Welcome! + Pumpkin Pie for Breakfast

Welcome to the launch of Until We Meat Again, a collaborative food project. To learn more about us, click here. To learn more about my desire to eat pumpkin pie for breakfast every day, keep reading...

So last week was American Thanksgiving. Even though I don't currently live in America, I do love any excuse to make a tremendous amount of food and foist it on guests until they beg for mercy. (You can take the girl outta the Midwest, but you can't take the Midwest outta the girl....) So I threw a big feast for some friends here, although I did give a nod to the fact that roasting meat is completely weather-inappropriate for Sydney in November and did my turkey on the barbeque!

Feast! Also: Photo-bombed by of jack-o-lantern.

But everyone knows the real meaning of Thanksgiving is having an excuse to eat endless amount of pie. (These people know what I'm talking about.) And every year, I set out on a brave experiment to challenge the assumption that woman cannot live on pie alone. And every year, I eventually am thwarted by three silly factors:

• I run out of pie. 
• I am too lazy to make more pie. 
• I finally admit to myself that eating that much sugar, particularly for breakfast, starts to make me feel a bit ill. Because apparently, I'm old now.

Then I get a little heart-broken that I can't eat pumpkin pie for breakfast every day. Why, cruel world, why?

Pumpkin Pie: The Best Breakfast Pie. Seriously, just look at it. I want that in my belly NOW.
Oh, wait, I already put all that in my belly, which is why there is no more of it.

So this year, I decided to fight back. I was inspired to turn my love of pumpkin pie into a breakfast food appropriate for everyday breakfast.
To do so, it needed to meet the following Conditions of Breakfast Pie Alternatives:

• Be delicious, obviously. In the most pumpkin pie way possible.
• Be easy to prepare, no more than 15 minutes from starting prep to eating. Ain't nobody got time for more than that in the morning.
• Be low in sugar.
• Be composed of ingredients that would make me feel full and ready to go for the day, not crash-and-burn after 30 minutes.

So far, I've come up with two--Pumpkin-Oatmeal Pancakes and Pumpkin Pie Breakfast Mug. Both can also be adapted to be gluten and/or dairy-free without losing too much tasty as well and both left me feeling full for a couple of hours after I ate them. I'm generally making daily breakfast stuff just for myself, so each recipe is scaled for one serve but can easily be scaled up.

So without further ado....

Pumpkin-Oatmeal Pancakes
Prep/Cook Time: About 10 minutes
Servings: 1 (1 giant pancake or 3 smaller ones) 

Ingredients
(Australian Customary, although it's not fussy)
1/4 cup oats of your choice
1/4 cup milk/milk alternative
1/4 cup pureed pumpkin
1 TBSP flour/flour alternative of your choice (I've used white, buckwheat, and LSA, and all seem fine)
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
Small splash of oil. Maybe 1/2 tsp if you're into measuring.
About 5 shakes of each nutmeg, cinnamon, & powder ginger, 2 shakes of cloves
  
Special Equipment: Food processor. This is optional, but really helps when you're making pancakes that are mostly oats, as it breaks them up a bit and makes it overall more "batter" and less "liquid with oats floating in it." There's enough liquid in this that you could probably use a blender instead. If you don't have either and will be stirring by hand, I would use a fairly processed type of oats, like rolled or quick oats, rather than steel-cut/minimally processed oats.

Instructions:
1. Start pre-heating a skillet on the stove. Add all the ingredients to your food processor (if using) or bowl.

I know you really needed a picture to illustrate how to add things to a food processor.
It's not just that the picture looked kind of cool to me.

2. Run the food processor for 20-30 seconds (or stir really vigorously!). You may have to scrape the sides down once or twice to get it blended well enough to process. It should break the oats down a bit to form a nice batter:

It should look like pumpkin pie batter, but with bits of oats floating in it.

3. Check that the skillet it hot enough. (For those of you new to pancake-making, a pan is considered good for pancakes if you flick a couple drips of water on it and they start to sizzle. If they don't start sizzling turn up the heat or pre-heat a few more minutes. If the water evaporates immediately (generally gives more of a hiss than a sizzle), turn the heat down and pick up the pan for a few second to cool.)

4. Spray the pan with cooking spray or add a bit of oil and swirl it around. Then, either spoon the batter into three small pancakes or be cool like me and dump it all in to make a mega-cake. I do find with oatmeal-based batters, I generally need to spread the batter around a bit with my spoon--it doesn't spread as well on its own as flour-based batters.

