porridge – Page 4 – GUTSy Performance Nutrition

superseed porridge with rhubarb, blood oranges + tahini

April 27, 2016April 27, 2016by Rebecca8 Comments

William took over my yoga mat the other night and started doing weird yoga-esque stretches I’ve never seen before. I’m certainly no yoga expert, but I think he was making them up. When I inquired about this new foray into brief stretching, he started talking about helping out his Qi (sounds like chee), which in Traditional Chinese Wisdom is the circulating vital energy or life force within us.

Around our house, I talk about Qi all the time, especially as it relates to mental clutter, anger or frustration, and digestive unease–basically whenever I notice something is personally out of balance. William is just about the only one I talk about Qi with, and having him suddenly spout my words back at me was a moment of startling clarity. As it turns out, when we spend enough time with someone, we begin to believe and do the same things as each other. I guess that’s why he also wanted only a big thrown together “beans and rice salad” for his weekly meal contribution recently, instead of the more typical tacos, pasta, and pizza fare.

It all makes me wonder, what little practices and sayings am I picking up from him (and others) that I haven’t noticed?

Superseed Porridge with Rhubarb, Blood Orange + Tahini, serves 1

I eat more oatmeal than my old horse but have also been experimenting with a good mixed grain/seed porridge combination these past few months. I’ve finally found one I like. It includes a few of the pseudo-grains/seeds I’ve been trying to enjoy more of including amaranth and buckwheat. They are wonderful and nutritional heavy-weights, but have strong, distinct flavors that can overwhelm all on their own. I leave out what we consider true seeds from the actual mix as I like to add ground sesame, flax, sunflower, pumpkin, hemp, chia, or tahini as the whim strikes, and I expect you will as well. Sometimes I add in an adaptogen like ashwagandha or maca powder, which I’m eagerly learning more about in my herbal medicine classes for their ability to help us adapt to stress. That’s a highly individual thing, however, and I recognize that simply making a good morning meal and eating it mindfully at a table is a vast improvement for many of us. I’ve tried this porridge mix with a number of flavor combinations throughout the seasons, but the one I love right now is heavy on the rhubarb with blood oranges and tahini.

Super Seed Porridge Mix, makes 10 1/3-cup servings

2 cups old-fashioned oats, gluten-free if necessary

2/3 cup quinoa flakes

1/2 cup amaranth

1/2 cup buckwheat

Mix together and store in a container of choice. When ready to cook, use 1 cup water to 1/3 cup grains for each serving.

Rhubarb, Blood Oranges + Tahini Porridge

rhubarb sauce, as much or as little as preferred

1-2 tsp. tahini

1 cup water

1/3 cup porridge mix

1 blood orange, sections separated and roughly chopped and a little zest stirred in.

sweetener, to taste

I stew the rhubarb into a sauce or compote ahead of time. Including chopping and prep, it takes no more than 20 minutes. Simply chop a few stalks of rhubarb roughly and then add to a small saucepan along with a small splash of water. Cook over medium high for a few minutes until it becomes a sauce. Unlike a lot of people, I don’t add sugar to the sauce and instead leave it tart. I’ll add a sweetener of choice to whatever I mix it into and adjust as needed. If I feel like getting fancy, I’ll stir in a little vanilla or orange zest.
Then boil the one cup water and whisk in the grains in a small saucepan. Cook until it becomes a porridge, and stir in the rhubarb sauce and tahini in the last few minutes, until warm.
Finally, add in a little orange zest and the orange sections in the last minutes, as their Vitamin C is heat sensitive and easily lost in cooking. Add sweetener of choice to taste.
All in all, this is more of a weekend porridge—or as I’ve taken to doing, it can be easily made up the night before. I cook the entire thing save the blood orange, and then pour into my serving bowl and let it chill overnight in the fridge. The next morning, I simply reheat in the microwave and stir in the orange and orange zest and I’ve got a fancy start to an otherwise busy morning.

Autumn

Chai-Spiced Pear Oats

November 16, 2015January 1, 2016by Rebecca3 Comments

Several years ago, I stayed with a few girlfriends at a B&B run by Agnes, who lives on a farm off the western edge of Ireland. From the moment we arrived we were fed quite well, including dinner, which was fresh caught from the ocean by her son. We had a proper Irish breakfast the next morning with the traditional white and black puddings, fried tomato and egg, thick slabs of brown bread, muesli, yogurt, and then pots of tea. After I was stuffed as could be, I slipped into the kitchen to ask Agnes a question. She was just tidying up and there, sitting at a tiny table away from the guests, was her farmer husband in his wool socks, tucking into a homely and simple bowl of porridge.

