Apple breakfast crisp

May 25, 2015

This recipe is me trying to heave myself out of another breakfast rut. Our vege boxes come with a lot of apples at this time of year, some of them mealy, and I just knew that there was a breakfast crumble out there for them. I trawled my cookbooks but came up short. Isa, Heidi and Deb had muffins and waffles and eggs 'til Tuesday, but nothing that'd get apples into my workday breakfast.

Once I hit google it turned out that Deb Perelman did actually have exactly what I needed, an oaty apple crisp especially designed for breakfast. I threw in a couple of pears with the apples, swapped honey for barley malt syrup and slivered almonds for raw cashews. It's not too distant from my ol' fruit crumble manifesto, though it taught me a couple of important tricks. First, you can melt the butter instead of blending it cold into the crumble. Second, it's worth baking apples well beyond my habitual 20 minutes to bring them to that collapsing, apple pie stage. 

These aren't startlingly innovative tricks, but I appreciated them just the same. I've been enjoying my buttery collapsed apples for days with a couple heaping spoonfuls of yoghurt and even plotting future batches. Different flour! Skip the sugar! Other fruit and nuts! And what about vegetable oil, eliminating the need for melting entirely? But always lots of oats, lots of baking and a smidge of cornflour.

Apple breakfast crisp
(slightly adapted from a recipe on smitten kitchen)

200g mixed fruit (I had 5 apples and 2 pears)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
110g butter
1/4 cup barley malt syrup
1/2 cup flour
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup raw cashews, roughly chopped
1/2 cup shredded coconut

Preheat an oven to 180°C.

Peel the fruit, remove any cores and chop the flesh into bite-size pieces, placing the fruit in a medium-large baking dish. Stir through the lemon juice as you go to prevent the fruit from browning. Sprinkle over the caster sugar, cornflour, cinnamon and salt, and stir it through to evenly coat the fruit pieces.

In a medium-large saucepan set over low-medium heat, melt the butter and the barley malt syrup together. Turn of the heat, and stir in the flour, rolled oats, cashews and coconut. Pour this granola mix evenly over the apples in the baking tray. Bake it all for 45-55 minutes, until the apples are softened and bubbly. Keep an eye on it as it bakes, and cover the dish if the top gets too brown.

Healthier halava

Breakfast serial part xvi
August 19, 2012

   

Our vege boxes have recently tended towards more fruit than vegetables. Though I faithfully take an apple to work each day, bananas and oranges pile up in the fruit bowl, overflowing onto the table. Peeling and freezing bananas delayed the problem a while, but they still needed eating. It's too cold for smoothies and I wasn't in the mood for my usual banana baking... somehow I hit on the idea of mashing bananas into halava. 

This actually proved the perfect remedy for my reservations about the original recipe. The bananas' sweetness and smoothness meant I could cut the sugar by another half, and the butter by almost as much. The texture's different, too. Fresh out of the saucepan this halava is mushier and less fluffy than the original, and then it stays soft and silky after days in the fridge.instead of setting to a grainy fudge.

I've been eating my breakfast pudding alternately with a mug of hot tea or a glass of cold milk.

Healthier halava
(adapted from this recipe)

3 1/4 cups water
1/2 cup brown sugar
40g sultanas
grated zest of 2 oranges
100g butter
1 1/2 cups semolina
1/3 cup walnut pieces
3/4 cup dates, chopped
3 bananas

In a medium-large saucepan, stir together the water, sugar, sultanas and orange zest. Bring them to the boil, with a couple of stirs along the way to dissolve the sugar, then turn the heat off and set aside.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the semolina and gently roast it in the butter for 20 minutes, stirring regularly for even cooking. Add the walnuts at the 10-minute mark. It should smell great once it's done!

Gradually pour the sugar syrup into the semolina, stirring as you go. Keep stirring the pudding, letting the grains soak up all the liquid. When it's all absorbed, mash the bananas and fold them in, then stir in the dates. Cover the saucepan with a lid and take it off the heat, allowing the pudding to steam like this for about 10 minutes before serving.

