What do you do with your leftover oatmeal?
Make cookies? Eat it anyway? Add it to pancake batter?
*whispers* Hide it in chocolate cake? 😉
Friday’s Deals & Steals round up on Facebook mentioned a free 20-page download of the eBook From Garbage to Gourmet. It’s a book that’s been on my “want to read” list for quite some time now, so I was going to take advantage of the freebie myself when the author of the book Carrie Issac sent me an email, telling me that you guys were the perfect audience for the book.
Well shoot, I thought. Now I HAVE to check it out!
I cuddled up with my copy of the book and while the kids played camping in their tent, I read the whole book cover to cover. Holy smokes, am I so glad I did!
You guys know I’m serious about not wasting food. We eat leftovers, we plan our meals and use food twice whenever possible because wasting food is essentially wasting money. Admittedly though, there’s always room for improvement.
I can be lazy. I don’t always want to eat the bruised apple. Food has begun to spoil in my fridge when life got busy and I ran out of time to do something with it.
To say Carrie is passionate about not wasting food is an understatement. She knows just what to do with that bruised apple so that it doesn’t ever hit the trash can. Got limp celery? There’s a fix for that. And what about the leftover soaked oatmeal that the kids weren’t crazy about to begin with? Turn it into cake!
From Garbage to Gourmet has it all covered, and then some. It is the ultimate guide for foods that fall into the what-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-this-now category, but really, it’s so much more than that.
The no-food-left-behind way Carrie approaches food rubs off on you. Reading her tips on using up half an avocado or the ears of corn sparks the inner-Tiffany to be less wasteful and more creative with the food I do have so that in the long run, I’m not only being a good steward of my money I have, but being a good steward of what I’ve spent my money on.
Her last bit of advice in the introduction really hits home with me too. She talks about the guilt of waste – the awful feeling in our gut when we see something in our fridge or pantry that we know we won’t eat, but don’t want to throw away because we know we spent money on it and throwing it in the trash can would be the epitome of wasting money.
I TOTALLY get that; don’t you?
From Garbage to Gourmet has recipes, but I don’t think that’s the best part. Don’t get me wrong – the recipes are GOOD! In fact I’m sharing one today that’s based off a recipe in the book and it got three thumbs up (Mr. Crumbs wasn’t available for testing).
I really think the best part of the book is the changed mind set it brings. It doesn’t just tell you what to do with your leftover food. It gives you hope that you can really use up every last bit of food you have. That your hard-earned money won’t go down the garbage disposal without a good fight!
I chose to make a version of Carrie’s Leftover Oatmeal Chocolate Snack Cake because we almost always have leftover soaked oatmeal come Tuesday. If I forget to soak it with yogurt instead of kefir or apple cider vinegar, we’ll have leftovers on Monday.
It also has two of my most favorite words in the title: chocolate. cake. If I could somehow figure a way to use up leftover soaked oatmeal AND make chocolate cake at the same time… well shoot, I’d be silly not to give it a shot!
So I took her recipe and modified it just a bit by using wheat flour, reducing the sugar, using yogurt instead of milk, coconut oil instead of butter and adding leftover coffee (another tip found in the book). We thought the cake was delicious and certainly one to keep around. The ingredients could be swapped with whatever you happen to have on hand, and you could easily add more oatmeal too (which are those lighter colored specks in the cake), and we’ll definitely do that next time.
- 1 cup wheat flour
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup granulated sweetener
- ½ cup coconut oil (or butter)
- 2 Tbsp leftover brewed coffee, optional
- ¼ cup yogurt (or buttermilk or milk)
- 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 egg
- 1 - 1½ cups leftover cooked oatmeal
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ¼ cup chocolate chips
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or butter an 8x8 glass baking dish. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
- In a small sauce pan, melt coconut oil. Remove from heat and add yogurt, cocoa powder and sugar and stir until well blended and sugar is dissolved. Add egg, oatmeal and vanilla, stirring until thoroughly combined.
- Fold the cocoa mixture into the flour mixture until just, but thoroughly, moistened. Pour into the baking dish and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Got some leftovers that you’re not sure what to do with? From Garbage to Gourmet has an index in the back that lists the ingredients in alphabetical order, making the leftover dilemma quick and easy to resolve. Next to her tips on using up food items you’ll find over 80 recipes that are worth of feeding company – and they’ll never know they’re eating leftovers!
Don’t think you have $10 worth of excess food? Carrie challenges you to keep a log of every food item you throw away for a few days to a week. Every single thing you throw away must be logged. Everything. Complete her challenge and see how much it adds up to. I bet the total will be more than you thought!
Got a tip for using up leftover oatmeal? Leave it in the comments!
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What a great use of leftover coffee grounds and oatmeal! It really sounds like a decadent dessert, and I love that there are some healthy ingredients in there to make it less guilty. I am going to pin this and I see myself making it in the very near future 🙂
I also try hard to avoid wasting food. It happens at my house too, because life has a habit of getting in the way of my plans, but I think it’s fantastic to make concerted efforts at utilizing good food. Glad you shared this on Natural Living Monday!
Please let me know how you like it Andrea!
I believe it is left over coffee and NOT the coffee grounds. it helps with the moistness.
Mmmmm… this recipe makes me hungry! 🙂
Yum! I make oatmeal for my daughters, and they often don’t eat it all so I’ll put it in pancakes for them the next day. I bet we’d all enjoy this too! 🙂
If they have no clue oatmeal is in pancakes, cake is a sure fire bet, lol! ~Tiffany
Ok I am going to make this cake today and I will let you know how it turns out.
