Clever Batch E-Book

Susan Jane White

• Herausgeber: Gill Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Do you want to eat badass nourishing meals, but don't want to cook every single night? Do you want to reduce the honking 6 p.m. stress in your home? Do you want to spend less time and money shopping for arcane ingredients? Then get ready to discover the genius of batch cooking. Susan Jane White's brilliant new book shows you how to eat well all week while respecting your time, money and patience. Learn to create meals that will sit in your fridge, hang out on your shelves or wait patiently in your freezer, giving you much more return on your kitchen investment. So you can say yes to that bike ride with the kids or stay late at work to finish that report, because you took Three-Bean Chilli and Salted Coffee Caramels out of the freezer for dinner tonight. Clever Batch. 'Susan Jane White is a delicious cross between Mary Poppins and Marie Kondo. She's going to sort out your time management with magic and style.' Melissa Hemsley

Leseprobe

Clever Batch

Brilliant wholefoodbatch-cooking recipesto save you time,money and patience

Susan Jane White

Gill Books

To you, my reader –I am your biggest everfan. You fill me withmagic and pinball mearound my kitchen.This book is for you.

Contents

Cover

Title page

Dedication

Introduction

Clever Clues

Meathos

Why My Week Looks Like

Part One: Breakfast

Part Two: Mains

For and From the Fridge and Freezer

Healthy Batch Cooking Puts the Ease Back into Freeze

Top Tips for Zenning the Face Off Your Kitchen

Stuff I Keep in My Freezer

Where Do I Start? When Can I Start?

Thawing Safely

Part Three: Other Really Fast Things You Need to Know About

Freezer Dressings

Flavour Grenades

Flavoured Yogurts

Fermentation

Part Four: Speedy Treats

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Author

About Gill Books

Introduction

AS AN UNDER-CAFFEINATED, financially cramped, time-pinched mum, my kitchen management needed re-evaluation. Sometimes I got it right, but most evenings I felt like a wine gum in a combine harvester. Being short on time, money and patience, I had a problem.

I wanted to cook badass nourishing meals, but I didn’t want to cook every single night. I wanted to reduce the honking stress at 6 p.m. in our home. I wanted to spend less time in the grocery store looking for arcane ingredients and more time at home, high-fiving my genius. I didn’t need another freaking meditation app. What I needed was to get through the month without maxing out my Visa or adrenal glands.

So these days, my freezer plays an Oscar-worthy role. Developing a relationship with my freezer was a breeze. Suddenly I was saving on shopping, cooking and washing up. My personality finally felt like an update was being installed. Life just flowed much easier. It’s a new-age nirvana. Fancy joining me there? This cookbook is a fun blueprint for readers who struggle with everyday meals. It doesn’t matter if you’re living on your own or in a family of six, you control the inventory! From cauli korma to lentil Bolognese, I’m batch cooking for sanity.

Let me take you through each section with reasonable haste and giddiness. The first section is dedicated to breakfasts that will sit in the fridge all week long or hang out on your kitchen shelves. You’ll find a handy guide here to help your kitchen find its own rhythm and sass. There are some helpful symbols along the way too, designed to help your wallet and your watch (see here).

Part two celebrates your freezer (and your newfound free time). There are tips on how to start, what you’ll find useful, easy labelling and the ideal-sized freezer (spoiler alert: small is best).

In the third part of the book, I introduce you to some of the greatest game changers for mediocre midweek meals. Think of them as a sort of culinary Band-Aid. There are flavour grenades to freshen up plain eggs, rice or fish; freezer dressings to excite any vegetable, because let’s be honest, getting kids and truculent adults to eat their greens is about as easy as pirouetting on a pin; and there’s a suite of nutritious yogurts and cultured foods to bring mealtimes up an octave. Think of these recipes as your microbiome’s very own Electric Picnic.

In the final section, you and I will meet over a sweet treat. Instead of white flour, I use wholegrain flours like brown rice, chickpea and oat flours. Instead of white sugar, let’s dance with maple, Medjools and muscovado.

And in place of butter or margarine, we party with tahini or nutritious oils like extra virgin olive, coconut and sesame. I’m all about turning those pesky sugar cravings into a nutritional slam-dunk. The swag of treats that follow are dastardly good. Any words that come to mind to describe the effect they have on my happiness are frankly far too intimate to be printed in a cookbook. This might be as close to enlightenment as I’ll ever get.

What I love most about playing in my kitchen is the connection I make with myself and with nature. I live in a busy city. It’s hard to escape the circus of pollution, car alarms, traffic and suffocating concrete. So slicing into a juicy orange and spraying citrus mist into the air, scooping out the licky-sticky yumminess of an over-ripe mango, hunting for seeds in a crisp, fragrant watermelon – each experience fuels my connection with nature. It feels grounding amid the fug of modern city living.

Cooking for yourself reaches beyond physical nourishment. Cooking provides emotional nourishment too. It’s a form of self-respect. Ask any cook. Ask any parent. It’s how, for generations, we’ve shown love and adoration to the people around us. 

When words fail to console a friend, freshly baked brownies do the trick. When my presence is exhausting at a relative’s hospital bed, chicken broth speaks instead. And when my heart and paws need pampering, I show them love by choosing deeply nourishing and earthing food. 

