Everyday Fruit and Oats Breakfast Bowl

Hi there!

... Do you remember me? I know it's been a while and I do hope that I am still there, somewhere at the back of your mind ;-)
I had been thinking that after the exams things would get more relaxed, but that hasn't happened. So I figured I should better stop waiting for things to get less busy.

What I am sharing with you today is something really, really easy. There's no heat required and you can't do anything wrong! Here comes: My everyday breakfast.

I guess I've had some variation of this every morning for the past nine years. ( I can hear you thinking here I think..."What??? Is she crazy?") The recipe has changed over time and with that my liking for this breakfast has increased. When I was a child my Mum had learned in her course that you had to eat 60 grams of raw cereal grains each day in order to get your vital supply of vitamin B1. The first recipe was different from what mine now is and I have to admit that I was not particularly happy about this new mindset. Not at all...

For the first recipe I remember us being in the kitchen trying to shred apple on a circular travel-size citrus peel grater. The apple was getting brown and doing this with 300 grams of apple was no fun. There was also some cream in the base, no orange and the consistency was quite heavy. ... Well, don't worry about that...none of this applies to my today's version anymore and these days I love my breakfast. I am looking forward to it every day and I would get seriously confused if there was a day without one.

My Mum's version today still is different from mine, but also very different from the old recipe. Nevertheless I like mine better and she likes hers better. I should get the second recipe from her some time so you can decide for yourself. Unfortunately I don't really know what she's doing differently from me so she'd need to write that down ;-)

Anyway, let's get started before you all go back to sleep again!

Everyday Fruit and Oats Breakfast Bowl

Time: about 20-30 minutes

for 1 person
60 g	rolled oats or other rolled grains
1 tbsp	flaxseed
40 g	water
50 g	orange
80 g	banana
	more water
100 g	apple
	fruit
	nuts
	seeds

1. Put the rolled oats in your breakfast bowl. Grind up the flaxseed into a fine meal. Add the water and stir to combine.
2. Place orange and banana into a blender with approximately 20 g of water and blend up until liquid. You can also place the fruit in a cup and use a stick blender. Add the banana-orange liquid to the oats. Stir to combine.
3. Slice the apple into sticks. I do this by halving the apple, cutting it into slices one way and the cutting the slices in sticks by slicing crosswise the other way. Add to your bowl. Stir to combine and add a bit more water so that your mixture isn't too dense.
4. Top with fruit. I like to use any leftover banana, which I put on top in slices and then lots of seasonal fruit.
5. Then sprinkle with seeds. I like to use 1 tsp of each sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds.
6. Add nuts, such as almonds, hazelnuts, pecan nuts, walnuts or brazil nuts. I usually use all of these and add some coconut flakes. But feel free to adjust in whatever way you wish.

Some more important notes - not for the taste, but for nutritional reasons, so I feel I am responsible to let you know ;-)

• Cereal Flakes: To get the intended nutritional benefit the grains should be raw, i.e. not heated in any way, which is often done for preservative reasons, especially when the grains are rolled. Ideally, you buy whole grains, which you roll yourself with a device like in this video. Even more ideally, you test if the grains really are raw by trying to sprout them. 
• Flaxseed: Flaxseed should be ground because otherwise your body won't be able to absorb the nutrients in the seeds. They won't really be digested and ... well, they will look the same after you've eaten them as before you've eaten them. This is because the seeds want to stay whole so that if a bird was to eat them and drop them somewhere else they'd still be able to grow. If you buy them pre-ground, though, they will have lost lots of their nutrients due to the open exposure to the oxygen.

Still, even if you don't do this, the breakfast is very healthy and, most importantly, delicious! So don't let this hold you back!

That's it. Happy breakfast :-) Let me know if you like it!

And I nearly forgot something important! Thanks to my Czech friend Damm, who I was talking to this week, I finally got myself 'round to having a look into how Instagram works and opening an account.

I hope that even if I don't feel like I've enough energy for writing sometimes, I can still take some photographs and give you some inspiration from time to time! So please feel free to follow me there (a link is on the right side of the blog in the sidebar) and I promise I'll soon have figured out the details of how it all works soon! ;-)

Chili with Red Wine, Cocoa and Coffee

Hi there!

