Category: Oats

Rhubarb, Ginger & Cardamom Porridge

Yesterday I picked my first stick of rhubarb from the allotment. I have 3 plants and they are all growing really well again this year, so lots of rhubarb ahead for me and lots of experimenting to be done.  This porridge is really simple and made in one pot – no extra stewing or cooking of rhubarb.  You can vary the sugar based on your preference or leave it out completely for a slightly sharper taste.  Personally I love porridge with a bit (sometimes a lot) of demerara.

Rhubarb, ginger & cardamom Porridge (serves one)

rhubarb ginger and cardamom p

 

  • 50g Oats
  • 250ml coconut milk (or other milk)
  • 2 teaspoons demerara sugar
  • 1 stick of rhubarb – diced or cut into small slices.
  • 2 cubes of crystallised ginger – diced finely
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • Handful of blueberries
  • Extra demerara sugar to sprinkle on top

Put all the ingredients (apart from the blueberries) into a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 5 or so minutes until the rhubarb has gone soft and starting to mush into the mixture.  Turn off the heat and stir through the blueberries – this ensures they keep their shape and just soften a tiny bit.

Serve with an extra sprinkle of demerara sugar for that added crunch.

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Ramekin Pear Seed Sensation

For anyone wanting to get more seeds into their diet, this dish is packed with seeds, with a few nuts thrown in. The moisture of the grated pear is soaked up by the chia, linseeds and oats creating a ramekin circle asking for decoration. Really quick to put together and yet looks fab on a plate.  Use any sort of nuts and seeds to decorate your plate, I threw in some coconut flakes and cranberries as well.  Nice on it’s own as well as topped off with yoghurt.  Surprising filling too, my tummy wasn’t rumbling until after 1pm today.

Ramekin Pear Seed Sensation (serves one)

Pear Seed Sprinkle

  • 1 pear grated (with skin on)
  • 1 tablespoon chia seeds
  • 1 tablespoon linseeds (or flax)
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • 2 tablespoons oats

Mix all of the above together and push into a ramekin dish.  Leave for 30 minutes (or overnight).  The seeds and oats will soak up the moisture and it will come out of the ramekin onto a plate keeping it’s shape.

To sprinkle

  • A mix of sunflower and pumpkin seeds, nuts (I used flaked almonds, pecans, walnuts) and some cranberries and coconut flakes.  Or any combination that you fancy.
  • Lovely with a topping of yoghurt and a bit more maple syrup

Pear seed sprinkle with yog

 

Open sesame overnight oats

I love opening the fridge to find my brekkie looking appetisingly back at me. Today it was some sesame overnight oats and a lovely mix of sesame, tahini, dates, mango, banana and coconut.

This is really quick to put together, just a bit of chopping. You don’t need a blender either as you can easily stir or whisk the milk and tahini together, so not much washing up which is always a good result.

I use tahini a lot in salad dressings and of course humus but it’s fantastic for sweeter, non savoury dishes as well. It’s slightly less sweet than the nut butters and it works brilliantly with coconut and tropical fruits.

Open Sesame overnight oats (serves one)

open sesame

  • 150ml coconut milk
  • 2 teaspoons tahini
  • 2 teaspoons sesame seeds
  • 40g oats
  • 2 teaspoons desiccated coconut
  • 1 medjool date – chopped
  • 1 banana
  • 1/2 mango

Whisk or stir the tahini into the coconut milk, then stir through the sesame seeds and oats.

In a jar or bowl layer up the mango, followed by the oat mixture, then top with sliced banana, chopped date and the desiccated coconut.  Leave overnight.

Triple Ginger & Pear Overnight Oats

More training fuel today with some anti inflammatory ginger, a perfect pre and post running brekkie – the hit of ginger at 6.30am certainly helped to wake me up.  The chia seeds add some protein as well, so a perfect combo.  If you are a big fan of ginger you may want to up the quantities a little, I like mine quite potent, but not overwhelming.  However go easy on the crystalized ginger, you don’t want to ruin a healthy brekkie by too much sugar – although if you’re running I believe it’s not such a sin!

