Leftover raspberry porridge baby biscuits

I made some baby biscuits the other day and they have been quite good for a snack for S when he is shuffling around - they are in the freezer but defrost easily with 30 sec in the microwave; and they aren't crumbly so don't make too much mess (he's hating on sitting in his high chair recently)...

After his breakfast the other day there was quite a bit of delicious raspberry porridge left over (just normal porridge with a few frozen raspberries added before cooking - thicker prob best). And most of a banana. And there was one egg in the fridge. And I was thinking, that added up to pretty much a similar thing to the baby biscuits I made the other day, with the advantage of not throwing away the leftover porridge... The ingredient quantities are a little bit improvised, but these came out quite good and I suspect it is reasonably robust to using up variable amounts of stuff.

I made these right after breakfast on a day S was home sick from vuggestue, alone with me, and it took all of about 30 min from beginning to end, and I didn't half feel like we'd done far too much winning already before 09:30...

(makes c 15 small-medium biscuits - keep for a few days or store in the freezer)

c 1/2 cup leftover porridge (with raspberries in it)
2/3 of a medium banana, mashed
1 egg
c 1/2 cup flour
c 1/4 cup oats
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp vanilla powder (or cinnamon)
(veg oil)
(raisins)

Heat oven to 180C. Mix porridge, banana and egg together with a fork. Add flour, oats, baking powder and vanilla and mix until just combined. Dollop in biscuit sized clumps onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, and bake 25-30 min until lightly golden on top.


I realized afterwards that maybe should have added some oil or melted butter - if I try this again maybe I will. If the leftover porridge hadn't had raspberries in it I might have added some raisins and cinnamon. Also, the mix was a little bit runnier than I would have liked - and note that runniness will depend a bit on the consistency and amount of the leftover porridge, so may need to adjust amounts of flour and oats.

Buckwheat breakfast bowl

Our trip to Brattleboro naturally featured a trip to the Coop (best food shop ever)! I tried to be restrained (because of our imminent big move), and just picked up a few favourites (nori cashews, sesame sticks), plus a few random things to make me proud of remembering to bring reusable containers (roasted tahini butter; jasmine kombucha)... and a few things I couldn't resist (raspberry dust chocolate, figs, pecans). It made me realise I still had some stuff left from our last trip there around Easter, and resolve to use that stuff when I got back...

The most notable was raw buckwheat groats. I'd been interested in them but didn't really know what to do with them. I'd sprouted a few, and they were good, with a gentle aroma reminding me of buckwheat honey. But that was about as far as I'd got. I made the amazing seed+nut bread yesterday, and spotted a raw buckwheat porridge recipe on the same blog: tipping point on a recipe I'd seen one too many times - so this time I should make it...

(makes about 3 servings; start the night before)

1 cup raw buckwheat groats
1 tbsp cider vinegar
warm water
1 banana
almond milk
hemp seeds
buckwheat honey
blueberries
toasted flaked almonds
raisins
cinnamon

The night before you want to eat buckwheat for breakfast, put the buckwheat groats in a container with the vinegar and plenty of warm water. Let soak overnight. In the morning, they will be soft enough to nibble. Drain and rinse them. If you want to use them for salad etc just stop here.

To make into a buckwheat bowl (somewhere in between porridge and an acai bowl?), put the rinsed groats into a blender cup and add the banana, about 1/2 cup almond milk and a good sprinkle of hemp seeds, and blend. It should end up about the consistency of yoghurt (except not as smooth, unless the blender is high-speed).

To serve, transfer to bowls and drizzle with buckwheat honey (or other honey, or maple syrup, or no additional sweetener... I had  buckwheat honey though and the combination seemed too serendipitous to pass up). Sprinkle with blueberries (mine were frozen), almonds, raisins and cinnamon. Mix up and eat.


I was amazed by how good this was, and by how much of it I managed to eat!

When I asked S if he wanted to try buckwheat breakfast he was not excited, but he's the kind of chap who'll always give something a go. He did, and he liked it enough to request it for breakfast the next day too (this time mixed with cupuaçu, so even more like an açaí bowl hybrid)! Only downside is, we've now worked our way though that stash of buckwheat groats, so unless another trip to Brattleboro ensues, there'll be no more of this for a while.

Avenotto aka savoury porridge

Is it the Scottish childhood? Who knows, but ever since I was the only one out of three sisters who ate porridge along with mama and papa bear and chattered about Goldilocks while pouring on the golden syrup... I have been a lover of oats.

I've never used them like this before - like a risotto, but with oats instead of rice as the grain - avenotto (? - I made that up). Seemed like you can't go wrong with oats.

