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Berry baked oatmeal

Breakfast is without a doubt my favourite meal of the day. I love running, coming home, putting on the coffee and pondering what to feed myself with. Luckily, I have a pretty strong morning stomach and thus no food are off limits. Brown rice with miso, greens and chilli. Leftover quinoa pizza. Anything goes. Breakfast to me is a quiet time. I normally eat alone as Alex is off training and I like the calm ritual of it. I like the thought of starting your day well, building foundations and all that. I like that it is, for me, a private meal. A time to indulge my tastebuds and when I really only need consider my own stomach.

Breakfast became especially important to me when I was sick because I found it hard to eat after 4pm. The combination of overtiredness, stress and medication meant post 4pm was a culinary dead zone. It was like this for almost two years. So breakfast held significant value. I would often wait a long time, allowing my body to stretch and wake before eating. I would enjoy the hunger and the thoughts of all the delicious foods that lay ahead. And then I would indulge.

Breakfast is still vital to me. I could happily miss dinner and instead make a plate of nibbles to tide me over to the morning. I could even skip lunch as long as a hearty breakfast had preceded it. There are many ideas as to what meal is best and when we should eat it, but really surely it comes down to your own body and its needs. Maybe its best to simply stop and listen and see when and what you need and want. To me it seems logical to eat when you are hungry and not when you are full.

This baked oatmeal recipe is for those evenings when breakfast seems a long way off. Perhaps your dinner wasn’t as tasty as you had hoped or perhaps it was eaten too early and now the evening seems to be stretching on without a promise of supper.

This baked oatmeal recipe is sweet and filling. It is pure comfort food. I like mine baked the night before, left to cool and then sliced in thick pieces in the morning and served with a dollop of rich coconut yoghurt and some dark berries. It makes the perfect breakfast for overnight guests just simply mix, bake and serve warm with a drizzle of maple syrup and a mug of strong coffee.

Baked Oatmeal- Serves 6

Ingredients
200g rolled oats
100g chopped almonds/pecans plus some additional for sprinkling
3 tbsp maple syrup (honey/agave)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
250ml almond milk
1 chia egg (or one large free range egg)
3 tbsp. coconut oil melted
200g berries (fresh or frozen)

Method
Preheat your oven to 180
Grease a baking dish or a loaf tin with a little coconut oil
Mix the dry ingredients together (oats, almonds, carrots, baking powder, cinnamon and berries) and in a seperate bowl whisk the wet ingredients together
Slowly combine the two and stir well
Pour into your form and sprinkle the top with the extra nuts and any additional berries
Bake for 35mins until the edges are golden brown
Let stand for 10 minutes before serving
This will keep for 5 days in the fridge and can be reheated before eating

Enjoy

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Mama on a Monday – Breakfast cookies

I would like to impart on my daughter my love of breakfast. It is without a doubt my favorite meal of the day. I can easily go with dinner but breakfast makes me happy. It doesn’t have to be big, in fact a large well made coffee and a bowl of berries is perfection, but it does have to taste damn good. There are so many foods that just seem better at breakfast. Soft scrambled eggs, buckwheat pancakes, fruit. Not to mention porridge, bircher and smoothies. The mini one is coming round to the idea of eating in the morning but she is also busy right now, so very very busy. She has just started to stand up and is trying to stand without holding on right now. Every surface needs to be explored and every book shelf needs to be attempted. This means that breakfast for her needs to be quick and for my piece of mind it needs to be nutritionally dense. Every mouthful needs to count.

These breakfast cookies are delicious. I enjoyed one, warm out the oven, baby on one hip, coffee out of short arms reach. They are hearty and naturally sweet. They taste of cinnamon and raisins but with the earthiness of oats.

Oats are a great breakfast food, they are easy to digest but they don’t raise the blood sugar and provide slow release energy. Cinnamon is naturally sweet which means you can use less sweetener and it also has the added benefit of being a great antioxidant. It can be an allergen so make sure you test first. I made 12 cookies from this batch but you could make smaller ‘snack’ size version too.

Depending what your little one likes you could add in apricots or dried berries. If nuts are tolerated then you can substitute one cup of oats for 1 cup of ground almonds or fold in some chopped nuts. You could even add desiccated coconut or orange zest. Customize as you fancy but most of all enjoy.

Ingredients (makes 12 large cookies)
2.5 cups oats (plus 2 tbsp for rolling)

2 tbsp maple syrup/date syrup

1 large banana

1 tbsp apple puree

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp raisins

Method
Preheat your oven to 170C

Place the banana, olive oil, apple puree & cinnamon into your food processor and blitz till pureed

Add in the oats and raisins and blitz unit you have a thick, sticky dough

Line a baking tray with baking paper

Place 2 tbsp of oats into a shallow dish

Using your hands shape spoonfuls of the dough into balls and roll in the oats

Place onto the lined baking tray

Bake for 30 mins flipping once

Enjoy

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Nectarine and Pecan Baked Oatmeal

I’ve been making a concerted effort with breakfast this week. I often leave the house and halfway through the baby/dog walk/nursery drop off I realize I am starving. This being Munich, rather than London, there are not many ‘on the go’ options unless I fancy a croissant or a butter pretzel (I don’t). But then by the time I get home the hunger has somehow dissipated and I don’t get hangry until 11am when I basically eat lunch. This is not a great way to start the day, with a belly full of powerful coffee and nothing else.

I’ve been working hard to come up with easy, make ahead breakfasts. Ones that I can eat whilst the baby eats her breakfast (and throws berries at the dog). These nectarine and pecan baked oatmeals fit the bill perfectly. They work because you can vary the ingredients according to your tastebuds or what you have in the fridge. You can make them in individual portions or one big sharing dish to last the week. You can make them on a Sunday evening and enjoy them all week long. I’m thinking that you could even make them savory with roasted mushrooms, feta and spinach…as soon as I try, I’ll let you know. But for now I hope you enjoy the ease of these.

I used roasted nectarines because we had a glut of them sitting on the counter and even though they are in season, the ones we had were rock solid and showed no signs of softening. Roasting fruit brings out its natural sugars and I love the sweetness of the nectarines with the slightly bitter pecans. You can use any fruit and you don’t have to roast it first. Apples, pears, plums and peaches work well but equally you could just throw in a handful of fresh berries and call it a day.

Ingredients (6 servings)
4 sliced nectarines

1/2 cup pecans (chopped)

2 cups oats

1 tsp baking powder

2 flax eggs (or normal eggs)

2 tbsp melted coconut oil

6 tbsp maple syrup or date syrup

2 cups almond milk

Method
Place the wet ingredients (milk, oil, eggs, syrup) into a jug and whisk together.

Combine the oats, baking powder and nuts in a bowl.

In a baking dish (or individual dishes) begin by placing a layer of fruit then covering with the oat mix. Repeat the layering until you almost reach the top of the dish.

Pour over the liquid mix waiting to allow the oats to soak it up until all the liquid is absorbed.

Place onto a baking tray and bake for 40mins (single dish) or until golden brown.

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