Triple Ginger & Pear overnight oats (serves one)

3-ginger-and-chia-and-pear-overnight-oats

  • 200ml coconut milk
  • A big thumb sized piece of fresh ginger – skin removed
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 2 lumps of crystalized ginger finely diced
  • 1 pear – grated with skin
  • 1 tablespoon chia seeds
  • 50g Oats

Blend the milk and fresh ginger – taste and add more ginger if you want a stronger ginger milk.  Mix the milk with the oats, ground ginger, crystalized ginger, grated pear and chia seeds.  Leave to soak overnight.

Red Berry & Ginger Roasted Oats

This is a quick nut free non clumping granola. I tried to reduce the amount of oil, so it’s more roasted oats than clumpy chunks, but to me that means a little bit healthier and no one is fighting over the biggest clumps to pick out. It also sprinkles brilliantly over yoghurt or as a cereal with milk.  Good fruit partners are bananas and blueberries.  I may have sprinkled it over ice cream too.

I love fresh ginger, but haven’t been a fan of stem or crystallized ginger in the past and  usually leave it out of recipes. But not wanting to be stuck in my flavour ways I thought I’d give it another go.  I now admit the error of my ways – it is truly the added magic that gives a wonderful twang of flavour.  I shall never leave it out of a recipe again.  However – I do believe it’s all about subtlety  and in this recipe do make sure it is finely diced so you don’t find big chunks of it.

This makes a large kilner jar full – it keeps for a good few days.

Red Berry & Ginger Roasted Oats

red-berry-and-ginger

  • 300g oats
  • 100g sunflower seeds
  • 100g pumpkin seeds
  • 100g sesame seeds
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 130ml Maple syrup
  • 70ml olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 200g dried cranberries
  • 100g goji berries
  • 50 crystallized ginger finely chopped

Method

Mix the oats, seeds and spices in a bowl.  In another bowl mix the maple syrup, vanilla and olive oil and mix well.  Add this to the oat mixture and mix well to ensure the oats are well coated.

Spread out onto two baking sheets (lined with greaseproof paper).  Bake at 160c/320f/Gas 3 for 20 minutes.  Then give it a stir and cook for a further 20 minutes.  The oats should be looking nicely golden.

Remove from the oven and then mix in the berries and ginger.  Leave to cool.

red-berry-and-ginger3

Rhubarb Crumble overnight Oats

We’re coming back into Rhubarb season (for forced rhubarb) and my allotment rhubarb is starting to come back to life.  In anticipation I’m trying to clear my freezer of the batches I froze at the end of last season.  I adore rhubarb, it’s so versatile and quick and easy to cook.  Of course you can’t beat the old favourite that is rhubarb crumble, so here is my healthy breakfast version of overnight oats.

Rhubarb Crumble Overnight Oats (makes 2 portions)

rhubarb-crumble-oats

  • 300g stewed rhubarb
  • 200ml almond milk
  • 1 teaspoon mixed spice
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • 100g oats
  • Yoghurt to serve

Topping (makes two portions – although it’s very moreish)

  • Around 10 hazelnuts or almonds (or other nuts of choice)
  • 1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
  • 2 teaspoons demerara sugar

Method

  • Blend 1/2 the stewed rhubarb with the almond milk, spices and maple syrup. Add this to 100g oats and then stir through the rest of the rhubarb.  Put in the fridge overnight.
  • To make the topping – crush the nuts and seeds in a pestle and mortar and stir through the sugar.

To serve – layer up with yoghurt and sprinkle the topping on top.

Marathon overnight Oats

We have a play on words here, this is a great pre or post marathon training (or half marathon, or any run) breakfast and also a homage to the delight that is a snickers bar. Anyone of a certain age will remember the days when Snickers was called Marathon. I loved marathons and I love snickers, beware anyone leaving a packet of celebrations around, there will be no mini snickers left.  So this is perfect combo of delight and running fuel that tastes like a snickers bar, but much healthier of course!

This recipe is for one portion – I can only make one portion at a time because it is impossible to leave alone.

Marathon overnight oats

marathon-oats

  • 200ml almond milk
  • 2 medjool dates
  • 1 teaspoon maple syrup
  • 2 teaspoons cacao powder
  • 50g oats
  • 1 tablespoon crunchy peanut butter*

Blend the milk, dates, syrup and cacao. Put the oats into a bowl and add the blended mixture.  Then add the peanut butter and stir through well by hand.*

Leave in the fridge overnight. Maybe sprinkle some grated dark chocolate over the top if you want to make it look a bit prettier.

