Stoke Your Body with Ginger Oats

Quinoa added to oats while cooking glints in the morning sunlight.

Start your day with a good breakfast and you’re stoked for the day. These days I’m big on oatmeal.  Not the artificially flavored, one serving per package kind that you cook in the microwave.  Nor do I mean the chopped up porridge oats that you buy in bag that says ‘porridge’.   Rather I’m talking about the big fat oats that take a while to cook.

My current favorite is this recipe, cooked with quinoa for added protein.

Ingredients

These organic rolled oats take 7-10 minutes to cook.

• 2 T raw quinoa
• 4 T rolled oats
• 1 apple – chopped into chunks
• 1/2-1 inch (depending on your preference) raw ginger, peeled and sliced
• a handful of dried cranberries
• a couple macadamia nuts (whole)
• a couple of brazil nuts (chopped)
• 1 T golden linseed
• 1 T shelled hemp seeds
• honey
• milk
• water

Method

Put the quinoa to boil in about a cup of water.  Add the chopped apple and ginger. Simmer for about 5 minutes then add the rolled oats, nuts and cranberries.  Simmer until it takes on a runny, gluey consistency, stirring frequently to prevent sticking, then add the seeds and stir it all together.

Spoon into a serving bowl, drizzle with milk and honey and enjoy!  This will keep your motor and brain running till lunch time.  You probably won’t even need a coffee at break time.

The spiral tails of the quinoa grains are just about visible in this bowl of cooked oatmeal.

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• Oats: Rolled Oats (alisonamazed.wordpress.com)
• In Praise of Oats (fooducate.com)
• Evolving Oatmeal (thegreengeek05.wordpress.com)
• Proatmeal: My Pre-workout Meal (mannixcastro.com)
• Mother of all grains (renfield8.wordpress.com)

Rice: Veggie Risotto

I made the chick pea variation of this rice dish for a friend who came for dinner.  We both agreed it was a good meal.  It’s a bit like a risotto or paella, but as the rice is long grain, it isn’t as sticky.

To make the rice, you need:

Long Grain Brown Rice: Image by Rob Qld via Flickr

• 1 cup long grain brown rice
• 1 tsp veggie gravy powder
• 1 clove garlic, minced

1. Mix the veggie gravy powder with a little cold water.
2. Rinse the rice and put in a saucepan with the seasoning and garlic.
3. Cover with enough cold water to give 1 inch of water above the rice, add the veggie broth water to this.
4. Bring to boil over high heat, cover and reduce heat.
5. Simmer until all the water is absorbed and the rice is tender. 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile saute the following in a little hot oil, adding each ingredient in order:

Chilis. Image via Wikipedia

• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 medium red onion, sliced
• 1 red or green hot chili, thinly sliced and diced

Sliced Zucchini (Courgette), Image by Dey via Flickr

• 1 medium-large zucchini (courgette), thinly sliced
• 2 cups spring greens, chopped (can substitute pointed cabbage)

• 4 small fresh tomatoes (or 2 large), chopped
• freshly ground salt and pepper

The outer leaves are picked as Spring Greens. Image via Wikipedia

• 2 dessert spoons shelled hemp seed
• 2 dessert spoons golden linseed

Coriander (Cilantro) Image via Wikipedia

• 2 dessert spoons  balsamic vinegar
• handful of fresh coriander, chopped
• 2 Brazil nuts, chopped
• 2 dessert spoons grated parmesan cheese

When the rice is cooked, mix all together with the veggies.
Serve garnished with coriander and brazil nuts (1 for each serving) and grated parmesan cheese (optional).

Chick Peas (Garbanzos) Image by Atle Brunvoll via Flickr

Variations

If you want to plump up the protein in this dish try adding one or more of the following:

• a can of drained chickpeas
• a can of drained kidney beans
• a couple of beaten eggs:
1. add the rice to the veg in the frying pan, mix together
2. add the beaten egg
3. saute to make a kind of veggie egg fried rice

Related articles

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• Pasta with Chard and Chickpeas (greenlinglocal.wordpress.com)