1-2 tbsp sunflower seeds
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tiny onion, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
4 mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 cup oats
1 cup veg stock
1 cup boiling water mixed with 1 tsp mushroom powder
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1-2 leaves kale, washed and chopped
1-2 tbsp chopped parsley
salt, pepper, vinegar

Heat a medium saucepan and toast the sunflower seeds until golden and fragrant. Tip into a bowl. In the same pan, heat the oil. Add the onion and garlic and cook until almost soft. Add the mushrooms and saute until starting to crisp around the edges. Tip the onion, garlic and mushrooms into the bowl with the sunflower seeds. Put the oats in the pan and toast until slightly coloured and fragrant. Add the stock and boiling water-mushroom powder mix. Bring to a boil and add the dried herbs. Simmer until the oats are almost tender and the mixture has thickened (as for regular porridge). Add the kale and then cook until kale and oats are done. Add back in the sunflower seeds and onion-mushroom mixture, along with the parsley. Mix together, add salt and pepper and a splash of vinegar if you like, taste and add more if it needs it. Eat straight away.


Quick and good and digestible. Ha, so far today I had muesli (mostly unadulterated oats mixed with almond milk) for breakfast, this for lunch, and oat yoghurt for after lunch. What was I saying about oat love?

Amazing miso: oat "yoghurt"

The South River Miso chickpea-miso dip seemed like a surefire hit, on the other hand the idea of making a pseudo yoghurt using miso and oats seemed like a pretty wacky one. Yoghurt is the only dairy product I really miss, and a lot of that is to do with the texture - something slightly sweet / slightly sour that is smooth and gloopy and you can eat out of the fridge with a spoon or mix with fruit or jam to make dessert or breakfast. I had come across the idea of oat "yoghurt" once before, but never got around to trying it - partly because I forgot, partly because that recipe required several days before you got anything yoghurt-like. I think I will try it soon though, to see how it compares with this one.

So, pseudo yoghurt from oats and miso, here we go...

1 cup rolled oats
2 cups water (or up to 3)
2 tsp light unpasteurised miso (used chickpea miso)

In the evening, make porridge by mixing oats and water and boiling for 5-10 min, or until water is absorbed (do not use salt). Let the porridge cool to body temperature then stir the miso thoroughly into the warm porridge (it's OK if it's a bit cooler but not hotter). Cover and let sit overnight at room temperature. In the morning, transfer the mixture to a blender and blend until smooth.


This is brilliant. The miso almost immediately changed the texture of the porridge - from the familiar thick, starchy mass to something much more liquidy. When I tasted right after blending it was kind of sweet and fairly thick and gloopy in texture, but still tasted a bit like miso. I figured I could deal with that, and transferred it to a tub to chill in the fridge. After an hour or so, when it was chilled, I tasted again and it just tasted like oats and yoghurt - the miso taste was gone! My blender isn't good enough to make it completely smooth so it isn't perfectly yoghurt-like (still some tiny oat bits), but I really like it.

More experiments with the miso-free version and using regular miso to follow...

With regular white miso, it kind of worked: it definitely became liquidy immediately, and in the morning. However, I think the miso taste has hung around more, making it less yoghurty in flavour and not as versatile.

Porridge, two ways

It has started to feel a little chilled some mornings*.  The heat in our apartment came on for the first time this morning (it is somewhat out of our control).  On those cold mornings, the ones where you stand shivering waiting for the shower to run hot, muesli doesn't cut it and it has to be porridge for breakfast.  Porridge is warming, inside and out.  It makes me remember eating it as a child - my sisters didn't like it so I was the baby bear, eating with my parents and golden syrup instead of Goldilocks.  It's best with golden syrup, but I can't find that here so have been making a cinnamon maple syrup version most recently.
There seems to be an incredible diversity of loves and hates when it comes to porridge - something so simple, or perhaps not: milk, water, cream, salt, time, oatmeal, oats...  This is my standard version.

(for one)
1/3 cup porridge oats
3/4 cup water
pinch salt

cinnamon, maple syrup, raisins, banana to add

Put water, oats and salt in a small pan and bubble (watch it doesn't boil over) until it is thickened - usually 10-15 min is enough, I think.

Eat with golden syrup.  Or, if that's not possible, add cinnamon, maple syrup, raisins and banana and mix up to taste.


I just read about baked porridge, and I like the idea of it.  It might be more of a weekend breakfast, so I haven't got around to it yet.  Perhaps it'll be good cold too like rice pudding.  My first iteration will be something like this:

(for 4)
1 cup oats
1 2/3 cups water / fake milk
2 tbsp sugar or maple syrup
cinnamon / nutmeg
raisins / dried apricots

Heat the oven to 350F.  Mix the ingredients and put in a heatproof oven dish.  Bake for 25-30 min.

Edit - I made the baked porridge at the weekend.  It was indeed simple and warming and great for a snowy October weekend.  Texture is slightly different from pan-cooked - more fluffy and less smooth?  Felt like eating oat crumble; everyone knows that crumble for breakfast is the best.

*subsequently shown to be a major understatement - it's snowing and there's an inch of slushy snow, in October.