January 25, 2006

The Pleasures of Porridge

I used to shop for the oatmeal variety packs with glee, until I realized how much sugar and very little nutrition those envelopes serve up. Here are some inexpensive ideas to create your own hot porridges without all the sugar and suspicious dried cubes of fruit:

* Use any sort of grain or grain combination: whole oats, barley, quinoa, millet, amaranth and brown rice offer the most nutrition. You can even re-heat last night's dinner leftovers, provided they weren't cooked with something else. (Mmmmm, shrimp porridge.)

* For apples and cinnamon oats: (1 part oats to 2 parts liquid when cooking) cook with 1/2 apple cider and 1/2 water, then sprinkle cinnamon on while cooking... no sugar necessary!

* For maple flavored oats: cook with water or milk (cow, goat, soy, rice, etc.) and a vanilla bean (cleaned). After cooking, add pure maple syrup to taste. This way the sugar is pure (and unrefined) and you control the amount.

* Add sunflower seeds, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), flax seeds, dried cranberries, raisins, and nuts to the cooked grains. Not only does it boost the texture and flavor, but they add nutrition and protein as well.