I immediately wished I could take all of my breakfast back, forget my friends, and sit at the table with him eating homely oats and chatting about the first frost date, how much rain we’ve received, the work that needs done before the storm, and other farmer things.

If ever I fed people food for a living instead of words and ideas, I would feed them porridge.

It is the meal I most closely associate with the term comfort food, and the one I’ll gladly eat any time of day but especially at the end of a long and discouraging one. It is the breakfast I always hope is fed to me when I stay at a friend or relative’s house, and at home in my own kitchen, it is the one I love to change throughout the seasons with all variations of grains, fruits, and flavors. I’m especially partial to thick-rolled oats but lately I’ve also been experimenting with various ratios of amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, and polenta.

And then I always seem to return to oats. Perhaps this is because I grew up on its simplicity and homeliness, eating it slowly on nearly frosty mornings at the same table I have now, as I listened to my dad talk about the weather and other farmer things in his wool socks.

Chai-Spiced Pear Oats, serves 2 Continue reading “Chai-Spiced Pear Oats” →

Autumn, Winter

Garam Masala + Winter Squash Breakfast Porridge

December 7, 2014March 19, 2015by Rebecca3 Comments

If my hair looks slightly more orange than usual, it’s because I’ve been eating winter squash every meal of every day for the past four plus weeks.

Oh. Wait. The hair is actually going back to being blondish-orange, just like when I was five. By that I mean I’ve been plucking gray hairs with a vengeance because apparently two years past the quarter-century mark, and the aging process has progressed significantly. What’s more, I carry a heating pad around to warm my old-lady bones most days, and the stair handrails at work are especially useful for pulling my body up to the fourth floor office.

Okay. Slighht exaggeration. Turns out I can be lazy and dragging myself up the stairs is the best way to get to the top given the no-elevator-unless-more-than-three-minutes-late-to-an-important-meeting policy I’ve implemented. Heating pad story is true though(!) Okkkkay let’s skip the eye rolls and aging talk and get to this winter-squash porridge, now please.

There may be a fair amount of recipes for mornings in this space, but most are never eaten for breakfast!

I love breakfast foods, but I grew up regularly eating Stink Bug Porridge, aka oatmeal with raisins, and I’m ruined forever to anything but porridge-y foods in the morning. Don’t ask how my dad giving it that terrible nickname led me to beg for oatmeal even more.

William and I eat oats most mornings and though he never deviates from his stink bugs, I’m constantly changing up the ingredients, depending on the season. Lately I’ve been see-sawing between pears and pumpkins, always adding a bit of spice. I was inspired by this pie that uses Garam Masala, but since pie is not exactly an everyday food around here and our Thanksgiving last week involved pie eaters that favor traditional flavors like Chocolate pudding(?!?), porridge was a better bet to experiment with.

So…most other breakfasty items actually get rebranded as dessert. Don’t get me started, people that know me. Yes, I consider healthified muffins and granola dessert. Also, eating bacon earlier than 4pm should be outlawed and breakfast sausage is just not my thing. I knowwww. Girl grew up on a cattle ranch and can happily eat mostly-vegan for weeks at a time. So weird.

My siblings often joke about my first memory, age two, of being dropped on my head off a horse (a story for another day!), and if it weren’t for William being so completely normal–aka eating real dessert and bacon for breakfast–my parents would probably disown me.

Garam Masala + Winter Squash Porridge, serves 1

If you’re new to experimenting with these spices, start with less and add more to taste. I’m going to begin with only a dash of each to my dad’s Christmas stink bugs in a couple weeks… ;)

1/2 cup thick rolled oats, certified gluten-free if necessary

1 cup water

1 cup roasted winter squash

1/4 tsp. garam masala

pinch ground cardamom

dash cloves

dash salt

1 Tbs. ground flax or pumpkin seeds

Stevia, honey, brown sugar, or sweetener of choice

In a small saucepan, boil water, and then add oats and winter squash.
Turn down to medium heat and cook until most of the liquid is absorbed and the oats are tender, about 8 minutes. If the squash does not readily break apart, mash it with the back of a spoon.
Stir in the spices and seeds and turn into a serving bowl. Add sweetener to taste.