Ottolenghi's grapefruit brekky

Breakfast serial part xv
October 9, 2011

After roughly a year's break we're trying an organic fruit'n'veg box delivery again, this time from Aussie Farmers Direct. Our first one arrived on Thursday and included a grapefruit. Grapefruits weird me out. I'd never eaten them growing up - I just saw them mentioned again and again on the diet pages of the women's magazines my grandma and aunties read. This had me assuming they weren't tasty. Since then I've enjoyed a few grapefruity beverages and desserts while eating out but not ventured to do much with them myself.

Ottolenghi has a grapefruit breakfast recipe online, which I figured must be a good bet. It's pretty simple - halve a grapefruit, sprinkle over sugar and star anise, grill it to a syrup and serve with a little yoghurt. It was... just barely OK. Messy to eat. I didn't really get into the flavour combination. I'm pretty sure it's not the thing to sustain me through a weekday either.

Does anyone out there have a favourite thing to do with grapefruit? There's every chance we'll be delivered a few more.

Black sticky rice

Breakfast serial part xiv
September 21-22, 2011

I've ended up with a bag of glutinous black rice larger than I could ever hope to use up in icecream. The obvious solution is to make sweetened black sticky rice, something I've only eaten once or twice before. The idea of it called to mind my brown rice porridge so I marked this as another breakfast project.

I referred to Carla's recipe as a guide then kinda did my own thing. Since I was going for breakfast more than dessert I kept the base mixture unsweetened, using coconut milk and palm sugar syrup to taste at the table. And while I'm sure it's far from authentic, I plonked some forest berries (found in the freezer and thawed) on top and liked them very much. I guess mango's a more typical accompaniment, right? What other fruits should I try with this? While I usually love some dried fruit with porridge I can't quite see it working here, as the black rice has more than enough chewiness itself.

This was certainly at its best on the first morning, and anyone with a microwave could no doubt easily revive it for subsequent breakfasts. I ate it cool thereafter and found that the rice acquired a slightly bitter edge - no problem, though, as the coconut milk tones it right down.

That I liked this so much is a relief - there's at least a month's worth of black rice breakfasts still sitting in the pantry, waiting to be made.

Black sticky rice
(inspired by a recipe at easy as vegan pie)

300g black glutinous rice
50g block palm sugar
1/4 cup water
400mL can coconut milk
fruit to serve

Cover the rice in lots of water (it will expand) and leave it to soak overnight.

In the morning, drain the rice and transfer it to a large saucepan. Add 5 cups fresh water, cover with a lid and bring the rice to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer the rice for up to 90 minutes, until most of the water is absorbed and the rice has formed a thick porridge.

While the rice is simmering, get out your smallest saucepan. Place the palm sugar and water in it over medium heat to dissolve the sugar. Allow the syrup to simmer for 5 minutes as the block dissolves, then take it off the heat. As it cools the syrup will thicken up so that it's similar to (or perhaps a bit thinner than) maple syrup.

When the rice porridge is ready, spoon each serving into a bowl, top with fruit, drizzle with the palm sugar syrup and pour over some coconut milk. I've stored leftover ingredients in separate containers in the fridge.

August 13, 2011: Halava (breakfast serial part xiii)

Here's a recipe that will be recognised by anyone who's ever frequented a Krishna restaurant - halava, or semolina pudding. I first encountered it as a student visiting Govindas in Brisbane and have long had a recipe for it stored away in Kurma Dasa's Vegetarian World Food. I got to witness its making in a cooking class with Kurma last year and now, finally, I'm trying my own hand at it.

If you've not come by it before this is a fluffy, grain-based pudding studded with dried fruit and often served with custard. While this recipe uses raisins, walnuts and dates I suspect you could try almost anything. Just this morning I saw a fabulous-looking version with pineapple juice, cashews and saffron (wow! saffron!) on Veggie Belly. Kurma also helpfully notes that you can use polenta instead of semolina for a gluten-free version.

I actually had intentions of eating this for breakfast and so reduced the amount of sugar involved by a third. Regardless this remained intensely sweet and dessert-like, and I enjoyed it most with a large mug of hot unsweetened tea. Halawa keeps just fine for ages in the fridge (and might even survive a while at room temperature) but the texture's never quite the same as when it's freshly steamed and stirred - it gets pretty dense as it cools and/or gets packed away for storage.

