Oatmeal: my favourite breakfast in 4 variations

Ok, this is a little silly. A really long post about oatmeal and recipes on how to make it. But this isn´t so much about following the recipes, more as an inspiration, or a reminder of good oatmeal is for you, how versatile and easy it is to make, and not at least how tasty it can be!

I remember being asked what my favourite breakfast was once. If I were to choose whatever I could have, what would it be. And I immediately replied oatmeal – to the person asking´s great surprise. He was like OATMEAL???? “Seriously? Did you understand the question?”

Sure I did! Like many guys, he didn´t share my enthusiasm for oatmeal, because he, like many other, had bad experiences with oatmeal growing up. And he didn´t know how to prepare it either, either turning it into a dry mass, or too watery, almost soupy-like.

So of course, this guy probably wouldn´t prepare it anyway, since his idea of oatmeal was equal to a nastylooking and tasteless thing. Not that it´s rocket science to prepare a bowl of oatmeal, but it almost seems like it, when you can accomplish so much with so little effort! From dull to delish in an instant! You better try. You owe it to yourself to try a decent bowl of oatmeal for breakfast every now and then. And who knows, maybe you´ll be an oatmeal-convert too? I recently convinced my mum, who had a strong resistance against oatmeal due to childhood overdose.

I particularly like oatmeal for breakfast this time of year, when it´s cold outside.  It´s such a comforting breakfast for cold days, warming you up so you´re prepared to leave the house!

I make my oatmeal in many different ways. Or actually, come to think about it, I don´t.  But what I add to the oatmeal depends on what I have or what I´m in the mood for. And the key ingredient, which isn´t an ingredient at all, but a method, is to soak the oats overnight. I find that really makes the oatmeal a lot better. Soaking also make the oats more digestible and help your body to absorb the minerals from the oats. And, it reduces the cooking time – which is always a plus in the morning!

My toppings usually consist of some kind of fruit, some kind of nuts and something creamy: Fruity+Crunchy+Creamy. I always have roasted almonds around, because I simply cannot live without. Fruit/Berries can be whatever´s in season, or whatever you prefer, and nut butter, youghurt, applesauce  can be the creamy component. But these are just suggestions, and my personal preferences,  but of course any toppings and combinations can do!

Classic oatmeal for 1

I guess you don´t really need a recipe for oatmeal, but here´s a single serving of oatmeal ingredients without any add-ins or toppings:

• 1 dl oatmeal
• 2 dl milk
• salt

Almondy oatmeal with persimmon (and chocolate chunks)

This is my favorite at the moment. I love persimmon, and now that the season is here, I want as much of it as possible. So I included it in my bowl of breakfast oatmeal, with great success!

Toppings: 1/2 small persimmon chopped,  a spoon of almond butter, roasted almonds and/or dark chocolate

Add the oats and milk to a saucepan and allow it to heat for about ten minutes, until the liquid has all been absorbed. Stir in almond butter, and serve with chopped persimmon,  almonds (and/or chocolate)

Coconut-Banana oatmeal with blueberries 

•  2 dl / 1 cup of water
•  30 g / 1/3  cup of oats
• 4 tablespoons of coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon of almond butter
• 1 banana

Toppings: fresh blueberries, crushed nuts, raisins and cacao nibs or chocolate

Simply add the oats, water, coconut milk and slices of banana to a saucepan and allow it to heat for about ten minutes, until the liquid has all been absorbed. Then stir in the almond butter and coconut oil and let them dissolve into mix. Once it’s all nicely mixed pour it into a bowl, add all your favourite toppings and then it’s ready to enjoy!-berry oatmeal

Banana-berry oatmeal:

Toppings: 1/2 a banana, a handful fresh or frozen red berries of choice and a good scoop of peanut butter

Add the oats, water, milk to a saucepan and allow it to heat for about ten minutes, until the liquid has all been absorbed. Serve with chopped apple and roasted almonds, and a good dollop of dulce de leche with a sprinkle of sea salt on top, giving it a lovely luxury touch.

