My porridge is not too hot, not too cold, but also very different than most peoples...

Ferg
Ferg Posts: 285 ✭✭✭
edited November 2020 in General Recipes

I'm a super-savory person. Not a huge fan of pancake breakfasts or sugary things in the morning. A decade or so ago, I visited Scotland. At breakfast, I was offered oatmeal done 'traditionally' - plain, with salt. Traditional Scottish Oatmeal is also not rolled oats, but the steel cut type. So this was a bowl of nutty grain with salt.

I really enjoyed the taste and texture.

Now, while I can see adding nuts and sugar and cream to a bowl of oatmeal, my favorite additives to my steel cut oatmeal are... olives, cheese, nuts, sundried tomatoes, and fresh herbs. Usually I make a small vat of oatmeal and then reheat some during the week, since it isn't a quick-and-easy prep like instant or rolled oats.

These days it's pretty hot out, though, and I don't like hot. My plants do, but I do not. I'm happy eating cold salads and soups etc. So I decided that I didn't feel like making oatmeal.

Well my body soon noticed that I wasn't eating my oatmeal and it groused at me. Anyone else have a grousy body? So I took out y oatmeal container, and starred at it, and realized it kind reminded me of bulgar wheat, so i made...

tabouli. Half bulgar, half steel cut oats, and the normal cast of characters. OMG. Delish! The oat grain taste was a nice additive. I've made tabouli with black quinoa and with millet as well, so it isn't surprising that oat as a grain was nice.

Here's a quick recipe in case anyone wants to try:

~1/2 cup of grain

1 cup boiling water

juice of 1 lemon

~ 1 tbs olive oil (or whatever liquid oil you like)

a bunch of fresh parsley, minced up (~1/4 cup after mincing)

a sprig of mint, minced up

1 lg tomato, minced

~1/4 cup minced/finely sliced scallions, chives, green onions...

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste


Add the water and lemon juice to the grains and let sit until soaked in and the grains are softened. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well, and allow to sit for a couple hours before serving. Nice with olives and fresh soft salty cheese like a feta or weisskaese

Comments

  • JaneMcTavish
    JaneMcTavish Posts: 26 ✭✭✭

    Thank you. I'll be giving that a try.

    I've been putting my measure of steel cut oats in a pint jar along with blueberries, strawberries, peaches, pears, banana, adding about one fourth to one half cup juice, a splash of coconut or almond milk, and half cup of water. Put the lid on and set it in the refrigerator. Next morning if I feel like hot, i heat it or i can just enjoy it. And if things get crazy, i can put the jar in my purse and have breakfast or a meal of it on the go.

  • Ferg
    Ferg Posts: 285 ✭✭✭

    @JaneMcTavish That's an excellent idea (-: I used to throw my steel cut into a small thermos, add boiling water and some olives, and stick it in my train bag. By the time mid-morning tea came around, it would be soft. I'd forgotten about that.

    I imagine cold it is a bit like a mueslix (-:

  • blevinandwomba
    blevinandwomba Posts: 813 ✭✭✭✭

    @Ferg I noticed an improvement in my health when I made oats a regular part of my diet. For the last week I've been having an oatmeal smoothie everyday for breakfast. I soak a half cup of quick oats in water overnight, then blend in the morning with more water or nutmilk, natural peanut butter, a pinch of salt, some frozen banana slices, and sometimes some cocoa powder. It keeps more full all morning

  • seeker.nancy - Central Texas
    seeker.nancy - Central Texas Posts: 795 ✭✭✭✭

    I try to have a bowl of oatmeal every day. I like the Old Fashioned oats because the flakes are thicker and bigger. I do not cook it though, I add some type of nut, some type of fruit (dried if I have no fresh), a tsp. of my powdered greens from last year and about a cup of either soy or nut milk. The variations are endless! I've always been a breakfast person and can eat a traditional breakfast at any meal. I like having this as my supper. By then I'm tired and don't want to cook so it's perfect. My body definitely likes oat lol.

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin
    edited July 2020

    I agree with you on not having much of a sweet tooth, and I LOVE Scottish oatmeal! Haggis is fantastic, btw.... it is basically just a big sausage made of organ meats, onions and oatmeal... a must have at Highland Games and Robert Burns suppers. My family is Clan Kian, btw. If I recall correctly, he responded to an English critic who derided the Scottish love of oats by saying that in England, oats were fit only for horses, by saying something along the lines of, "Aye, which is why ye breed fine horses in England. In Scotland, we breed fine people."

  • Ferg
    Ferg Posts: 285 ✭✭✭

    @judsoncarroll4 ay, being of strong Scots descent, I'm aware of haggis. It's really marvelous with a horseradish sauce over it as well.

    Have you had Boudin? Cracker haggis. Delish.

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    I'm half French, and from the American South, so I LOVE all boudin! We also have a pork liver pate in the Carolinas called "liver pudding", so likely of English heritage. When our cultures mixed with Creole, a lot of hot pepper found its way in the better products, making it very different than "liver mush" or scrapple (which has a German influence). Good liver pudding is liver with onions, salt, black and hot pepper cooked with cornmeal and stuffed in a hog casing. It is excellent on crackers, served over grits with scrambled eggs, but my favorite is fried served on some made buttermilk biscuit with a slice of home grown tomato!

  • bcabrobin
    bcabrobin Posts: 251 ✭✭✭

    I enjoy rolled oats cooked with pecans and cranberries. Add water or milk to oats stir in the nuts and fruit, cinnamon, cloves and ginger cook. So good!

  • Merin Porter
    Merin Porter Posts: 1,026 admin


    My husband is a huge fan of boudin. (I don't really care for it myself, but to each his or her own.) He likes to "blacken" his. We haven't found a great source for boudin in SW Colorado, so we stock up on it when we go to visit relatives in Houston. There's a restaurant called Pappadeaux's that will sell it frozen and ready to cook, so we buy a bunch frozen and transport it back on ice, then just keep it in the freezer here until my husband is ready to blacken another link or two for a meal. It's a little bit pricey, but it's a splurge and it's nice for him to have those Louisiana flavors on tap as a treat once in a while....

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    I have some good recipes for boudin if you'd like them.... Cajun style, Creole style and French.

  • Ferg
    Ferg Posts: 285 ✭✭✭

    of course, no discussion of porridge-meets-organ meat foods would be right without also mentioning cracklin.....