetness and crunch.
6. Bake for 42 to 45 minutes, until the top is nice and golden. Remove your baked oatmeal from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. Drizzle the remaining melted butter on the top before serving.
7. I prefer this baked oatmeal served warm, but it is also good at room temperature or chilled (I’ll leave that up to you!). This oatmeal keeps well in the refrigerator, covered, for 4 to 5 days. I simply reheat individual portions in the microwave before serving.

super simple apple dip

I am not much for sauces, but I'm a fiend for a good dip. I can eat bushels of raw vegetables with a fresh ranch dip (OK, now I'm craving ...). For Thanksgiving the hostess served (amongst 3,000 other things) sliced apples with caramel dip, and I could not stop gorging myself. If I had any shame, I would be embarrassed, but it had probably been years since I'd had caramel.

On my recent monster roadtrip, I munched apples and carrots along the way, and when I replenished I bought a big bag of Trader Joe's already-sliced apples, which was a LOT of apples. It got me craving caramel but all the recipes I saw were rather elaborate and for huge quantities.

But then I thought of dulce de leche and OH SNAP was that ever easy. All you need is a can of sweetened condensed milk (which I happened to have on hand for Vietnamese coffee) and a large pot!

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Place the unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a large pot, covered with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a bubbling simmer for about 90 minutes. (Many people said 3 hours or so, but 90 minutes was a perfect consistency and who wants to boil for three hours??)

Be sure to keep the can covered with water (or it could explode). Mine didn't need water replenishment, but if you boil longer or harder it could.

Remove can from water and let cool. Open can, pour in to container and serve. I liked it warm and also chilled.

Note: This is a lot of sugar and fat and calories. Share!