Whole Grain Summer Berry Cobbler

Cobbler is one of my favorite desserts. Totally. I think I could create a whole recipe section based completely on my cobbler variations.

I know in the last post I was talking about all the things I can not eat. Cobbler is definitely one of the things I can not eat. Or at least not very often. Indulging once a week or once every two weeks is probably the max.

Anyways, today I was craving hot sweet fruit and a crispy biscuit crust. I knew I needed to make a cobbler, even if it meant giving it away the next day. Which is what I fully intend on doing by the way. Before bed I'll wrap it up in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge where it can hang out till I can find a happy home for it in the morning.

This cobbler is a little different then normal, because I used all whole grain flour and a bit of whole rolled oats. I also cut the sugar down a bit. Not that I could tell at all, it was still the sweetest thing I have eaten all week!

This kind of dessert is great for a last minute party or potluck offering. You probably have all the ingredients in your house and almost any fruit can be substituted in for the berries I used here. Get creative! Blackberries and peaches? Strawberries and rhubarb? Plums? You get my drift.

Top a generous serving with ice cream and you will be in everyones good books.

Warm up and top with yogurt (or heck, ice cream again) for breakfast and your husband may give you funny looks, but really, whats better then dessert for breakfast? Yeah...nothing.

Whole Garin Summer Berry Cobbler
( adapted from The Joy Of Cooking )

1 cup Whole Grain Flour
1/3 cup Whole Rolled Oats (any kind would work, but thats what I like)
2 tbsp Sugar
2tsp Baking powder
5 tbsp Cold and Hard butter or margarine
1/2 cup Milk

6-8 cups Fresh Fruit, cleaned and cut appropriately, I used 4 cups blueberries and 3 cups raspberries
3 tbsp Cornstrach. This makes your fruit thicker and jam-like, if your fruit is super juicey add an extra tablespoon
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon  (optional...I did not use it this time..)

1. Combine fruit with cornstarch and sugar and cinnamon if desired.
2. Pour into an 8x8 or 9x9 square casserole dish and set aside for a minute.
3. Turn oven on and preheat to 375 degrees F.

4. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium/large bowl.
5. Cut in butter till course crumbs form and no large butter chunks remain.
6. Stir in milk and quickly combine to make a cohesive dough. If the dough is super wet still, add 1 or 2 tbsp flour. Dough will be sticky.
7. Using two spoons, scoop little balls of dough and drop over the top of the fruit. There should be enough dough to almost entirely cover the top of the fruit. There will be tiny holes between dough. That is ok. You can smooth out dough with a angled spatula if you really want.
8. Brush dough lightly with milk and sprinkle 2-4 tbsp sugar over the top. This gives it a nice crunch.
9. Bake at 375 for 45-55 minutes. Check at the 45 minute mark. Cobbler crust should be browned nicely and slightly crunchy. Fruit will probably be bubbling around the edges of the pan. Yum.
10. Cool 10 minutes on the counter and serve warm with ice cream, yogurt, whipping cream or by itself. Also great cold or reheated the next day.

(To reheat, either microwave individual portions, or pop the whole pan in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15 minutes)

Summer

I have not blogged for a bit and to be honest even starting this post is a struggle.

 I have had a huge diet change and many personal challenges that I am dealing with daily. So when I comes to blogging, a pretty personal snapshot into my life, I am at a tricky spot. How much do I share? And how can I keep blogging if I don't share? My blog is real me and it's tricky to just take my heart out of it and pretend things are just going on like normal. Also, I rarely bake anymore and we are eating some pretty weird meals lately. The other night we had baked tilapia, Gary had potatoes, but I had creamed cabbage and raw carrots. Weird.

 Anyways, I have decided to share a bit and then maybe post meals I eat and maybe also steer away from food a bit and find other things I can write about.

 Basically, for health reasons, I have been instructed to follow a low glycemic diet. Which allows me to eat almost all vegetables, fruit, and protein but no sugars and very specific carbohydrates. I can not eat any potatoes, rice, refined grains(rolled oats, flours, etc), and no sugars. The trickier it is for my body to extract the energy, the better.

 The glycemic index measures how long it takes for the sugars from the food to spike your blood sugar levels. All food is rated somewhere on the glycemic index any where from 1 to 100. "low" glycemic foods fall below the 55 mark. There is also a calculation to figure out glycemic load, but it is kinda tricky and I have not totally figured it out yet. Luckily for me, there are a huge amounts of online resources and lists of foods and their glycemic indexes online. I check different things almost daily.

 A typical daily meal plan looks kinda like this

7:30 Breakfast: 1 cup low-fat unsweetened yogurt, 2 tbsp holy crap chia seed cereal with whole buckwheat and hemp, 1 cup berries, 2 tbsp flax meal. 500ml Water.

10:30 Snack: apple slices with cheese/ natural peanut butter/ small handful of nuts. Water.

12:00 lunch: 1 slice Whole grain rye bread( soo heavy, but rye is the lowest glycemic grain), 2 slices natural ham, cheese, 1 egg, 1/4 avocado spread on the bread topped with egg, ham and cheese. Tomato, raw veg with hummus. Water.

2:30 snack: puffed quinoa cereal (treat!!) with milk. Pear. 5 almonds. Water

6:30 dinner: chicken bbqed, Green salad topped with hummus or Taziki instead of dressing. Roasted zucchini and broccoli. Water.

Later dessert?? Yogurt with no sugar added granola(super treat!) that same quinoa cereal, no sugar added ice cream with fruit and seeds. Usually if I had A sweeter 2:30 snack, I would not have a desserty choice.

 I also drink a lot of water. I try for 2l a day. Today it was probably only 1L, but yesterday I drank 3. I peeded a lot. I do drink coffee too. Iced usually, with cream and agave syrup to sweeten it a bit.

If you know anything about the low glycemic diet and have helpful tips, please share them! I am learning and experimenting and can use all the help I can get.

My heart is totally not in the kitchen like it has been. I don't feel the same passion for cooking or baking. Or, actually I do, but it's hidden by my frustration with not being able to enjoy any of it myself. How do you cook and bake and make wholesome meals and just cook without potatoes or flour or sugar or pasta or rice or bread? I used to just open my fridge and pantry, pull things out and make a pretty respectable meal. Now I have to plan and make salads and soak beans all day or whole grain cereals over night. Low glycemic food is not convenience food. You can't just throw together a supper. Unless its eggs. I am sick of eggs.