Orange ginger oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (wheat free, gluten free)

Orange ginger oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (wheat free, gluten free) While oat week is officially over, I just had to share one more recipe from my oat week experiments. I had some trouble making a cookie that was not either rock hard or really bitter thanks to the baking soda. After finding this wonderful exposé on the gluten-free leavening agents necessary for successful baking, I did a few more tests, and voila! I finally ended up with with tasty, hard on the outside, chewy on the inside, wheat free cookies! But wait! Sin of all sins, how can cookies be [...]

Skin beautiful prawn oatmeal curry with turmeric

Skin beautiful prawn oatmeal curry with turmeric It’s Day 6 of Oat Week at The Curious Giraffe! When you think of oats, savoury dishes don't immediately come to mind. Most people think of pairing them with sweet things like apples and cinnamon however they are much more versatile. If you think of replacing rice with oats in certain recipes, it opens up a whole new ballgame! I don't eat a lot of rice, however I love many of the seasonings that come in rice dishes. So I use oats with italian flavourings in risotto-like dishes, or with Thai and Indian spices. It's [...]

Gorgeous vanilla apple crumble (wheat free, sugar free, and gluten free)

Gorgeous vanilla apple crumble (wheat free, sugar free, and gluten free) It’s Day 5 of Oat Week at The Curious Giraffe! One of my favourite ways to use oats is in an apple crumble. The trouble with most crumble recipes is the addition of wheat flour, sugar, and margarine. This recipe cunningly sidesteps these harmful ingredients, while offering a satisfying mouth feel and rich apple vanilla-spice flavouring. I've cut out the normal first step in crumbles which is to cook your apples first in a pot before baking the oat crust in the oven. In this case, we are going to simplify [...]

Blender pancakes with oatmeal and banana (gluten free, heart-healthy)

Blender pancakes with oatmeal and banana (gluten free, heart-healthy) It’s Day 2 of Oat Week at The Curious Giraffe! I am a sucker for pancakes. I think it's because they drop me right into "weekend mode". But the regular wheat-y kind give me a sugar low about 20 minutes after eating them, and all I want to do is take a nap on the couch! So much for Saturday afternoon! Blender pancakes with oatmeal and banana (gluten free, heart-healthy) These oatmeal pancakes taste better to me than the original (egads, is it possible?) They are full of heart friendly goodness as well as [...]

What are the best cooking oils to reduce cholesterol?

What are the best cooking oils to reduce cholesterol? Eat fat, lose weight, drop cholesterol! Seems nuts, right? Fat comes in different types - you've likely heard of saturated, monounsaturdated, and polyunsaturated fats. All of these have different functions.  Fats help cell membranes work and they are not the enemy, or something to be avoided as we have been doing since the 70's when the low-fat craze swept people into a fat-avoidance frenzy. Detailed research—much of it done at Harvard—shows that the total amount of fat in the diet isn't really linked with weight or disease. What really matters is [...]