How did it turn out Rebecca?
Hi, Tiffany,
I am about to make this with leftover oatmeal — it uses some brewed leftover coffee, not the grounds, yes? Someone said she was using the grounds which might be cool but a bit too crunchy for my taste.
I’ll let you know how company tonight likes it.
Tara
Yes Tara, use the coffee, not the grounds – although the coffee is completely optional. No need to make some if you don’t already have some made. 🙂 I hope your company likes it!!
This was absolutely delicious and very easy to make. I was surprised at how tasty and rich textured it was. Didn’t have any leftover coffee, did have some raisins in the morning oatmeal so I added a few more. Outstanding recipe — I will intentionally make extra oatmeal now and then for this recipe, with its quite easy ingredients. I used butter rather than coconut oil because was easier to measure lol.
Tara
Just got this in the fridge to bake for breakfast in the morning. Yummy! Thanks 🙂
I had to comment because this recipe is SO similar to my all time favorite cake from childhood that my grandma used to make! 🙂 I’ve never seen another version of it. Hers uses more chocolate chips (both mixed into the batter AND sprinkled on top), and adds chopped nuts on top too. I’ve adapted it to use whole grains and honey (http://homewithpurpose.net/2013/07/nannys-oatmeal-chocolate-chip-cake-an-all-time-favorite.html) and make it on a regular basis…it’s a staple at family and church gatherings for us! I’m going to have to add the coffee next time! I never thought to do that, though I do add teecino (which is similar) to my sourdough chocolate cake.
Hi Kara! More chocolate is never a bad thing. 🙂 I hadn’t thought of considering it for church gatherings… that would make my life MUCH easier knowing I could just use leftover oatmeal, lol. Sourdough chocolate cake? Oh my!
This was amazing!! My mom has a bad habit of leaving her oatmeal in the microwave because she’s in too big a rush to take time and eat it. I tried eating it by adding bananas and honey into it, but I really wasn’t in the mood for oatmeal. I searched up how to use leftover oatmeal, and came across this! I used coconut sugar, nonfat Greek yogurt, and dark chocolate chunks instead. I’m so hooked onto it now!! It tastes soo good and it feels nice knowing that it’s not that bad for my health. 🙂 Thanks so much for posting!
You’re most welcome Kelly! Your rendition sounds really good – dark chocolate?! YUM!!
I just made this delicious cake.
It is so easy, tender, chocolatey, moist and thrifty!
Will defintely be making this again and again!
Thanks for the post!
You’re welcome Sherry!
This is amazing! I made it today after soaking the wheat flour in the yogurt overnight. My leftover steel cut oatmeal had also been soaked before it was cooked. When I made the oatmeal I added cashews, almonds and walnuts in the soak, so those were incorporated, too! It came out so good! I can’t wait for my son to fall asleep for nap time so I can go sneak some more! Thank you for this great recipe!!
You’re most welcome Jennifer! The nut combination sounds so good – enjoy!!
The link to “From Garbage to Gourmet” is broken, as it appears to be on every other blog I tried. Do you know what’s going on?
Hi Janice! The author of the book had to commit her time to her family, and therefore wasn’t able to support the book anymore. A shame, since it was a great product! 🙁
would she allow you to take it over and share it? I have a couple things I’ve done that I don’t have time to publish, and a friend who publishes, and we are planning to work out a deal where one of us pays the other and then has the rights to the ebooklets.
Hi Janice! She’s asked, but purchasing the books and rights was out of our budget. 🙁
If it helps, it is available on Amazon for kindle for $4.99. I guess it depends if you want it enough to pay that for it.
Willow,
I’m glad to hear that. i couldn’t even find it for sale. Now the problem is I don’t have a kindle……… surely, I can figure a way around that.
Janice – you can read any eBook on a computer. Amazon has a program you can download for free. 🙂
I just made this cake using leftover oatmeal and it is soooo good. What a great way to use food that would have gone in the trash! Thank you! I look forward to making it again with nuts and chocolate chips inside. Yummy! My grandchildren will love this cake and will never guess it is good for them! I won’t feel guilty giving them this kind of dessert.
Thanks Patty! I need to put this on our own menu soon. I’m needing some healthier chocolate cake!!
Hello! I don’t have any square baking pans but I have a small, deep, metal loaf pan I could use. What change in cooking time would you recommend? Lower temperature?
I just put it in the oven and I doubled it so that my family can enjoy twice as much. I made a couple adjustments using applesauce/butter 50% each, greek yogurt, honey/ sugar 50% each and I finely ground dry oatmeal to use in place of flour . This makes this gluten free also. Smells absolutely wonderful
Wow really delicious use of leftover oatmeal. I added some coconut , choco chips and toasted walnuts to the batter and it tasted like German Chocolate Cake! Will make again.
Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Holy Crap this is amazing! Make it Make it Make it Make it!!!!!!!
Thankyou so much for the recipe! I used all fresh brewed coffee for the liquid, no yoghurt, and poured it over the butter, to melt. 70% cocoa choc pieces too. The batter is so yum and is a beautiful mocha flavour. I just whipped it up in the thermomix, because the porridge was already in there.😊 I tripled the recipe as I had a lot of leftovers and popped it in a large springform tin. So far so good. ☕🍫