*A note about the peanut butter – the final consistency will depend on the texture of your peanut butter.  Personally I cannot say enough good things about the new deep roast peanut butter by Manilife, it mixes into this recipe with perfection.  More gloopy versions will require  more whisking abilities to break it up.

PS – if you liked this, you might like the Snicker Smoothie which you can find under smoothies.

Oaty carrot & date brekkie biccies

I love a breakfast biscuit – something chunky oaty and filling.  These are easy to whip up and are perfect for a grab as you go brekkie with coffee.  There is a good amount of fruit and goodness in these biccies with a carrot thrown in for extra goodness, so you can have a guilt free biscuit.  These are also vegan, sugar free and dairy free.

The mixture gets quite sticky when you are rolling the biscuits – so be warned you will get sticky hands!

Oaty carrot & date brekkie biccies

oaty-carrot-and-date-biccies

  • 120g oats
  • 100g pitted dates
  • 50g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons mixed spice
  • 1 large carrot – grated
  • 1 apple – grated
  • 1 ripe banana – mashed
  • The zest and juice of one large orange

Method

  • Line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.
  • Put the oats and dates into a food processor and process for a couple of minutes.  You want the dates to be well chopped.  Add the flour, baking powder and spice and pulse very briefly to mix it all together.
  • Add this mix to the carrot, apple, banana and orange zest and juice.
  • Give it a good mix and then get your hand in to bring it together into a very sticky dough.
  • Take clumps of the dough to shape into a ball and put onto the baking sheets – press them down slightly to make a thick biscuit shape.  This should make around 8-10 biccies.
  • Cook for 25 minutes, oven 350f/ 180c/ Gas 4.  The biccies should look nicely browned on top and be slightly brown on the bottoms.  Leave to cool.

 

 

 

 

Creamy coconut porridge

I will admit I’m usually very disappointed with hotel breakfasts so on a recent trip when I ordered porridge  I didn’t have high hopes. But what arrived was the most delicious creamiest porridge I’ve ever had.  I checked with the chef and the star (and only) ingredients were oats, cream and full fat milk.   For me that’s far to decadent to repeat too often so I’ve been playing around with a slightly healthier version using coconut cream and coconut milk. If you like coconut and you like porridge – you are going to love this.

Creamy Coconut Porridge (one portion)

creamy-coconut-porridge

  • 200ml coconut milk
  • 50ml coconut cream
  • 50g oats
  • 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut (plus extra to top)

Put the oats into a pan and add the coconut milk – bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer and add the coconut cream.  Simmer for 3-4 minutes. Add a splash more milk if it starts to stick.  Just before serving mix in the desiccated coconut.  Serve with some more coconut sprinkled on top.

You really don’t need to add anything else – but if you must pistachios are a great match.

creamy-coconut-porridge-and-nuts

 

 

Apple maple overnight oats

I love overnight oats – so easy and convenient. This is a quick easy put together option – making use of all the lovely apple choices out there at the moment. I made a batch last week so it’s easy to double or triple the recipe and it keeps in the fridge for a couple of days. I like to eat mine either at room temperature or after a couple of seconds in the microwave to take the chill off.  But you may prefer it straight from the fridge.

These are great to have pre or post a run too.

Apple maple overnight oats (one portion)

apple-maple-overnight-oats

  • 150ml Almond milk (any milk will do)
  • 1 medjool date
  • 1 apple – grated with skin on
  • 50g oats
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • Grating of nutmeg (I find nutmeg a strong taste so whilst I like quite a lot – around 1/3 teaspoon, you may prefer some trial and error here)
  • 1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
  • 1 teaspoon maple syrup (or more if you fancy a little more sweetness)

Blend the milk with the date.  Add this liquid to the oats, grated apple and spices.  Mix well and put into a bowl.  Pour the maple syrup over the top and sprinkle on the pumpkin seeds.  Cover and put in the fridge overnight.

PS – Thank you to Joe Delucci ice cream – the ice cream is wonderful and the containers very useful!