Winter Breakfast Warmer

Winter Breakfast Warmer

What can be better than a steaming bowl of porridge to get your winter morning off to a cracking start?

There are hundreds of suggestions for toppings; fresh fruit, seeds, nuts, honey, maple syrup and nut butters. However, when you think of porridge, most people think of porridge made from oats but there are lots of other grains to make it from as well.

Making porridge from other whole grains, including quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat and millet, is just as simple as making porridge from oats. The rule of thumb is the same, simply add double the amount of liquid to the amount of grain. So half a cup of grain for one person would require one cup of liquid to cook.

For breakfast porridge we tend to make the liquid up of half milk, (dairy or substitute such as almond milk), and half water. This gives it a lovely creamy texture and adds to your protein count. You can also mix the grains - there are lots to try once you start looking for them. For example some more unusual ones are Cracked Freekeh, Farro and Teff.

If they are whole grain it is probably best to soak them over night and then rinse before cooking in the morning. This reduces the levels of phytates in the grain (and seeds) which is better for our health.

Alternatively you could also soak your museli overnight, this plumps up all the dried fruit. In the morning you simply add in double the amount of liquid (milk and water as detailed above) and then cook it like porridge.

One of our favourite breakfast options when camping is to use some water from our evening brew to start hydrating the museli overnight. We generally add dried milk powder to the museli we take with us, this gives it additional calories and creaminess. We then leave it in a pan, in a pot cosy, so that in the morning it just needs heating through. This is such an easy way to make  a rich porridge with masses of texture and taste and plenty of slow release energy to keep you going all day on the hills. Enjoy!