For Grandma

Last week, my grandmother passed away at the age of 88.  In the end, she wasn't in any pain.  She went to sleep in the hospice one evening and never woke up.  Although I had anticipated she would never meet Pumpkin in person, the confirmation of that fact was still acutely painful. 

Grandma, me, and Leah in April 2010

I wasn't able to travel to Southwestern Ohio to be with my family because of the vertigo and vision problems I have.  I spent many hours on the phone with family, but on Friday, the day of the visitation, I felt the need to do something in her memory.

I ended up in the kitchen.  I spent a lot of time with my grandmother in the her and my parent's kitchen over the years, so it just seemed like the right place to be.  Now that Leah has soccer and ballet on Saturday mornings, I decided to make some breakfast items that we could use to stock up our freezer.  Grandma would have approved.  In her basement, she had a well-stocked pantry.  The shelves contained shelf stable items - canned goods, bottled sauces, box mixes, and the like.  She loved to get a good sale at the grocery store.  She also had an old refrigerator stocked with drinks and an old freezer with all sorts of goodies in it.  That freezer usually had at least a few baked goods in it when we would come to visit.  I also had a bunch of fruit that was nearing the end of its usable life.  Leah had been sick over the prior weekend and refused to eat just about anything but strawberries and applesauce.  That left me with some bananas, blueberries, and cherries that we would not be able to finish before it went bad.  Grandma hated throwing out good food.  Luckily, these fruits are perfect for making freezable breakfast foods - muffins and baked oatmeal.  It is also fortunate that these breakfast foods are so simple to make that they would not bother my vision.  The muffins require a simple mixing of dry ingredients, then wet ingredients, then folding them together, scooping them into the muffin pan (I use an ice cream scoop), and baking.  Baked oatmeal is even easier.  Add everything to one bowl, mix, pour into greased pan, and bake.

I started with banana muffins.  I only had two bananas, about one cup mashed, so that dictated the recipe choice.   I ended up using a basic Mark Bittman How to Cook Everything recipe.  In an attempt to make a healthier muffin and per his suggestion, I used honey instead of sugar and half whole wheat flour.  Now the tricky thing is that I don't eat bananas, so I have no idea how they taste.  Jordan isn't a big muffin fan and is definitely not a big whole wheat fan.  And trying to get a good sense from Leah of how they taste was like trying to make a pig fly.  She ate it, while dipping in applesauce.  Grandma was a big fan of dipping (although she preferred coffee), so that seemed like praise.

Next up was blueberry oatmeal muffins.  These came out perfectly.  They rose beautifully and their tops were decorated with little blue rivers.  The recipe has some vanilla in it also, which was a good addition.  The minute Leah saw them when she came home from school, she started begging for one.  It was clear she loved them.

The final dish was baked cherry oatmeal.  I normally make baked peanut butter oatmeal, but I poked around on the internet and adjusted a few recipes to make my own.  I added a touch of almond extract and the end result is pretty darn tasty.  By the time the visitation was starting several states away, I had 12 banana muffins, 15 blueberry muffins, and a 13" by 9" pan of baked oatmeal. 

 Recipe for Baked Cherry Oatmeal

Ingredients

3 cups old fashioned oats
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
1 cup milk (I used soy because Jordan cannot have milk)
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup pitted and chopped cherries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 13" by 9" pan with cooking spray.  I usually use a pyrex pan for baked oatmeal.  In a large mixing bowl, add dry ingredients and then wet ingredients.  This recipe is extremely forgiving, so if you add something out of order, it isn't a big deal.  Use a spatula to combine the mixture.  Pour into the prepared pan.  Bake for 30 minutes or so, until a knife in the center comes out clean and the top is nicely browned.  Allow to cool completely before cutting or else your bars will fall apart.  (It does taste great right out of the oven though).  I always refrigerate or freeze the baked bars.