Breakfast…
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This morning (well, afternoon) I made myself a rather tasty breakfast of porridge and coffee. So, per usual, I snapped a picture of it.
The coffee is just the standard beans that I roasted and ground myself. Really nothing too special, just good coffee made in a coffee press.
The porridge, though… Wow. For all the stories I heard growing up which alluded to porridge tasting like glue, being bland, or just otherwise being awful simply aren’t true. A good porridge seems to taste like an oatmeal cookie without the raisins and sugar. It’s extremely tasty and considerably better than standard instant oatmeal. It’s also really rather healthy. That bowl right there is right around 300 calories and 6.3g of fat. 280 for the oatmeal, then right about 20 or so for the blueberries.
See, I’d never thought to give the stuff a try, but when helping
A few weeks later I was watching an episode of Good Eats, and during a section where Alton Brown was discussing oats, he mentioned pinhead, (also known as steel cut) oatmeal and how good of a porridge it can make. Hmm… Maybe there is something going on here, I think…
Skip ahead a few more weeks and I find myself at Cost Plus poking around the food area, and I come across a 500g can of pinhead oatmeal from Hamlyn’s Oats of Scotland for $3.49. It’s not quite the stuff that Les uses (McCann’s), but it was a bit cheaper, and it’s a purely non-GMO Scottish grain, so I figured I’d give it a go.
Well, I must say, I’m very happy with the end result. It took a little bit of experimenting to find an exact combination of cooking time and adjuncts so that the porridge polishes off the flavor so that it suits my palette, but I did, and here’s the recipe I seem to enjoy using:
– In a 1½ quart non-stick (makes cleanup a lot easier) sauce pan, combine ½ cup of pinhead oatmeal and three cups of water. Stir until all the oatmeal is wet.
– Heat over a high heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Watch it carefully, because the starchy liquid will boil over quickly.
– As soon as a boil is reached, turn the heat down to low, just enough to keep it simmering.
– Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time.
– After the 20 minutes have elapsed, pour the porridge into a bowl. I personally prefer large rice bowls as pictured above or here.
– Sprinkle 1/8 teaspoon of salt on top of the porridge and stir in thoroughly. This sounds odd, but it really brings out the flavor of the oats.
– Sprinkle a small handful (about 2oz, or half of the package from my local market) of blueberries on top of the porridge.
– When it comes time to eat the porridge (you’ll need to let it cool a bit), just stir the blueberries in and eat. There should be enough blueberries in there for one every bite or so.
All in all, It’s just so, so good, and still very healthy.
Also, I’d imagine that if you are having… Issue… It’d help get things working a bit more smoothly down there.
I <3 steel cut oats. :) McCann's is my favorite brand, and you can find the round tins of it at Meijer's in their "international" aisle in the British section. :)
Hehe… That’s the kind I was going to get, but these were a bit cheaper, and Scottish. I figured they’d still be good, and I didn’t want to spend the dollars on a can of McCann’s in case I didn’t like it.
I’ll probably give those a try next, although I can’t imagine that either would be bad. :)
eating a bowl of mccains right now.
My recepie varies as I toss in the salt while cooking, and I add a whole bananna from the start. It gets all goeey and good while cooking, I finish it with a dash of cinamon, a pad of butter and brown sugar. Probably not quite as healthy but very good nonetheless.
Ooh, that sounds good too… I don’t think the butter and brown sugar would really add too much to it. The banana is a really good idea, though.
The reason I didn’t toss the salt in until the end is because, if I remember right, it causes cell walls to rupture, which would break down the grain even more. However, with the banana that’d probably be a good idea, as it’d help ensure that it all gets incorporated.
Yeah, even if I skip the butter and such, I’m *definitely* going to have to try adding a banana.
Oh, neat. :) Thanks!
Which one do you work at? A friend of mine named Deb works at (manages, or something) the one at John R and Big Beaver, too.
I actually got it at Borders back in 1995/1996 when I worked in the coffee shop there. They used to use them for customers, but stopped selling coffee (or maybe it was tea?) that way. I think I paid all of $4 or $5 at the time…
This is also the device that helped fuel all my caffeine-caused sleep depravation when I was going to and from Alaska and such. Well, that, and buying four-shot lattes from Caribou. (I don’t think there were many Starbucks around at the time.)
A+ for presentation on that breakfast shot :)
Oh, that place is… Uhm… Izzy’s Bistro (pictures here) and it’s in downtown New Baltimore. Basically… 23 Mile Road east until it curves, then it’s right on the corner of Washington (I believe) and M-29 (what 23 Mile turns into). Right downtown there…