Halava
(slightly adapted from a recipe by Kurma Dasa)

3 1/4 cups water
1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup jaggary and 1/4 cup castor sugar)
1/3 cup raisins
grated zest of 2 lemons
180g butter
1 1/2 cups semolina
1/3 cup walnut pieces
3/4 cup dates, chopped

In a medium-large saucepan, stir together the water, sugar, raisins and lemon zest. Bring them to the boil, with a couple of stirs along the way to dissolve the sugar, then turn the heat down to low and cover with a lid.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the semolina and gently roast it in the butter for 20 minutes, stirring regularly for even cooking. Add the walnuts at the 10-minute mark. It should smell great once it's done!

Bring the sugar syrup back to a rolling boil and pour it into the semolina, stirring as you go. (I did this in about 4 doses.) Keep stirring the pudding, letting the grain soak up all the liquid. When it's all absorbed fold in the  dates, cover the saucepan with a lid and take it off the heat. Allow the pudding to steam like this for about 10 minutes. Then fluff up the grains a bit with a spoon and serve it out. Serve a little less than you expect - it's surprisingly rich and if you want to, you can always go back for seconds.

July 13-14, 2011: Toasty tahini granola (breakfast serial part xii)

I thought I'd done toasted muesli, that I had my best recipe and wouldn't be needing any more. Every other recipe I've ever seen before or since is full of oil and sugar and just doesn't seem right for breakfast. Then, a few months ago, Jennifer of It Ain't Meat, Babe posted a granola recipe that floored me. Instead of oil and sugar it used tahini and maple syrup. TAHINI. That is genius right there.

To be honest, the tahini isn't obvious in the end product (and I'm tempted to use a little more next time) but it is surely contributing to the unrivalled crunchy golden brown-ness of this granola. The maple syrup, pecans and coconut are just gorgeous but I'm sure I'll find myself tinkering with those too (moar coconut! different nuts! fruit juice!). But don't take these plans as any kind of slight on the original recipe - this granola has brought a smile to my face every morning I've eaten it (and for one 1am dinner besides).

Toasty tahini granola
(very slightly adapted from a recipe at It Ain't Meat, Babe)

3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup flax seeds
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup tahini
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a large baking tray with paper.

In a large bowl, mix together the rolled oats, pecans, coconut, flax seeds and cinnamon.

In a separate small bowl, whisk the oil into the tahini until smooth and then whisk in the maple syrup. (If the tahini is lumpy, try melting the mixture on the stove or in a microwave.)

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix them together - try to get an even distribution with as little stirring as possible. You might even like to leave a few clumps.

Spread the granola out evenly onto the baking tray. Bake it for 30-40 minutes, until evenly golden, stirring the granola at 10 minute intervals for even baking.

June 14, 2011: English muffins (breakfast serial part xi)

Michael shopped and made an excellent soup on Tuesday night, but he forgot to buy bread. I could have ventured back out to the supermarket or we could have done without, but instead I ferreted through the cupboard, located some dry yeast and flour, and got baking. I'd been thinking about making Wanting Kneading's English muffins for breakfast anyway and this was a good excuse to give it a go.

Since this is a yeast-based recipe, one needs a little patience for proving. Sitting my dough near the oven (which was warm and roasting onions), I was concerned that it didn't seem to be expanding much. I needn't have worried as my muffins puffed up impressively once they hit the hot frypan. After a few minutes developing that bit of crust the muffins get finished off in the oven. What comes out is pretty special - the moment you slice one open it unleashes a mighty waft of steam. The centre is quite dense, but very soft and just begging for some butter or margarine to melt right in.

Unfortunately they firmed up pretty rapidly, being a toast-only option by the next morning. (Again, maybe a microwave would help out here?) After a couple of photos I piled the remainder into our freezer.

Our other housemate, Zimbra, has turned food critic this week. After two years of absolute disinterest in hooman fud he's begun obsessively sniffing at (though never tasting) everything we ingest. He's also a huge fan of cat grass, hinting at vegetarian tendencies. Rest assured, we're a long way from inviting a sarcastic feline to guest post on where's the beef?, but there may be more photobombs.

