Tag Archives: cinnamon

Apple Pressing Party

 
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Chris: I’ve been brewing hard cider for many years, but have switched to other brews in recent years because I haven’t been able to find any good unfiltered juice for the $4/gallon that it used to go for during the fall.  However, I have been long intrigued by the thought of starting the brewing process earlier by pressing my own juice, and so I decided to try to beat the market by pooling resources with some friends, buying about 1/3 ton of apples, and hosting what I ended up calling an old fashioned apple pressing party and potluck.  We had a great time and learned a lot about apples and apple presses, especially the part about why good apple juice no longer costs $4/gallon.


Apple Pressing Party

So I went about collecting juice orders from about 10 friends, and tried my best to guess at how many apples would be required to hit the 40-45 gallons that we all wanted.  Based on a number that turned out to be way off base, that came to 630 pounds.  After factoring in the cost of renting a cider press and crusher from a local brewing supply store, I guessed that it would cost somewhere around $8 per gallon, which sounded pretty reasonable compared to the $12-15 that organic unfiltered apple juice can cost in the store, especially if I could also pick the kinds of apples that were going into the juice (Honeycrisp are Jessica’s favorite).  Too bad my information and my math were wrong. Continue reading

Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Cardamom Yogurt

 
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Soon after I graduated from pastry school, I got a job at the wonderful 11th Avenue Inn on Capitol Hill in Seattle. It was a dream job, especially coming from being a bottom-of-the-totem-pole pastry cook at a large restaurant. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to be able to see the faces of the people I cooked for every morning, to talk to them and see they were enjoying my food. Not only that, but I got to plan the menus, do the shopping and order equipment. You know, like an actual, real-live chef.

My favorite of that second sort of task was the opportunity to come up with new dishes, which leads us to today’s recipe. (You’ll notice that it’s still on their list of sample breakfasts, although I have to say that I never put papaya on it, mostly because I have yet to meet a papaya I’ve got on with well.) This oatmeal was my star contribution to the breakfast lineup, the only one that really stuck, the only one that it was imperative to leave the recipe behind when I had to leave long before I ever wanted to.

Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Mango, Toasted Coconut Flakes and Cardamom Yogurt

At the Inn, there were several discussions about what to call the oatmeal. I have to admit, it was a hard sell every morning I made it. When you say “oatmeal”, most people think of the instant kind that you hide under lots of milk, brown sugar and raisins (if you fall on the pro-raisin side of things). Even qualifying it with “steel-cut” didn’t do much good. This was a few years ago, and steel-cut oatmeal wasn’t on the average American’s radar yet. It needed a good name to recommend it to the uninitiated.

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Spiced Ginger Steel-Cut Oatmeal

 
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This recipe owes its beginnings to Alton Brown’s Steel Cut Oatmeal recipe, as it evolved after making Alton’s version until I could do it in my sleep. It was created for the breakfast menu at the lovely 11th Avenue Inn in Seattle during my time there.

To experience this oatmeal in its full glory (and to see more detailed, illustrated instructions and extra tips and tricks), check out The Tiger’s Oatmeal, which is served with cardamom yogurt, toasted coconut flakes and tropical fruit.

Ingredients

1 cup steel-cut oats
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon Continue reading