You Pinspire Me
As I’ve said in the last few posts, completing the Whole30 challenge was, indeed, a challenge for me. I didn’t like leaving behind my favourite recipes and foods. I did, however, come across a few recipes that have joined my new meal rotation.
I got pretty sick and tired of eating eggs ALL THE TIME. I used to hate eggs when I was little, but my appreciation for eggs grew in proportion to the amount of time I spent cooking for myself. They’re easy, quick, and pretty tasty. Until you eat them for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Blech.
Anyhow. I love eating warm, slightly sweet, slightly salty things in a bowl for breakfast. I heard of “N’Oatmeal” – an oatmeal-less breakfast porridge – made of nuts – and thought I’d give it a go.
As I ground up the nuts for my first attempt, I was fairly wary of how it would all go down, but wow. I was pleasantly surprised. It didn’t taste like the Quaker Instant Oatmeal packages that I do love so much, but it was entirely delicious in its own right. (Please don’t judge my tastebuds by the fact that they love packaged instant oatmeal. They also have a fairly mature palate aside from the inner child palate in me.)
I now keep a jar of ground nuts – pecans, cashews, peanuts, and almonds – in the cupboard to make it easier to whip up a batch of this in the morning – but it still takes me around 15 minutes. I like to add raisins and apples and the extra cooking time gives them the chance to soften up nicely before serving. Once you give this a try and decide that you like it, I would recommend grinding up a large batch of nuts so you don’t have to clean the food processor quite so often.
note: serve this n’oatmeal recipe in a dessert bowl. It’s quite filling, but it’s easy to eat too much of it at once because it’s so tasty.
The quantities in my recipe are approximate because after I made it once, I realized that it’s an incredibly flexible recipe and will stand up to alterations of almost every ingredient. Now I just toss some of this and a lot of that into the pot and it works out deliciously every time.
- 1 Tbsp coconut oil
- 3/4 cup ground nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds, cashews, peanuts, or any combination of these)
- 1/2 cup almond milk (plus a little more, depending on your preferences)
- a handful of raisins
- 1 apple, cored and chopped
- 2 dashes of cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp salt
- In a small pot, on medium heat, melt the coconut oil.
- Add nuts and stir until they start to toast and smell nutty.
- Pour in almond milk and stir in (be careful, hot steam comes up quickly and will splash on your arm if you try to stir too soon).
- Add in the apples, raisins, cinnamon, & salt, stir.
- Add extra almond milk if desired, turn heat down to low, and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Serve hot. Top with bananas or other fruit if desired.
- This oatmeal does not actually require simmering for 10 minutes, but I prefer my raisins plump and my apples soft. If you like things a little more rare, feel free to cut down the cooking time.
Jenn vanOosten
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Really want to try this!! Sounds like great fuel for a busy day!!