English muffins
(found at wanting kneading, who got their recipe from allrecipes.com)

1 cup milk (soy works!)
2 tablespoons white sugar (can be reduced)
1/4 cup margarine
1 x 7g package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
6 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
~1/4 cup polenta
spray oil

Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it starts to bubble. Take it off the heat; stir in the sugar until dissolved then the margarine until melted through. Allow the mixture to cool down to lukewarm.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let it stand for 10 minutes.

Whisk the milk and half the flour into the yeast mixture, beating until smooth. Add the salt and gradually stir in more flour until you have a soft dough (I stopped 1/2 cup short of the recommended 6 cups). Knead the dough gently, then place it in a greased bowl, covered with a teatowel, to rise in a warm place for half an hour.

Prepare a couple of baking trays with paper and sprinkle them with polenta. Punch the dough down and roll it out to just 1cm thick. Cut circles from the dough, about 8cm in diameter, using a biscuit cutter or drinking glass, and place them on the baking trays. Dust the tops of the muffins with more polenta, cover the trays with a teatowel each and allow the muffins another half hour to rise.

Heat an oven to 130°C, and a frypan to medium-high heat.Lightly spray the frypan with oil and fry the muffins in batches, allowing both sides to crisp up a little. They'll probably puff up a bit too. Transfer the fried muffins back to their baking trays and bake them for about 15 minutes, until cooked through.

June 9-10, 2011: Porridge pie (breakfast serial part x)

I've got another winter breakfast for you! I found it recently on Miss Adriennely and she sourced it from a blog we both love, Chocolate & Zucchini. It's another interesting take on the standard ol' oat porridge. Here rolled oats get baked in liquid, with dried fruit and nuts, until they set into a moist and dense cake. It's like something half-way between a bowl of porridge and a muesli bar.

It's also very sweet. I wouldn't put any more than a tablespoon or two of sugar into this again, as I find that dried fruit is sweet enough already. I'd like to go back to the C&Z version sometime and bake some fresh fruit onto the top of this. Clotilde also suggests serving this with yoghurt and I did get the chance to team my porridge pie with some mixed berry Coyo. This coconut milk-based yoghurt set the Melbourne vegan scene abuzz for a month or two. Though it's delicious, I hesitate to call it yoghurt. It's sweet and buttery and lacks the distinctive tang of other yoghurts, better for topping cupcakes than breakfast. I also hesitate to call it vegan, as the follow-up news is that those un-tastable cultures seem to be grown on dairy milk. Too bad for Coyo - that's one helluva loyal demographic they're missing out on.

Small consolation is that this porridge pie is totally vegan friendly! I replaced the dairy milk with soy and omitted the eggs entirely without a hitch. This recipe is highly flexible for your choice of dried fruit, nuts, seeds and ground spices. Like the rice porridge, this is at its best when freshly cooked and would probably respond well to microwaving on subsequent mornings. Instead I gently reheated slices under a low-heat grill.

Porridge pie
(recipe adapted from a chain of Miss Adriennely, Chocolate & Zucchini and Quaker Oats)

1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup sugar (I'd bust it down to 1 tablespoon)
1/2 cup dried cranberries (or other dried fruit)
2 tablespoons sesame seeds (try other nuts or seeds)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 shake cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk (I used soy)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat an oven to 180°C and lightly oil a baking dish.

In a large bowl, stir together the rolled oats, sugar, dried fruit, seeds and/or nuts, spices and salt. Stir through the vanilla and milk until well combined. 

Pour the mixture into the baking dish and bake for about 35 minutes, until the centre is set but the pie is still moist. Allow it to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving, with yoghurt and/or fresh fruit on the side.

June 6-7, 2011: Chai-spiced rice porridge (breakfast serial part ix)

The shift to winter has shifted my interest to the warmer and heavier breakfasts on my to-try list. I've had one or two porridge phases before but not pushed myself much further than the usual oats in a saucepan. When Carla posted about slow-cooked brown rice porridge I was just as interested in getting good use from my slow cooker as the rice itself. As advertised, this is as easy as vegan pie! Chuck brown rice, lots of milk and some spices into a slow-cooker overnight, drizzle over some golden syrup (maybe some dried fruit, as seen above) and you're done. 

