Friday 19 April 2013

Gluten Free Breakfast Series Recipe No.4 - World Champion Porridge

I caught an repeated episode of Nigel Slater's Simple Cooking the other day, the episode focusing on contrasting temperatures, all different recipes put combining hot and cold. Nigel visited a guy in Scotland; 'where the best porridge comes from'. This guy, Ian Bishop, has been perfecting his porridge recipe for 18 years, and is a world champion porridge maker, so he obviously knows what he's talking about. It seemed like a golden opportunity to add to my recipe series and try a breakfast of champions, before the weather gets to hot for porridge, hopefully this is not wishful thinking.

Ian's instructions were very precise and I have noted them here, in case you too want to try award winning porridge, its worth trying at least one, its delicious, it does seem a labour of love, more time and effort than I've put into my porridge before but it was worth it. This recipe serves 1.

First you need 1 part oatmeal and 3 parts water. To get the oatmeal I simply blended a 1/3 of a cup of gluten free oats for a few seconds and added it to a saucepan on a medium heat with a cup of water.

Stir frequently. When the first 'bubbles' appear add a little salt, roughly a 1/2 a teaspoon. Now stir continuously for 5 minutes, apparently its important to only stir clockwise :) in this time it seemed the porridge thickened, tightened and then loosen several times, I wasn't always sure if it would end up with the right on texture, but I kept in mind this is an experts recipe, so I stuck to the instructions.

After the 5 minutes, pour the porridge into your bowl, add some cinnamon, honey, jam and a splosh of cold milk. And then enjoy this wonderful concoction.

Ideally I guess you should use heather honey,  homemade jam and milk fresh from the cow this morning. Being the city dweller I am I used organic honey from the St Dalfour sugar free strawberry Jam and lactofree milk. It probably won't make me champion of the world, but it was rather a lovely breakfast. You can watch Nigel and Ian at work for yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1TcTGMePJohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1TcTGMePJo.

Friday 12 April 2013

Gluten Free Breakfast Series Recipe No. 3 - Overnight Oats

Another oat based breakfast, oh those oats - their oats of versatile. I love them. They absorb whatever flavour you want them to be and then fill you up for ages with that slow to release energy. Oats have all sorts of good in them, according to Google*. They just keeping giving.

*As with most food related googling there are as many results for oats are amazing as oats may kill you, eventually. Something is only true until the next truth comes along. Oats / Chocolate / Fill in the blank is good for you one day, bad the next and then good again. Who knows.

Anyway, if you like oats and believe they are good for you, then this may be a recipe for you. In my mind its a cold version of porridge, ready when you get up in the morning, cos you were organised and made it the night before. So its particularly good in spring/summer when you want something to fill you up, but you don't want the heat of porridge and you want something smooth in texture instead of crunchy granola. I like looking at recipes for overnight oats, porridge and oatmeal on a couple of different healthy food blogs. In particular Fit Foodie Finds and Chocolate Covered Katie. You can adapt it easily to your tastes / whats in the fridge/cupboard and its quick and easy to make to your dietary requirements.

The Basic Ingredients
1/4 cup of oats (60ml)
2 tbsp milled flaxseed (30ml) (or other kinds of milled seed)
About 1/2 cup (120ml) of milk or yoghurt of your choice. Depending on how thick you want the consistency you may want more liquid. Its just a case of trial and error. I like it thick so tend to go for the yoghurt version, but both work well.

Other Potential Ingredients
1 small ripe and diced banana
A tbsp (15ml) of honey or maple syrup or agave if your using plain (soya) yoghurt/ milk. If using flavoured milk or yoghurt you won't need this.
A heaped table (or dessert) spoon of nut butter - any kind will work. So far I've tried peanut butter, which adds a saltiness to the sweetness (and adds to the texture, I always use crunchy peanut butter), hazelnut butter adds to the sweetness and almond butter adds something that I like but can't yet describe, thats more subtle than the peanut or hazelnut
Chocolate chips
Sultanas / other dried fruit
Cinnamon
Cocoa
Whole nuts instead of nut butter - pecans are particularly good (but I think we are good in everything)
Seeds
Fresh fruit
Vanilla or coffee essences 
Other spreads you may like (Nutella?) 
 
The Method
I like to measure everything into some tupperware, mix it together, put the lid on and stick in the fridge. Not much to it.

And the possibilities are endless, just not all at once. 

Friday 5 April 2013

Gluten Free Breakfast Series Recipe No. 2 - Oat Crunch


There are a lot more tasty gluten free options out there for breakfast now, but homemade will always be top trumps! I can’t leave the house or function in general if I haven’t had breakfast, just a fact. Its so important, I’ve decided to dedicate the next few weeks and recipes to breakfast. Breakfast I salute you.

This recipe is adapted from Stoats recipe in Street Food Revolution.

Tasty bakes oats, good with both hot and cold milk or sprinkled over some yoghurt. 

The Ingredients
115g gluten free oats
100g desiccated coconut
100g chopped almonds
25g pumpkin seeds
10g sesame seeds
40g dried cranberries 
40g sultanas
87g honey

The Method
Preheat the oven to 150C Fan (GM2).

Mix the oats, coconut, almond in a large bowl. 

Heat the honey and stir into the oat mix. 

Line a baking tray with parchment and spread the mix evenly over it. 

Bake for 20 minutes or until its golden. 

Allow to cool and add to an airtight container with the rest of the ingredients. It can last for two weeks in the airtight container, but it’ll be eaten long before then.