Jun 29, 2023 4 min read Newsletters

Outstanding Oatmeal Bowls - Issue #22

Date oatmeal with fresh kiwifruit, banana, toasted muesli, freeze-dried raspberries and chia seeds.

Hello Food Lovers,

I'm probably a bit behind the times, but I recently enjoyed the most outstanding oatmeal breakfast bowl. Breakfast is my least favourite meal and I often just skip it because I don't know what to have (oops I know I shouldn't since it really is the most important meal of the day!). Anyway, I hope you feel inspired like I now do to enjoy starting the day with a beautiful and delicious breakfast.

With the breakfast theme running strong, I've also been enjoying trying out some ways to present bacon and eggs in a more interesting way, so watch out for that in the pipeline!

The newsletter closes off with some Q&A about sandwiches.

Hope you have a great week!

In this issue:

What’s in the pipeline? - Breakfast Plating Inspiration
Inspiration from my kitchen - Outstanding Oatmeal Bowls
Q&A - Does a sandwich have 2 slices of bread?

What's in the Pipeline?

In a recent comment on my YouTube channel I was asked to show some ideas for plating breakfast. A plated breakfast definitely doesn't need to be boring, there are so many lovely colours and ingredients you can use to give it a "Wow" factor.

Keep an eye out next week for a video where we take a simple bacon and egg breakfast, add some very simple additions you can make at home, and see how we turn it into a beautiful dish you could get at a café.

Cream cheese and pesto toast with streaky bacon, poached eggs and blistered cherry tomatoes.

Inspiration from my Kitchen

Breakfast is my least favourite meal of the day. If I can choose one meal to skip it is most definitely breakfast... well at least it was until I tried a posh porridge breakfast bowl recently!

Porridge or oatmeal can be very plain and boring, and I'm sure many of us eat it just like that because it is one of the healthier breakfasts. It fuels our bodies and we go into the day feeling well nourished.

Maybe making it posh does add a few 'unhealthy' ingredients, but if you choose carefully and add them in moderation you can revamp your oatmeal into something amazing! In fact it is so good you could just about serve it for dessert!

I recently tried a couple of different toppings on my plain boring porridge to take it up a notch both in looks and flavour. Maybe I should make a video on this sometime soon? There are so many toppings you can add to make it beautiful, nutritional and delicious. See the basic recipe below and a whole list of different toping ideas.

Basic Oatmeal Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
2 cups water or milk (or dairy alternatives to milk) or both
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

Bring the water/milk to the boil in a small saucepan.
Add the oats and turn down the heat to medium.
Stir until a rolling simmer.
Turn off the heat, cover with a lid and leave for a few minutes.

Some serving suggestions:

Fruit puree or compote
Sliced fresh fruit - banana, kiwifruit, citrus, berries
Dried fruit - raisins, cranberries, goji berries, apricots, dates, coconut
Yoghurt - Greek style, sweetened or un-sweetened
Seeds - chia, flax, sesame, poppy, pumpkin, sunflower
Nuts - almonds, cashews, walnuts, macadamia, brazil
Muesli - toasted
Peanut butter or other nut butter
Spices - cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice, cardamom
Chocolate chips - dark, white or milk

With all these options you could have a different topping combination every day of the year! There are lots of things to experiment with too like toasting the oats in a little butter before cooking, or adding a mashed banana in during the cooking process, or even adding some chocolate to melt through. I'd love to know some of your favourite oatmeal flavours.

Q&A

I received an interesting comment on my recent 'Simple Tea Sandwich' video.

Simple open-faced tea sandwich selection.

Q: I thought a basic sandwich had a minimum of 2 layers of bread. Didn't know it was a sandwich with just one slice.

A: You can get 2 types of sandwich - an open or closed-face sandwich. An open faced sandwich typically has one piece of bread with the fillings put on top (e.g. Open Danish Sandwiches). A closed sandwich has the filling between 2 pieces of bread.

A basic sandwich is an item of food consisting of two pieces of bread with a filling between them, and eaten as a light meal. Tea sandwiches are small sandwiches (closed or open-faced) that can be eaten in 2-3 bites. They're a classic snack that's often served with afternoon or high tea and can have all sorts of fillings.