With so much more milk than rice, this is a very creamy porridge - the grains mush together but retain a bit of chew. I can eat a much larger volume of this than I would oat porridge, and I learned this after sampling a smallish serve on my first rice porridge morning and becoming ravenously hungry by 11am. With a microwave, leftovers would no doubt be just as convenient as the first run. In a saucepan and with a drop of water it's noticeably less convenient but still doable on a workday.

Chai-spiced rice porridge
(based on a recipe found at easy as vegan pie,
which is adapted slightly from healthy slow cooking)

1 cup brown rice
5 cups milk (I used oat milk)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
sweetener and/or dried fruit to garnish (I used golden syrup and sometimes chopped dates)

Place the ingredients from brown rice through to ginger in a slow cooker and give them a quick stir. Cook the porridge on low for 7-8 hours. Ladle into bowls and top with your choice of garnishes.

March 18 - April 19 , 2011: Breakfast wraps (breakfast serial part VIII)

I haven't let up on my breakfast experiments, I've just been noodling around with breakfast wraps this last month.  My formula is to fry up some veges, maybe an egg or some tofu, heat up a tortilla in the same pan, then wrap it all up with some herbs or condiments.  I like 'em best with a glass of orange juice.

My first one, pictured above, featured a fried egg, barbecue sauce, sprouts, caramelised onions, and coriander.

Then I moved onto silken tofu with cabbage, mushroom oyster sauce, parsley and garlic chives.

That warranted some adaptation: next I cooked the tofu and cabbage with garlic powder and chickpea flour and topped it all with date and lime chutney.

When I found myself with eggs again, I teamed them with more cabbage, hoisin sauce and my newly purchased shichimi togarashi.  A day later, I added in some shiro miso for extra flavour.

Finally, I skipped the frypan, grilling some cheddar and tomato onto the wraps and folding them around spinach and rocket leaves.

Most days a breakfast wrap takes no more than 10 minutes and they're handy for using up fridge scraps.  That's reason enough to work them into my breakfast schedule.  All the better that there's a bit of variety amongst them and most taste terrific!

Got any brekkie wrap tips or winning fillings?  I can't help thinking that I should be working more beans into the mix.

____________

I'm submitting this post to The Breakfast Club, which has a savoury vegetarian theme in its 7th round and will be hosted by Johanna GGG.

March 18-21, 2011: Autumn breakfast cookies (breakfast serial part VII)

With some more pumpkin to use up, I couldn't have found a more suitable recipe idea amongst my delicious bookmarks than this one for Autumn breakfast cookies.  There's nothing cheeky about eating these cookies for breakfast - they're full of pumpkin and oats and nuts and beans, with just a little butter and dried fruit.  I made a few substitutions for convenience: almonds for pistachios, cannellini for pinto beans, and some actual maple syrup instead of the original maple extract (anyone seen or used that in Oz?).  I think the original intent of this recipe is still there.

These cookies' sweetness comes almost entirely from dried cranberries, so it's important to mix those evenly through the dough and get one into every bite.  I kept the dough in the fridge for almost a week, just baking a tray here and there as it suited me - this didn't affect the cookies at all and probably made the dough easier to roll.

Autumn breakfast cookies are dense and soft, and I think they're at their best accompanied by some juicy fruit or a cup of tea.  Their flavour reminds me a little of muesli bars and in fact the last few saved me from some high-fat snacking while travelling, as a muesli bar often might.

Autumn Breakfast Cookies
(adapted slightly from a recipe appearing on Find Your Balance)

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
200g pumpkin, skin removed and chopped roughly
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup almonds
400g can cannellini beans, drained
1 egg
120g butter, melted
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons maple syrup
a shake of nutmeg
1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Drizzle the oil across a baking tray and add the pumpkin chunks; stir them around to lightly coat them in the oil. Bake the pumpkin until it's soft, about 20 minutes. Set it aside to cool.

In a food processor, grind the rolled oats to a coarse powder. Transfer the oats to a medium-large bowl. Next, grind the almonds to a coarse powder in the food processor and add them to the bowl with the oats. When the pumpkin has cooled down, puree it in the food processor. Add the beans, egg, melted butter, salt, maple syrup and nutmeg, blending it all together until smooth. Scoop the mixture into the bowl and fold everything together until thoroughly combined. Fold through the cranberries, doing your best to distribute them evenly throughout the dough.

