Easy on the go breakfast cups

The quest for acceptable holiday breakfasts continues.  I've tried a few online recipes, and found many that are suitable, but the kids either get bored or find some issue with the results quite quickly.  I don't want to compromise, and I want a handful of solutions that I can put on rotation.  After a lot of trial and error, I came up with this iteration which is a mix of a couple of different recipes.

1 and a half cups of oats

2-3 tbsp of ground flax seed or similar (I used Aldi's ground linseed with raspberry and blueberry powder)

3 small brown bananas

3 tbsp smooth peanut butter (I used Whole Earth)

2tbsp coconut oil

half a cup of dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180°C and lightly oil 10-12 silicon muffin cases.

Mash the bananas as smoothly as you can in a small bowl.  Add the peanut butter and mix until well blended.  Now add the coconut oil.  If you've used a peanut butter that is even more natural and separated, you may not need as much or any coconut oil.

In a bigger bowl, mix the oats and the flax seed.  You could add some chia as well if you like.

Stir through the choc chips.

Add the banana peanut butter mix and combine well.  Divide between muffin cups and bake for 15 mins.

Remove when done, they should be browned and slightly crisp around the edges.  Allow to cool for a few mins and then turn carefully onto a cooling rack.  Store in an airtight container.

Serve with berries if liked.

Thermos overnight porridge

So I've been following and feeling inspired by the wonderful Girl Called Jack blog lately. She's done a few posts about porridge and other oat based breakfasts. Big'Un has been using her Berry Bircher (Starbucks-alike) pot recipe for a few months for her early morning starts. She makes enough for 2 days at a time in the evening and it is all soaked, creamy and plumptious by the morning. 

Papa has a couple of 5am starts a week, and he has been taking those "just add boiling water" instant porridge pots, but the cost of those quickly adds up, even if we buy them on offer! 

I looked into slow cooker porridge but it seemed to be very fraught, so I carried on searching. Then I saw a couple of very interesting posts from the lovely Jack about instant porridge and so we decided to give her method involving milk powder and oats and the kettle a go. However this seemed very heavy when made with ordinary oats, (and I didn't want to use more processed quick oats) and Papa felt very uncomfy after this. We also tried the microwave version but it also wasn't quite right. I looked again at more slow cooker methods, and even found there are multicooker machines which will cook porridge on a timer, ready for the morning. Yes, I know both hob top or microwave porridge don't take long to make, but they do take a while to cool down, and that is a problem unless we start getting up yet another half hour earlier.

Eventually, I found a few posts discussing thermos cooking. I was intrigued. I gave it a go.

Wow I'm so glad I did!!  Here's how:

So first we made the Girl Called Jack oat/milk powder mix and stored it in a cereal container. Papa had added ground ginger and lemon sugar to flavour his. 

I then boiled a kettle and preheated a proper metal thermos flask. Then I refilled the kettle and boiled it again. Once the kettle came to the boil again, I emptied the flask out (into the washing up bowl, so as not to waste it) and using a jam funnel, I put in one mugful of the oats mixture. I then quickly added 3 mugsful of the fresh boiling water. I sealed up the flask, shook it around, and then left it on its side overnight.

The next morning we had gorgeously creamy, smooth, cooked, warm porridge!! The perfect consistency and the perfect temperature. There was at least enough there for 4 people, in a 1.5 ltr flask. We had to mix it up as there was thin liquid on top and stodgy lumps at the bottom, but it evened out. That was a huge food flask, so I'm trying it again with a standard 1ltr drinks thermos. I will report back on how it works out. 

Seriously, try it! You will love it!! You could try adding cocoa to the mix for a change, the flavours you could add are endless. 

Cookies galore!

Yes, obviously, I've been baking a bit more than usual.  Cookies were the first thing I wanted to do, as the mixture is much stiffer than cake dough, which has meant I've avoided making them for a while.  My Bosch has made this all possible again so I wanted to test out cookie recipes to find some I could always come back to as reliable.

 

Here are my 3 best cookie recipes. I adapt them to suit what ingredients I have to hand or fancy trying.

Using a couple of these I created some rather popular marshmallow cookies.  The secret is to roll a ball of dough around a mini marshmallow, flatten slightly and then bake.

100g raisins

175g butter

175g light brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

125g plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

half teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

half teaspoon cinnamon

250g rolled oats

about 25-30 mini marshmallows

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Stir in the egg and raisins. Add the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon. Stir well, then add the oats. Using a teaspoon to measure the dough if you prefer, take a small piece of dough, push a mini marshmallow in and roll in the palms of your hands until marshmallow is covered. Place on lined or greased baking tray and flatten slightly, leaving plenty of space between cookies. Bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees, for 15-20 minutes. Leave on sheets for 2 minutes before putting to cool on a rack.

Kids and grown ups love rolling these!

I also usually use about 50-75g of whole oats to replace some of the rolled oats, to give it a bit more texture.

Basic cookie dough to make your own signature flavoured cookies.

125g softnened butter

75 g light brown sugar

1 beaten egg

175g self raising flour

half teaspoon baking powder

 175g *something to flavour*

You can do plain choc, or half white choc half cranberries, or you can do half chopped nuts & half milk choc, or whatever you want to add.

Beat the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and and beat well. Add the flour, baking powder and flavour addition to make a stiff dough. Place spoonfuls spaced slightly apart onto 2 greased or lined baking sheets and bake at 180 degrees for 15-18 minutes. Leave to cool for 2 minutes on the trays then transfer to a wire rack.

 

Butterscotch Oat (Marshmallow) cookies

 

I've also baked this next recipe and I seem to recall we used butterscotch pieces in one of the batches.

 

125g softened butter

125g sugar

75g soft brown sugar

1 egg

135g plain flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

half teaspoon baking powder

half teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

85g oats

250g chocolate chips (which I did with half choc half butterscotch in one heavenly batch)

Put butter, sugars and egg in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk until smooth. Add flour, cinnamon, baking powder and bacarbonate of soda and mix well until well combined. Stir in the oats and choc chips. Take a tablespoon of the mixture and form into a ball, flatten on the cookie sheet, repeat until all is used (we did the marshmallows with this recipe once too)

Bake for 5-10 mins at 190 degrees. Remove and leave to cool.

A hint - these are SO good slightly warm... Make many batches and give away to people. These make people HAPPY!