I had my last lectures before Easter and now only two exams are left and a dissertation to write over summer.
At the beginning it was weird, but now I am enjoying being able to work from home, since that way I can do things where I have to pop into the kitchen every few hours. Plus I can have for lunch whatever I want to have without it having to be portable or easy to prepare!

During this past week I've been having different red and green smoothies (not as creepy as it sounds!) followed by bread rolls made from my Crusty Potato Bread dough* with butter and Orange Jam.

*For making rolls, instead of shaping bread loaves, divide the dough into 6 pieces per loaf, form into rolls (like small bread loaves). Proceed as with bread. Bake at only 220°C for 21 minutes. 

My smoothie week mainly originated from me having bought a bunch of beetroots last Friday and having the stems leftover from that. They looked far to nice to throw them out so I made smoothies with them, including banana, orange and some other things, which turned out surprisingly nice!
I hadn't been looking up recipes and just threw in random leftovers. And ... well, since I am not the most experienced smoothie person sometimes these creations turn out pretty weird I have to admit.
But I think I might stay hooked onto my smoothie-part of lunch for a little while longer. Usually I just have carrot and apple with my baked goodies or carrot and apple salad.
...A difference between carrot and apple and carrot-apple-salad? Uh, yes...there is a small difference even if it might not be apparent at first sight. Believe it or not ;-)



Here in England, we still have days where it's drizzling - or pouring - outside. Then it feels chilly inside to me if there hasn't been any sun all day to warm up the house.

On days like that I tend to make the dish, which this post is about:
A chili with red wine, cocoa powder and a dash of coffee.

Sounds unhealthy? Three vices combined in one dish? Red wine, chocolate and coffee?
Well, it is not as bad as it sounds - in fact I would still think it is quite healthy ;-)
... After all the alcohol evaporates, the cocoa powder only has the good parts of the chocolate without all the sugary stuff in it and there's only a spice-sized amount of coffee.
Sooooo... I hope I have convinced you!!!

My housemate claims that this is one of her favourite dishes out of those I've made for her so far, so I hope that you might like it as well :-)

Chili with Red Wine, Cocoa and Coffee

Time:
approx. 40 minutes without considering the beans
+ 20 - 50 minutes for cooking the beans if using dried ones
+ 6 hours for soaking of the beans (if using dried beans)

This recipe is an adapted version of this Bean Chili with Walnuts & Chocolate by Green Kitchen Stories.

for	2	4	6	people (without rice)
	2/3 cup	1 1/3 cups	2 cups	uncooked, dried beans (any dark colour)
	½ cup	1 cup	1 ½ cups	cooking water from the beans
	1 tbsp	2 tbsp	2 tbsp	olive oil
	½	1	1 ½	onion(s)
	1	2	3	garlic clove(s)
	½ tsp	1 tsp	1 ½ tsp	cumin, whole seeds
	¼ tsp	½ tsp	¾ tsp	chili flakes, to taste
	½ tsp	1 tsp	1 ½ tsp	paprika powder
	½ tsp	1 tsp	1 ½ tsp	oregano, dried
	1	2	3	carrots/parsnips/medium sized potatoes
	1	2	3	celery stalks
	1*400g tin	2*400g tin	3*400g tin	cubed tomatoes
	¼ - ½ tsp	½ - 1 tsp	¾ - 1 ½ tsp	salt
	¼ cup (+)	½ cup (+)	¾ cup (+)	red wine
	¼ - ½ tsp	½ - 1 tsp	¾ - 1 ½ tsp	coffee powder, ground (instant granules or normal)
	1 tbsp	2 tbsp	3 tbsp	cocoa powder

• If you are using dried beans, like I did:
• Soak the beans in plenty of water for about 6 hours. Then drain, rinse, cover with a lot of fresh water and cook. Do this either in a pressure cooker (for 16-18 minutes on the highest setting) or in a normal pot (for about 40 minutes). Do not add salt, as otherwise the beans will not soften. When straining after cooking keep some of the water.
• You can do this while you prepare the remaining ingredients and start cooking.
• You can also use canned beans. Then you should have about three times the volume of beans, since they triple in volume when being cooked. Strain and rinse and use fresh water instead of bean cooking water.