MEGA-CAKE!

5. Once the pancake has set and is pretty brown on one side, flip it and cook the other side until it's brown. Then, dump on a plate and enjoy! I had mine with a bit of leftover whipped cream with a touch of maple syrup stirred in it (which was delicious, but made my cream go kind of flat).

NOM NOM NOM.

Verdict: On a scale of 0-5 pumpkin pies, I give it about a 3. Satisfies the craving to eat pumpkin pie for breakfast, but is missing the smooth tasty texture of pumpkin pie. Luckily, I found that in the next recipe....

Pumpkin Pie Breakfast Mug 
Prep/Cook Time: About 5 minutes
Servings: 1 

Ingredients
(Australian Customary, although, again, not fussy)
1/4 cup oats of your choice
1 TBSP milk/milk alternative (The more fat, the more like actual pumpkin pie this will be.)
1/4 cup pureed pumpkin
1 egg yolk OR egg white (not a whole egg--it's too much. I generally make this two days in a row, using half the egg each time)
1/4 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
Small splash of vanilla
About 5 shakes of each nutmeg, cinnamon, & powder ginger, 2 shakes of cloves 
1/2 tsp or so of brown sugar, for sprinkling

Special Equipment: A microwave and a mug. A bowl or jar would probably work for the mug, although you may need to play with cooking times. I've never tried to bake a mug recipe instead of microwaving it, and typically the proportions of things are a bit different. I'd probably find a different recipe if you don't have a microwave, although if you experiment and it works, let me know!

Are you familiar with mug recipes? Basically, it's when you take a mini-version of a full-sized recipe and adjust the proportions to that it will cook in a microwave in a mug. They're perfect for when you want a sweet treat NOW, when you don't want to make a full recipe of something because you know you'll eat it all by yourself in two days if you do (just me?), or when you can't agree with your partner/housemate/child about what to have for dessert. I also have gotten on a kick of baked oatmeal in a mug--I love oats but hate porridge, and cold or reheated baked oatmeal just isn't the same. If you don't know mug recipes, forget about me and go check out the wonder that is mug recipes. I'll wait.

Back? Let's get started.

Instructions:
1. Mix everything except the oats and the brown sugar in the mug.

2. Now you have one of two options.
Option 1:You can mix the oats in with everything else once the goop is blended, which is typical mug recipe procedure (one of the benefits of mug recipes is only getting one thing dirty). HOWEVER, I've found that the texture of this is so great (close to actual pie, that I want some of it's that's not interrupted by oatmeal. So I tried...
Option 2: Scoop out about half the goop. Mix the oats with remaining goop. Put scooped-out goop back on top. This is more effort but also more reminiscent of pumpkin pie--you get a "crust" layer and a layer that's pure squishy goodness.

Option 2 in the making.

3. Microwave your mug for about 1 minute. Check it. Does it look cooked on the top or is it still glossy? Has the cooked batter started to pull away from the edges of the mug? (It probably needs a bit more time, unless your microwave is magically strong. Mine is not.) Put back in for about 30 seconds and check again. If it still doesn't look done, repeat in 15 second bursts until the top looks cooked and set. (I generally need 1m30 for a regular baked oatmeal mug and 1m45 for a pumpkin one.)

This is mine after 1 minute. See how the middle is glossy and goopy, and the edge is starting to set but not pull away from the mug? This means it's not done yet.

In the future, you will be tempted to just microwave it the length of time you discovered it needed to cook. This is a path of sadness. Every time I've done this, it's popped while cooking, leaving me with oatmeal goop on the top of the microwave and a hole in my baked oatmeal (and my heart).

4. Once it's done, sprinkle a bit of brown sugar on top and enjoy! I use just shy of 1/2 tsp, adjust more or less according to your sweet tooth.

Additional NOM NOM NOM. Also note that I can tell it's done because the baked oatmeal has pulled away from the side of the mug all around and the top is set, not glossy. (The brown glassy bits you do see is the brown sugar melted on top.)

Verdict: With Option 1, I'd give it 3.5 pumpkin pies out of 5. But with Option 2, I'd bump that up to a 4. It's obviously not as good as real pumpkin pie, but the texture nearly nails it. 

Now it's to you! If you end up making these recipes, how do you score them on a scale of 0-5 pumpkin pies? What ideas do you have for pie-for-breakfast substitutes that meet the Conditions of Breakfast Pie Alternatives? What is your favorite post-holiday breakfast pie?