An Oat Idea; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 17, no. 33
An Oat Idea
My food story today is about oats. Well, it's about breakfast. I could easily eat an egg, or even two, every day for breakfast. But I've been swayed by those studies that tell me not to. So every morning I lie in bed and contemplate what my breakfast will be. I used to make pancakes, waffles, and French toast regularly, because I love them all.
But now I'm more aware of gluten and sugar, so I shy away from such things. Not completely, of course. I still love my pancakes made from cooked whole grains. (See Fast & Fearless Cooking if you've forgotten how to make these.) My current favourite quick breakfast is a bowl of blueberries from the stash in our freezer, toasted oats, pumpkin seeds, and yogurt. Here's the breakdown (for one person):
Turn on a burner and heat a dry (no oil) cast iron skillet. Put into it half a cup of oatmeal flakes and a couple tablespoons of pumpkin seeds. Measurements are unimportant; use as much or as little as you want to eat.
Pour some frozen blueberries into a cereal dish—about half a cup.
Make coffee. Allot the day's vitamin pills into their two little bowls. Put away a few pots and pans from the drainer.
Give the oats/pumpkin seeds a toss. You can stir them with a wooden spoon, but this is a good opportunity to practice that chef-y trick of flipping the contents with a quick shove forward, then back.
Take your ashwaganda capsule. Take a spoonful of nettle tincture to make your hair grow (it won't work, but it isn't expensive and anything is worth a try).
Flip the oats and seeds again. By now the oats should be toasting nicely and the seeds might even have started crackling.
Before they burn, dump the skillet contents on top of the frozen blueberries. See, this is the genius moment: the hot oats will cause the blueberries to thaw so that by the time you eat them they won't freeze your teeth.
Add some plain yogurt, about a third to a half of a cup. The sheep's milk yogurt from Best Baa is the absolutely best yogurt in the city—as rich and creamy as Greek yogurt without all the hype.
Load up the tray with his coffee, your chocolate tea, the little vitamin dishes, and your bowl of oats and blueberries, and walk carefully to the alcove, with the Globe under your arm. Sit. Eat. Read the Letters to the Editor.
In case you're worried, I have in the meantime prepared DinoVino's bowl of ground flax, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and hemp hearts. He doesn't like to eat first thing in the morning, so he will, in a couple of hours, mix in a giant spoonful of commercial pesto and gobble it down.
Tomorrow you can have a butter-steamed egg on your homemade sourdough bread, toasted.
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