Maple Oatmeal Clafouti... Yes, I Only Got the One Good Picture of It

Introducing another fabulous guest recipe by The Chickenless Chick's mom!

Now I have to warn you- and I doubt I'm embarrassing her by saying this- my mom is no chicken in the kitchen; and this is a far cry from traditional clafouti, which I find quite bland. So if you're looking for an exemplary clafouti, then I'm sorry I wrote the word clafouti on this page so many times that the search engine picked it up... clafouti clafouti clafouti. (Meh, I'm not that sorry... I'll take hits where I can get 'em.)

Maple Oatmeal Clafouti

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups old fashioned oats (uncooked)

¾ cups brown sugar

¾ cup dried cherries or cranberries

¾ cup walnuts (optional)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ tsp maple extract (or 1 tbs vanilla if you don’t have maple)

1 ½ tsp apple cider vinegar

2 cups milk

2 eggs (whipped)

1 large tart apple, like Granny Smith, diced

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil or grease 13 x9 casserole dish. (Filippo Berio extra light olive oil comes in a nice little spray pump now if you don’t have your own sprayer.)

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, whip eggs. Stir in milk, vanilla, maple, and vinegar. Add to dry ingredients, and mix together. Stir in apple. (It will look watery and gloppy. Don’t panic!)

Pour into casserole dish. Spread the solids around evenly throughout the wet mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees, 50 minutes. Test with toothpick for doneness.

Cool slightly and cut into twelve squares.

Top with homemade applesauce, plain or vanilla yogurt, and drizzle with grade B maple syrup (for a more intense maple flavor).

Simple Applesauce

Ingredients

3-4 apples (I like to mix sweet and tart – like 2 MacIntosh and 1 Granny Smith, for instance.)

3 T. brown sugar (optional)

1 T. lightly salted butter (optional)

2 T. water

Directions

Chop apples, add to pan with water. Bring to boil on medium heat, stirring often.

Add butter and sugar, turn heat down and simmer 10-15 minutes depending how chunky you like your applesauce.

Thank you, Chickenless Chick's Mom, for indulging my blog addiction and letting me share your recipe with my food nerd friends!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

End-of-the-Week Recap: A Glitch in the Culinary Matrix, Virtual-Saturday Crepes, Oatmeal Clafouti, and Two Kreativ Blogger Awards(!!!!)

The rest of my compulsory vegetarian week was a disaster. Broccoli rabe is really, really freaking bitter if you don't treat it right. So bitter that I'm afraid I might have given my husband and myself irreversible tannic poisoning.

And check out this spoon! My New Orlasian Red Beans and Rice came out so thick that I pulled a Neo.

The only as-yet-unmentioned meal I cooked last week that I'm proud of was the Nutella Crepes With Honey and Sliced Nanners pictured below, and it wasn't my recipe. I followed Jane Brody's for Basic Crepes near-verbatim. You can find it on page 502 of Jane Brody's Good Food Book. Or not, since I've taken the liberty of reprinting it for you here.

Basic Crepes

from Jane Brody's Good Food Book

Ingredients

1 egg

Pinch salt (she says to omit it if you're making sweet crepes; of course I was like, "Whatevs!")

1/2 c. all-purpose flour

5/8 c. milk

1 tsp. sugar (omit for savory crepes)

1/4 tsp. vanilla (ditto)

2 Tbsp. melted butter, divided

Directions

Beat everything except 1 Tbsp. of butter together in a mixing bowl. Heat a small pan with sloping sides over medium-low to medium heat (not quite high enough to burn your butter). Dab some of the reserved butter on the pan and spread it around. Pour enough crepe batter in to barely cover the bottom of the pan and tilt the pan around to even it out. When you start to see bubbles in the batter, lift the edge with a spatula every ten seconds or so to see if the bottom is sufficiently browned. When it is, flip the crepe and cook about 15 seconds on the other side. Remove it from the pan and plate it (or set it on wax paper if storing). Lather, rinse, repeat. Makes 8-9 small crepes. I spread Nutella on mine, folded them in quarters, and served with sliced nanners and a drizzle of holly honey.

Do you have a favorite crepe filling or topping? Feel free to share!

Thursday was Virtual Saturday for my husband, since he took a four-day weekend. You may have noticed that I skipped Chickenless Cook yet again this week due to some out-of-townage. We were at my mom's place eating this:

Oatmeal clafouti. I am not a huge clafouti fan; most traditional recipes are too bland for my taste. These however were excellent topped with plain yogurt, applesauce, and maple syrup. My mom and I will tweak this recipe and probably share it with you later. Thanks for hosting, Chickenless Chick's Mom!

Last and certainly not least, Janis at Bite Me New England and Robin at Vegetable Matter have each bestowed upon me the unspeakable honor of a Kreativ Blogger Award! These are The Chickenless Kitchen's first awards ever. I am mega-excited and flattered to no end. Thanks, Janis and Robin!

Now, lest the Award Police come in the night and take them away from me, I have to tell you seven interesting things about myself and nominate seven other blogs for the award. Here goes.

Seven Interesting Things About The Chickenless Chick

1) The cookbook that originally hooked me was Almost Vegetarian by Diana Shaw... even though I eat red meat.

2) My favorite restaurant growing up was Chili's.

3) My favorite restaurants now are locally owned and operated. Both happen to be Mexican, though El Coqui also serves Puerto Rican food and Da Kine Diego's can more accurately be described as Cal-Mex.

4) When I was three or so, all I ate without complaint were Kraft Singles and tomatoes. If I had to pick only two foods to eat for the rest of my life, they would still be cheese and tomatoes... though I think a Kraft Single would turn me green at this point.

5) My favorite drink is gin and club soda with lime and Angostura bitters... yes, I know, I am a ninety-year-old man.

6) You know how most people either have rhythm or don't? I have it sometimes.

7) I hardly ever open my mouth in group social settings. One through five are probably all news to my closest friends.

My Nominees (in Alphabetical Order)

1) Color Hungry

2) Furey and the Feast

3) Sweet Water

4) Tasty Eats at Home

5) Tasty Trix

6) The Gourmet Goddess

7) The Ungourmet

I am a writer, so chickenless writing was my foremost consideration in choosing my nominees. Anyone can post a recipe, but these ladies (the fact that they are all ladies is sheer coincidence btw) make us feel like we're right there in the kitchen with them. Each is honest and bold, but each has her own special voice. I am delighted to follow all their blogs. Thanks to them for brightening my days!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.