Vegan Mofo Day 6 - Super Fruit Porridge
Continuing with my theme of fruit and nuts for breakfast I'm merging this with today's daily prompt which is to share a comfort food that always cheers you up. For me that would be porridge. I love that there's no end to ways to 'pimp your porridge' with allsorts of different fruit and nut combinations. Porridge does not have to be boring! It's also a great breakfast when you are on a budget as oats are cheap and there's always good prices to be found on dried fruit and nuts.
I am a big, big fan of Urban Fruit. They do a lovely range of dried fruits which they advertise as 'gently baked'. Whenever they are on offer I stock up. Recently our local Co-Op delisted a lot of lines and brought in new ones so I grabbed some bags of dried strawberries and dried cherries for bargain prices. I like that you can also pick up Urban Fruit in mini bags too. I love the pineapple for snacking on.
Here's what the strawberries look like out of the bag. Kind of weird eh! They have an intense jammy flavour. For this porridge I also dry fried a couple of spoonfuls of almonds as a topper.
We'd visited Matt's mum a few days before and she'd kindly sent us home with a tub of stewed rhubarb so that formed the base of the fruit compote. To it I added a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a few tablespoons of Sweet Freedom (maple or agave or any other honey substitute would be good too) and a handful of the dried strawberries. I let it simmer for around 15 minutes and the strawberries plumped up nicely.
I went off to do a bit of yoga whilst the fruit mix was simmering away and Matt made the porridge. It's just oats and water. He also added his secret porridge ingredient which is a grated apple. If you've not tried this before you must do! The apple just dissolves into the porridge, thinly sliced banana is good too. So there you have it - Super Fruit Porridge. Warming and comforting with a good boost of energy, vitamins and fibre from apple, rhubarb and strawberries. What fruit and nut combinations would you add to porridge?
The grated apple trick is one I must try. I like adding dates and frozen berries with a dash of cinnamon to my oats. I love "pimping out your oats" Hilarious!
ReplyDeleteGrated apple is a good idea. I sometimes add grated carrot, raisins, cinnamon and walnuts for a carrot cake effect. I like all your different ways of jazzing up your porridge, I tend to always do the same thing (dried apricots or peanut butter).
ReplyDeleteYour super fruit porridge looks delicious! :) I'll have to try adding grated apple to my oatmeal sometime.
ReplyDeleteI love the sounds of jammy dried strawberries! I always go for frozen fruit (whatever's cheap!) and a mix of seeds on my porridge. It's pretty much the only breakfast that will get me out of bed on a school day!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so good! Strawberry and rhubarb is a perfect combination.
ReplyDeleteMmmm.... grated apple sounds awesome! I should try that out.
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