Oatmeal with apple sauce, natural/greek yoghurt and nuts 

This has become another favorite lately, after I made my own very delicious applesauce of the tasty Norwegian apples in season right now. Of course bought applesauce is good too, but if you have access to good flavourful apples, it´s really worth it and easy to make your own.

Add the oats, water, milk to a saucepan and allow it to heat for about ten minutes, until the liquid has all been absorbed. Serve with a tablespoon of applesauce, youghurt and a handful of your favourite nuts or a muesli.

Caramelly oatmeal with apple and nuts

Toppings: 1/2 apple diced, 1 spoon dulce de leche and a handfuld of chopped  roasted almonds

Add the oats, water, milk to a saucepan and allow it to heat for about ten minutes, until the liquid has all been absorbed. Serve with chopped apple and roasted almonds, and a good dollop of dulce de leche. I can´t really take credit for this one, but thanks to GRØD who put oatmeal in fashion and popular, this has become one of my (and their) all time favorites.

Great Grains Muffins – and a much anticipated cookbook…

Hello! I decided to do a little makeover here – you like?
I wasn´t sure what style or coulour to pick, but when in doubt, go with pink! As the old saying goes… Pink is girlie, sweet, and one of my favourite colours, and goes well with the name of this blog, though it´s not all cake and frosting in here. But maybe that will change. Maybe there´ll be more of that to come from now on. Because. You see. I got a birthday present from my sister. A book. A cookbook, or to be more precise, a baking book. The book we´re talking about is Baking, from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. And that probably doesn´t sound like a big deal, but it was. First of all the book was huge, thick and heavy – more than 300 recipes! I didn´t expect that. (My sweet sister had to drag that thing around during her vacation) But I´ve become somewhat obsessed with getting this book, as it turned out that wasn´t so easy for me living in Norway or now Denmark. I tried ebay, but noone would ship to Scandinavia. I tried amazon. They wouldn´t ship to Norway. So I had to move to Denmark. (Not exactly, I´m not that obsessed..) But I did move to Denmark, and decided to try from here. And hooray, Amazon would ship the book here! So I got an account and made an order. I thought. But no, I made three orders! But by the time I noticed, the books were already on their way somewhere over the Atlantic. Ok. I wanted this book, but three? Not really necessary. I could try to sell them, but I guess people aren´t that into cookbooks in English with US measurements here. That´s just me! And either way, it would turn out quite expensive as I had to pay the duty on those massive books. The books made it all the way to my post office, I was informed that they had arrived, and it was sad deciding on not picking them up and let them return to sender. So close! And than it took some time for me to respond to Amazon, and eventually getting my money back, and then decided that if I ever were to get my hands on that book, I had to order a ticket to the US, enter a bookstore physically and purchase it. It was too complicated otherwise. By this time, it was getting into an obsession as you may notice. I stopped thinking about it, as much as I could. But it never completely left my mind. So when my sister was going to California for a wedding this summer, I made a little request Conveniently my birthday was coming up…I was excused! I made sure to write down the name and the author for her. I wasn´t going to let bad memory stop me!

And then. She came back. With a present. She handed it over to me, and I was so glad to see it was a book! Because a book, meant the book. But man, was I surprised by the size!