Line a baking tray with paper. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and place them on the tray; they don't spread out too much so you need only leave a little space between them. Use a fork to press the cookies flat.

Bake the cookies until they're golden on the outside, about 20 minutes.

March 6, 2011: Poached quinces with yoghurt (breakfast serial part VI)

Among the first cohort of breakfast tweets, Anh suggested poached fruits with yoghurt.  I hopped to it when the quince tree at work was harvested and the rewards shared amongst staff.  I tried poaching quinces for the first time last year and followed the same recipe again for this batch.  Their fragrance is really quite something.

I'm always after a little textural variation so I was compelled to top my quinces and yoghurt with some roughly chopped hazelnuts.

March 5, 2011: Leftover makeover - spiced lentils on toast (breakfast serial part V)

Lentil tacos have been getting multiple runs in our kitchen recently - they're unfussy, flexible and reasonably healthy.  Leftovers do very nicely on toast too!  For breakfast on Saturday morning I layered our remaining grated carrot and lentils on bread and popped them under the grill to warm through, finishing them with the last quarter avocado and a side glass of orange juice.

This would make an excellent meal or snack at any time of the day.  I found that the lentils kept me satisfied for hours, something I'm always looking for and particularly in the morning.  A Sunday night lentil-simmer is all you'd (I'd) need to enjoy this toast all week long.

February 17-22, 2011: Fruit toast (breakfast serial part IV)

My breakfast call-out elicited a few tips on making the best of fruit toast. This interested me no end because as much as I love fruit toast, I'm not sure that I've ventured further than applying slabs of butter to it.

Natalie recommended I try mashed banana and honey.  This began badly when I managed to smash two sweetener bottles on the tiles as I returned the honey to the pantry but was worth the sticky, cutty clean-up.  Bananas on fruit toast taste great, fill the belly and add a major nutritional boost.  Honey can be substituted with golden, maple or any number of other sweetening syrups (should you have any left).

Brian gets a little more elaborate still, teaming banana and fruit toast with peanut butter and cinnamon.  This was pretty damn exciting - four elements I know well, combined in ways I'd never plan, creating an instant favourite.  Yes, really: I got excited about toast.

Johanna suggested variations on the cheese theme.  Cream cheese was an easy sell, adding just a little yoghurty tang to my butter habit.

Then she suggested harder cheeses.  Theoretically, I got this - a little fruit is great with cheese and crackers, right?  But I still couldn't imagine it.  Apparently Johanna likes cheese slices atop toasted fruit bread, while her partner E prefers to grill cheese onto the bread.  I trialled both, using a sharp cheddar, and am backing Johanna on this one - I liked my cheese with more bite and less grease.

I began this project with an almost explicit goal of getting away from toast, but it's been even better to be shown this old fall-back in a new light.

February 10-11, 2011: Mushrooms on polenta (breakfast serial part III)

Now this is the kind of breakfast I'd never think to make - Ganga108 responded to my breakfast tweet with (among other things) a suggestion of polenta with sautéed mushrooms.  I've cooked similar stuff for dinner, though, so I pulled it together with some confidence.  I prepared a half-batch of this polenta, adding some fresh parsley and paprika, then sautéed my mushrooms in a little oil with a green onion, more fresh parsley and a splash of red wine vinegar.

This was enough polenta to last two meals so I set half of it in a tin, slicing and dry-frying it alongside my mushrooms on the second morning.  I was disappointed that the polenta strips weren't as tidy and cute as Michael's past efforts.

This is definitely worth a shot for lovers of cooked savoury breakfasts; I liked it best teamed with a glass of orange juice.  I found the preparation a little time consuming on day one, then reheating the leftover polenta and frying up some fresh mushies on day two only took about ten minutes.  Stirring and setting a big batch of polenta on Sunday could keep me sustained for brekky and on-time all week.

January 31, 2011: Sweet'n'sour bircher muesli (breakfast serial part II)

Thanks to y'all for your positive and helpful responses to my new breakfast serial!  (I would never have predicted that avocado on toast would elicit so many comments, while my last icecream post attracted a single astroturfer.)  I figured I'd keep the momentum up with a second entry right away.  AnneTreasure and GemCarey both recommended bircher muesli, with Anne specifically mentioning Neil Perry's recipe (which I tracked down on LifeStyle Food).

