How Do You Porridge?

Porridge - what do you think of when you hear that word?  For me it means any hot, cooked grain cereal that one would eat - probably for breakfast.  Tho. I think porridge can be farina, cream of wheat, grits, oatmeal, etc...

My favorite porridge is oatmeal and I make something of a science of preparing myself a healthy and filling bowl of the stuff.  Here's what I do:

1.  Start with some healthy old fashioned rolled oats.  I prefer not to use the little packages of oats and not to use quick cooking oats and not to use flavored or pre-sweetened oats.  In the USA, I try to eat as much organic food as possible since giant chemical lobbies like the evil Monsanto company are allowed to put all kinds of crap in our food AND not even label it as such.  So, I use these organic oats:

2.  Measure out the amount of oats you wish to use.  In the USA our measurements are in volume rather than weight.  Just use any small cup, it doesn't even have to be a measurement cup and dump it in the pot.  Typically I use about 1/3 cup of oats, today I used 1/2 cup of oats since I just came back from a 5K run and didn't have breakfast before I went, I'm now really hungry!

3.  Using the same cup you used to measure the oats, fill it twice with water and add that to the oats in your pot.

4.  Cook the oats on medium heat until they are no longer watery or shiny.

5.  While the oats are cooking prepare the extras.  I love all the extras in my oatmeal.  I typically use whatever I have on hand.  Today it was 1/2 a banana.  I cut it up and put it in the bowl before the oatmeal.

6.  Then the berries (warning - in the USA use organic berries ONLY - non-organic berries are loaded with pesticides) which today were raspberries (my favorite berry) and strawberries.  I like to put half the berries under the oatmeal and the other half on top.

7.  When the oats finish their cooking, I dump them atop the bananas and berries.

8.  Then I put little clumps of Earth Balance (aka my butter) in the oatmeal.

9.  I chopped a few dates and added them.

10.  The rest of the berries were added to the top.

11.  The whole thing was finished with raw sliced almond and pecans.

Note:  I love a bit of brown sugar sprinkled on my oatmeal but since Jan 1 I am making a healthy attempt not to eat sugar or any added sweetener and also no white flour.

Ta dah!  This is one big, giant bowl of oatmeal!

AND... I managed to eat the whole thing.  Hopefully that will keep me full for a while.

Here are some more ideas for items to add to your oatmeal or porridge:

Raisins (aka sultanas), apples, walnuts, coconut, maple syrup, craisins, blueberries, blackberries, jam

How do you porridge?

Birthdays Breakfasts and Breaks

The month of March has proved to be quite full:

Full of birthdays, flowers, travel, spring breaks, snow flakes and so much more!  Here are a few of the more mundane highlights.  Although the photos are a bit mundane, they are certainly things that make me happy to remember them.

Making breakfast -

The thing that excites me the most about mornings is FRESH HOT COFFEE... seriously, I LOVE coffee.  For breakfast, I usually wait a bit - I eat it late morning, more sort of a brunch.  Breakfast isn't very exciting.  For one, I'm usually here alone and don't realize I need to eat until I hear the growly noises begin.  By then, I just try to throw something together.  I like to vary my breakfasts - switching it up a bit between oatmeal, cereal, English muffin, crumpet, bagel, toast, eggs etc...

But some mornings...

Breakfast just looks a bit more appealing - maybe it's the fresh organic fruit that was available this week or the homemade peanut butter (see a post about making your own HERE), but I thought it looked pretty enough for a picture - so I took one.

Or 3 or 4...  On this morning, I actually sat at the table and read the paper while I ate - normally, I'm running from thing to thing and I stand at the counter and woof it all down - I need more days with a sit down breakfast and time to enjoy what I chew!

On the 18th, my husband turned 49 (I beat him to that number a few months back).  He's a true music lover and if there is a microphone available or a dance floor nearby, you can be sure he'll be on it!  To celebrate that part of him, my oldest son and I devised this cake decor.  We turned his 2-layer chocolate cake into a 45 record.  The song title is a long-standing family joke!

We went out for dinner with two of the four kids (the others were off at college/grad school).

The restaurant was having live opera singers that night which was fun.

And we enjoyed our bottle of wine since we had a designated driver with us.

We saved some room for cake and ice cream back at the house while we opened some presents and cards.

Candles out the side of the cake left our record groove decoration in tact.

And even at age 49 - he managed to blow out the 4 candles on one side of the cake and the 9 on the other - all in one breath!

We've had a lot of snow flurries this month - not much accumulation to speak of, but often just enough to salt the grass and coat the cars.

This little dusting arrived right alongside the first day of spring.

Early morning yard outing with the dog, exploring the bits of white fluff on the tree branches.

She couldn't have cared less about the flurries - it was the squirrels that had her attention.

This week I had another coffee drinker hanging about the house - he discovered my new coffee mug... 99cents at the "bargain store."  Since he was home for St. Paddy's day, he added the hat.  He tried to make a lot of new fashion statements while he was here.

One night he met up with some local college friends and wore these VERY turquoise pants quite unabashedly.

We are almost at the end of the month and we certainly aren't done... we still have two college visits, Easter, youngest son's 17th birthday and who knows...maybe still more snow to come.

It's been snowing most of today.  After the early morning accumulation, not much is left though.  Check out today's snowy photos in THIS POST.

Come back soon to see photos from my trip to New Orleans earlier this month!