Beyond oatmeal

I am a fan of healthy eating, and one person whose opinion about this I respect is Bob Harper, the veteran fitness coach on the NBC television show "The Biggest Loser." Bob also gives tips for those of us who don't need to lose 50, 100 or more pounds but still could benefit from more exercise and healthier eating. On the side of healthier eating, one thing he recommends is starting your morning out with oatmeal. I don't know if he's gone Paleo, but this is an especially good tip if you are Paleo, because most breakfast cereals are not part of a Paleo diet.

But oatmeal doesn't have to be eaten by itself. You can top off your oatmeal with fruit, brown sugar or maple syrup. Buy a box of the variety instant oatmeal, and you have that already. I prefer the Quaker oatmeal in the round box. The quick-cooking variety takes no longer than instant oatmeal to cook. You can add fresh fruit and the other toppings.

I recently came upon a collection of recipes in one of my cookbooks that had a lot more than these toppings. Nuts. Chocolate chips. Coconut. I did something like this. I added pecans, chocolate covered raisins and coconut that was past its prime (tastes very good soaked in oatmeal and milk.). This was one of the tastiest bowls of oatmeal ever, and definitely the crunchiest.  I don't know if Bob Harper would approve, but i don't think there is anything bad in my toppings, especially since that chocolate on the raisins was dark chocolate. Yum.

Los Angeles County Fair time!

For several years now, I have been thinking about entering my banana nut bread into the Los Angeles County Fair. That's because even before then, Don has really praised this bread of mine. What has stopped me? The fact that I haven't entered ANYTHING into a county fair since I was in high school, and no home ec projects since I was in junior high school. (My junior year in high school I entered a science project.) I kind of thought entering county fairs were for kids and retirees. The fact that the Los Angeles County Fair is larger than even the California State Fair didn't change my mind. I just figured there were lots of kids and retirees in southern California entering stuff.

But a few things have changed my mind in the past year. First of all, in 2011 a former friend of mine, Sarah, entered something. I can't remember what, and we didn't go to the fair. Sarah is a 30-something who is into all kinds of culinary coolness. I especially like her Asian food creations, (she is the American born child of Chinese immigrants) but I don't think Asian Food is a category you can enter at the fair.

Second of all, I have won a cooking competition in the past year. The Sandals Cupcake Wars competition gave me the opportunity to win the "best cake" award.

Thirdly, somewhere in between the last county fair and the Cupcake Wars, or maybe shortly before or after, I knew I wanted to make myself more well known as a foodie. If I have food on display at this very well-attended fair, perhaps with a ribbon on it, that would help!

So I am going to enter the banana nut bread, at long last. Since those wonderful cupcakes were based on a pumpkin bread recipe, I am also going to enter pumpkin bread, with the same secret ingredient (fresh pumpkin instead of canned) my winning cupcakes had.

I have until August 3 to figure out if I want to enter anything else. I would really LOVE to make the pumpkin bread as cupcakes again and enter it into two other cooking contests the Los Angeles County Fair is having this year. That's the pumpkin recipe contest and its own version of Cupcake Wars, the Cupcake Baking Contest. But, I think having already been entered into Sandals' competition, I would be breaking the rules if I entered the exact same cupcake into either of these fair competitions. But I'm keeping an open mind. If I stumble upon another fabulous pumpkin recipe or another fabulous cupcake recipe, and can prove to myself either is so wonderful I have to share the finished creation with complete strangers, I will enter one of those contests too. Or maybe one of the many others.

If you live in southern California, and would like to enter something in the Los Angeles County Fair too, here is more information.

Macaroni without cheese

This is not for vegans or paleos, but for anyone who just wants a low-calorie pasta in a creamy sauce, I present to you pasta without cheese. This is modified from one of my older cookbooks.

PASTA WITHOUT CHEESE

Cook 1/2 package of pasta, (i.e. macaroni, rigatone, shells, penne) according to package directions.

Make white sauce by blending 1 Tbsp. flour, 1 Tbsp melted butter in skillet. Add up to 1 cup milk, until your white sauce is desired consistency. Add a little salt and pepper, and a squirt of brown or Dijon mustard.

You may add the pasta after blending a little milk and the seasonings into the sauce, or you may add your cooked macaroni into the finished sauce.

You can add other things. I added ham. You can even add cheese if you want to, but then it's more like a traditional macaroni and cheese, especially if you used macaroni.