The reason I had to get this book (I guess the main reason is that it was so hard to achieve) is that I´ve made several of the recipes from this book, only that I found them online. But each and every one of them turned out great! Some of them instantly turned into favourites, like , and not to mention this baby . So now there´s no excuse not to bake – not that there ever is to this girl! My motto is: There´s always an excuse to bake, to celebrate and to have cake! So with finally getting my hands on this baking-bible, I realize I have to get started to work my way through the 300+ recipes! And here it goes, my very first recipe: I started with muffins. Not the overly sweet cake-like kind, but a more filling muffin, that you can easily have for breakfast. It´s still sweet, but not in a sugar-overload kind of way, just perfect for breakfast or as a little accompaniement to a cop of coffee, whatever time of the day. This recipe had a picture of the muffins, and both the picture along with the title of the muffins, was what made me decide on baking these as the very first thing. And a quick look at the recipe showed that they were made partly with oatmeal and wholemeal, and healthier is always a plus when you bake a lot, and live alone… The muffins are called Great grains muffins, and the picture showed a perfect muffin (of course), bursting with prunes, and served with cheddar and a cop of coffee with milk. Yum, yum, yum – I wanted that scenario in my kitchen too! So, on with the apron and get baking!
I didn´t have prunes, so I substituted that with raisins. I didn´t have buttermilk either, but I had some crème fraiche I used instead. I also think I increased the amount of wholemeal. And I didn´t have cheddar either, but as Dorie says, the muffins are great with butter, or even plain. And butter, in my world, is never, ever wrong. Not this time either!

Great Grains Muffins (Dorie Greenspan, Baking from my home to yours)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup quartered moist, plump prunes or other dried fruits ( cut up as necessary) and/or chopped nuts (optional)

Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

My first day of my vacation! Ah, sweet sweet freedom. And I got a letter yesterday, telling me I’m starting my studies of nutrition in Copenhagen in a month! Yaay! Now, if this doesn’t call for a celebration, I don’t know what does. And I knew exactly how to mark this very special day. And no, not with a cake, for once. Today I wanted something else, something that says summer holiday: An extravaganza breakfast. I haven’t made a decent breakfast the last couple of weeks since I’ve been working. And when you work at a bakery, well…you don’t take time eating breakfast or bringing any sort of lunch. I eat there. And as much as I love a good breakfast, sitting down enjoying my meal, reading the paper or just looking out the window contemplating about the day to come, I haven’t done that in a while. I’ve been waking up early, and eating a quick slice of bread once at work. But that routine, my friends, ended today.

Today I took my time, making a breakfast that took 40-50 minutes, and it was so worth it. I thought I had nothing better to do on my first day off, and I had been wanting to make this since I first spotted the recipe, but I never got around to it. I found it at beckybakes.net. One look, and I fell in love.
Besides, 1-hour-breakfasts are for special occasions. I like a nice breakfast, but I also like to sleep, so I wouldn’t get up an hour earlier just to make this. But today, I had nothing on my agenda, so I got up 8.30 to make this, and an hour later me and the boyfriend could enjoy a serious breakfast. Coffee and everything! Lovely!

It was sweeter and heavier than I imagined, quite cake-like. Or crumble-like. Well, quite frankly, and between us, it was a crumble. But that means it was good! Just a little over the top for breakfast, but this is such a day, so it was ok. This was my first encounter with baked oatmeal. It was really good and I loved the crunchy buttery crust. And the addition of blueberries were divine. Perfect combo. I guess there are healthier versions, but hey, that wasn’t really on my mind this morning. Not exactly. I paired it with a good dollop of sour cream, and that was perfect. Since it was quite heavy, I even have some leftovers that will make a nice treat to Grey’s Anatomy tonight!

Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

1 1/4 cups blueberries
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup honey
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
¾ cups butter, divided
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
¼ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoons salt
4 tbsp. brown sugar

Preheat oven to 200C/350° F.
Melt butter. Pour 1/4 cup into the bottom of a 9-inch square baking dish.
Sprinkle blueberries and 2 tbsp of brown sugar on top of the butter. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together the soy milk, honey, eggs, remaining butter and vanilla.
In a large bowl, whisk together oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.
Pour over the fruit and smooth the top. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tbsp. of brown sugar.
Bake at 350°F for 40 to 50 minutes, or until browned on top and fruit is bubbly. Allow to cool slightly. Serve with milk or cream. Or like I did, sour cream. Delicious!