Before commencing I also wanted to consult my friend Dylan, who's been a resident of die Schweiz for a number of years.  He knows his way around a traditional Swiss bircher.  I was particularly interested in whether I could soak the oats for many days, and/or mix in the yoghurt and apple in advance, such that I could prep a week's worth of muesli over Sunday night and Monday morning.  Here's his advice:

I find that if you have a fully-made bircher muesli, then the day after it starts to separate out a bit — I think it's an issue of having the yoghurt and the juices from the fruit together. I think you'd be safe to mix all the dry ingredients (if you want more than just oats) and soak in milk and yoghurt for the week, then add the fruit just before eating each day. I've never kept the soaked oats for so long, and it could be that you'll need to add some extra milk to make the muesli a little more liquid for each morning's serve.

My preferred mixture of fruit is berries, banana and a little apple. Crushed roasted hazelnuts are a superb addition, and I would add a little honey or maple syrup if it's not sweet enough. Especially if the berries are not sweet, or if you use bornhoffen (sp?) yoghurt!

Like me, Dylan is a scientist by training and always up for an experiment.  In a subsequent message he also said:

Actually, you could try adding some cream to one -- Swiss yoghurt is super creamy compared to Australian.

I've left some of his tips for future replications.  I did, however, have a go at stretching my bircher further than a day with good results.  Setting my oats to soak at night then stirring in yoghurt, honey and grated apple in the morning, I didn't detect any changes in the flavour and texture of my muesli between the first and third days.  I'm game to try for a full working week next time.

This recipe is quite different to the bircher Dylan would typically eat (and the ones I remember sharing with him almost five years ago).  The oats are soaked in lemon juice and water, and then I used a just-barely-creamy low-fat yoghurt that's a far cry from European dairy.  I'm not much of a honey fan, and I was sceptical of the quantity used in this recipe, but it actually provided the ideal balance to the lemon.  (I'm keen to try agave or maple syrup in future.)

My muesli wasn't all that thick; more like a summer porridge, just as nutritious and almost as filling.  While a bit of advanced planning is required, this doesn't require excessive effort and most of it can be done before the working week has even commenced.

Sweet'n'sour bircher muesli
(contributed to LifeStyle Food by Neil Perry, who credits his friend Greg Fraser)

2 cups rolled oats
juice of 2 lemons
1 cup water
2 Granny Smith apples
2 cups yoghurt
6 tablespoons honey
fresh or poached fruit, to serve
4 tablespoons hazelnuts, roughly chopped

In a medium bowl, mix together the rolled oats, lemon juice and water.  Cover the mixture and allow it to soak overnight.

Stir the yoghurt and honey into the oats.  Peel and grate the apples, adding them to the muesli.  Serve the muesli in bowls, topped with extra fruit and sprinkled with hazelnuts.

January 24, 2011: A breakfast serial - avocado on toast

For all the novel recipes we try here in the where's the beef? kitchen, we are pretty unadventurous when it comes to breakfast.  Yes, we like eating fancy things while out and Vegan Brunch has provided inspiration on the odd weekend, but we break our workday fast with startling monotony.  Michael always, always eats Weetbix topped with muesli and milk (though he made the transition from dairy to soy in the last year or so).  I tend towards cereal too, chugging through box after box of Just Right, occasionally mixing it up with a day or two of toast.  

It's not right at all, really.  I've had a few shots making my own muesli or porridge or smoothies and these have amused me for up to a month at a time.  But I'm keen to push my breakfast boundaries a little further - hence this new Breakfast Serial.  My Friends In Food have already come through with a bunch of great suggestions via twitter but sling me more if you've got 'em!  I'm hoping to give a new one a go every couple of weeks and, of course, record them here.

My first entry is well within my comfort zone - sarahcooks and veggie_mama both recommended avocado on toast.  I like lathering the avocado on thickly then topping it with salt, pepper and lemon juice; even better if there's a glass of fruit juice on the side.  It's easy to prepare and adequately filling.  Avocados aren't always abundant and ripe when you want 'em but this is a great option when they are.  I can't imagine committing to this daily and indefinitely but avocado on toast is an excellent option to have in my weekday brekkie repertoire.