• Finely chop onion and garlic.
• Cut carrot/parsnip/potato into 1cm cubes. Cut the celery into pieces of about ½ cm in size.

• Heat olive oil in a large pot. Sauté onion and garlic, as well as the spices, on low heat for about 5 minutes or until the onion has softened. Stir often.
• Add the remaining cut-up vegetables and cook for another 10 minutes until these have softened slightly. Stir often.
• Add cooked beans, tomatoes, (bean cooking) water and salt. Bring to a simmer and let cook on low heat for 25-30 minutes with the lid on. Stir from time to time.
• Add red wine, coffee and cocoa powder. Let simmer for another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

Serve. For decoration you can use parsley or coriander leaves if you wish.

You could combine this dish with rice or bread, but having it on its own is delicious as well!

** In my photograph I used light-coloured beans, but I'd recommend dark-coloured beans, since they look much nicer in here!
*** Feel free to use other vegetables, such as butternut squash or sweet potato as well.

As always, I would love to hear if anyone has tried this :-)

All-About-The-Sauce-Potato-Casserole

Over the past week I've collected some photographs of what I've made, but it's kind of hard to decide what to post next for you. Right now there was the choice between....hmm...should I tell you? No, I won't so it will still be a surprise in case I decide to write about the other things as well ;-)

Today you're seeing something that is a really great winter dish that doesn't require any fancy summer-ish ingredients.

This is it!

In this case it is a potato-broccoli casserole, but in fact it's all about the sauce. Over time my Mum and I have had several versions of this dish with potatoes plus several varying vegetables. Without the sauce, though the dish wouldn't be as good as it is. I had this with my housemate during the week and the thing she said to me was that the sauce was really nice (was this a British understatement for "great"? - I'd hope so), so this must be the key factor.

vegetables
350 g	potatoes
250 g	broccoli
sauce
1	onion
20 g	butter
about 4 tbsp = 35 g	millet flour (you can make that in any blender from millet grains)
125 g	cashew milk (grind 15 g cashew nuts and blend again with 110 g water)
250 g	vegetable stock
	salt
	pepper
1/4 tsp	paprika powder (sweet if possible)
	nutmeg

1. First of all, cut the potatoes (unpeeled) into halves if they're big or leave them whole if they are small. Make sure that all pieces are relatively evenly sized. Cut the broccoli roughly in smaller florets. You can use the stems as well. You don't need to make them as small as you want to eat them though, it's less fiddly if you do that after steaming,
2. Place all vegetables in a steaming basker or a metal sieve and steam over boiling water for about 15 minutes or until as soft as you like it. In the meantime prepare the sauce.
3. Prepare cashew milk, vegetable stock and millet flour.
4. Finely chop the onion. Gently heat butter in a small pot and fry the onion in the butter. When fried, add vegetable stock and cashew milk. Bring to a boil. With a fork whisk in millet flour. Over low heat cook for a bit and keep stirring. The mixture should thicken up and get creamy after a short while. If it doesn't add some more flour. Season with spices to your liking.
5. When potatoes and broccoli are tender, cut potatoes in slices and the broccoli into bite-sized pieces. Grease a small casserole dish with butter and first put in potato slices and then the broccoli pieces on top. Evenly distribute the sauce on top.
6. Bake at 250 °C (or as hot as your oven goes) for about 20 minutes until the top is slightly browned.

Instead of millet flour you could also use regular flour, but millet flour makes the sauce have a nicer looking yellow colour.

You could vary this by for example adding some fried mushroom (this adds a dirty pan, though) or by  cooking potato slices and zucchini in a bit of vegetable stock. I recommend you try it as written and then you'll be able to make up your mind as to what vegetables go well with the sauce until maybe I've made the other varieties of the dish as well ;-)

Ah, by the way I've added a print button to the blog! When you open a specific post (not the home-site, but by clicking on the title of the post) you can now find it under the post and can optimise each page to the way you'd like to print it! In case you ever want to print something which I sincerely hope :-)