Category: Breakfast

Enough raspberries harvested today that I *could* make a crisp, but there’s no way that’s going to happen before they all just get eaten — Ben has slathered some on top of the bagel that he’s eating right now.

Morning glory mini muffins, mostly using the King Arthur Flour recipe, simplified to take out the things my kids don’t like. I made a double batch and froze half of it. The hope is that having these around will mean that Kavi will actually grab something for breakfast before school. She had one while doing dishes tonight and liked it, so I’m hopeful.

The next question is how long a double-batch will last. I’m betting on two weeks.

Today’s breakfast: tamarind-lentil rice topped with an egg, over-easy. (Plus a banana, not pictured.)

I wanted to cook something celebratory for Diwali, but I’m also trying to eat more oatmeal, so I ended up with delicious oatmeal experiments:

• savory coconut milk oatmeal with green-chili chicken
• sweet coconut milk oatmeal with tropical fruits and jam

The nice thing about this is that you make the same oatmeal for both — it just tilts more savory or more sweet depending on what you serve it with. I did:

1/2 c. steel-cut oats

1 c. coconut milk

1 c. water

generous pinch of salt

Bring to a boil, turn to a simmer, cook 25-30 minutes to desired texture.

While that’s going, you can cook the chicken — sauté a diced onion, some diced garlic, a few green chilies in oil with mustard seed, cumin seed, and salt. When onions are golden, add about a pound of chicken in bite-size pieces — brown on high, then turn down to medium and sauté, stirring, until chicken is cooked through.

Chicken should be done after 10-15 minutes of cooking, so it’ll finish up right around the same time as the oatmeal. And then you can have more coconut milk oatmeal with some chopped fruit and a spoonful of jam for dessert.

 

The flavors are pretty Sri Lankan — I was remembering eating cheese toast (maybe made with cream cheese instead of cheddar?) with onion and green chili on the beach with Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and Suchetha Wijenayake and Navin Weeraratne and Mandy Jayatissa, late at night while Kavi fell asleep with her head on the table. I miss Sri Lanka. Worrying about them.

*****

Start steel cut oats cooking in water. Slice shallot and green chili (in retrospect, I wish I’d done two chilies, but one is probably plenty for most folks), sauté in butter or ghee or oil, seasoning with salt and pepper. (I actually made a double batch of the oats and the shallot-chili mixture; I’m going to save it in the fridge and try the other half of it with different toppings tomorrow.)

Shred 1/4 c. of good cheddar cheese. When oatmeal is almost cooked, fry an egg sunny-side up (or over-easy, or poached, etc…) with salt and pepper.

Stir cheese into cooked oatmeal, top with egg, enjoy! I thought this was pretty good, though it may take a little while for me to get used to savory oatmeal.

*****

See us all on the beach back in 2018: https://www.facebook.com/mary.a.mohanraj/posts/10159024822294616

Well, recent oatmeal was sort of a failure, because I was distracted when I was making it (always a danger cooking before the ADHD meds have kicked in), and I put in rolled oats instead of steel-cut oats, but set the timer for 20 minutes, so the oatmeal ended up kind of glue-y, which is NOT my favorite texture; I could only make myself eat about half of it.

Which is a shame, because the *concept* was good — crystallized ginger cooked in with the oatmeal, making lovely little soft ‘pings’ of gingery goodness, topped with cashew butter and banana. I’ll likely try it again sometime. Link in comments to a big bag of chopped up crystallized ginger, making it easy to add in.

But today I’m not in the mood for sweet, so moving on to attempting savory oatmeal. Stay tuned.

This morning, I tried cooking in dried fruit (diced peaches, cranberries, apricots, pears, nectarines, and raisins) directly with the steel-cut oatmeal; that worked, with the fruit nice and soft by the time the oatmeal was cooked. (Link to mixed dried fruit in comments.)

Stirred in chia seeds and fresh blueberries at the end — the end result was plenty sweet for me without adding any brown sugar or honey, and the blueberries were a bit tangy, adding a nice fresh contrast.

I didn’t feel like nuts or nut butter or bananas this morning, and this oatmeal was fine, but did feel a little less substantial than my other oatmeal breakfasts. Maybe I’ll eat a banana later today.

Today’s oatmeal: steel-cut oats, unsweetened cashew butter (which it turns out I like much better than peanut butter, link in comments), unsweetened cacao nibs (for that bit of chocolate), sprinkle of jaggery, banana. Very good!

Jed tried a bite of it, and for him, he’d like the oatmeal softer, but I like it right at 20 minutes simmering, with a lot of chew.