Eating well is not just about upgrading your food choices. It’s about upgrading your life.

Clever Clues

I’ve designed some visuals throughout the book to give you nifty tips on time (an hour glass) and spending power (one, two or three coins).

Hope it helps!

On a budget

Reasonable

Feeling flush

Particulars to that recipe regarding time

Meathos

MY ETHOS ON MEAT

We’re a nation of animal lovers. I know I certainly am. It’s hard to pass my neighbour’s cat without lovebombing him.

So perhaps I should reconsider the packages of dismembered animal limbs for sale in supermarkets then. Gross, right? Think about it. There’s a palpable difference between passing the colourful kaleidoscope of fruit and veg that tickle your nostrils as well as your eyes and passing the meat counter, which makes my children want to cry. At least they have a sense of justice more acute than my own. And I’m ashamed of that. But I can change. And I want to.

I’d like my meat to come from dedicated butchers who pride themselves on buying from local Irish farms with integrity. I’d like my meat to be wrapped by a professional, not a factory. And I’d like to celebrate the animal through mindfulness ... mindful of not eating one every day. Mindful of not supporting an industry that savages animals to feed our dull, accidental complicity. Mindful that we signed the animal’s death warrant with the simple act of purchasing. This is my resolution. Will you join me?

I’m not suggesting we give up meat. I’m just suggesting we look at this industry for what itis: an amoral misadventure, possibly the worst of our generation. It’s time I stopped supporting it with my wallet. That’s why most of these recipes are heavy on veg.

So what am I doing including recipes for bone broth or beef cheeks? Eh, good question. Hear me out. I’ve found myself suddenly using up every bit of our weekly meat feast. I often threw away oxtail bones or chicken carcasses, but now that we don’t buy as much meat, I’m making stock from the remains and maximising every gram.

Meat is not bad. No need to swear off it altogether. Scientists warn that the quantity we eat is unhealthy and unsustainable. Therein lies the problem. For climate reasons, for financial reasons and for health reasons, meat shouldn’t be a daily feature in our lives. Bone broth and chicken stock will get you through the days you give meat a well-deserved break.

What My Week Looks Like

AN IDEA OF a week’s evening menu? Basically, this week involves three meals from the freezer, one evening of pure dossing and three evenings where I make a meal and freeze the rest so it can save my sanity another night. And every single dish rocks our taste buds as well as our bods. I try to have an artillery of freezer dressings at the ready to improve any salad, soup or boring rice dish.

MONDAY

Aubergine rendang from the freezer and brown basmati rice. Easy.

TUESDAY

Do a big batch of Romesco sauce and freeze half of it in ice cube trays (this will snazz up roasted vegetables and fried halloumi some other night or will be great on toast with feta for a quick lunch).

Serve the remaining half with roasted butternut and pumpkin, fried eggs, loads of coriander and some popped capers for the adults (here). Piddle easy.

WEDNESDAY

One-tray roasted red pepper soup from the freezer. Pile on organic corn tortillas with grated cheese, avocado and chilli. Hunks of sourdough. Baked sweet potatoes. Minimum effort.

THURSDAY

Defrost one portion of beet Bourguignon from the freezer (my husband, Trevor, will be away) alongside natural yogurt. Cheddar and kale mash with chicken wings for the boys (make stock from bones and scraps).

FRIDAY

Neighbour making a ragù to share. I’ll drop her half of my pot next Friday. We do this in turns. Score.

SATURDAY

Make a roasted cauli korma and freeze the leftovers in individual portions. Natural yogurt to serve. Pot of black sticky rice. If the boys don’t eat the korma, I have a packet of smoked mackerel on stand-by in the fridge and peas in the freezer. Catch up on podcasts while cooking.

SUNDAY

Whip up a big batch of sourdough lamb meatballs and freeze most of the batch for busy days. Serve on Sunday with smooth hummus, cucumber ribbons, fresh olives if we have some or the black olive crumb here if not. Defrost a freezer dressing such as chimichurri if I have any left. Make some if not. Get the boys to roll the meatballs.

Part One Breakfast

If there’s one thing I have learned since assembling and expelling two human beings from my body, it’s the power of planning.

I’m referring specifically to a weekly meal planner. Without plotting ahead, family mealtimes can sometimes feel like an AGM for dehydrated vampires. My meal planning happens every Sunday evening. I choose the recipes I’d like my boys to tango with during the week, then figure out where I can squeeze in a shop. Snoresome? Not when you’re maxing Hozier on full volume and caressing a bottle of Tempranillo like a lost kitten at a stranger’s leg. This is one of my favourite domesticated chores. I own it.

Examples include breakfasts to store in the fridge all week, such as waffle batter, cheat’s shakshuka, cold brew coffee, green tea brack, pimped-up harissa for scrambled eggs on toast – anything that won’t impose on my brain cells early in the morning. There will always be a platoon of moreish snacks for when fangs start to sharpen or when bribes need fulfilling. In reality, I usually fall back on two or three home-cooked freezer meals so I can take those nights off.

Then I make the tedious shopping list. That Tempranillo and I are a good team. We make Mary Poppins look lame.

The result? I don’t freak out at mealtimes, my little family ends up both physically and emotionally nourished and my adrenal glands are back on speaking terms with me.

RECIPES TO REFRIGERATE ALL WEEK INCLUDE:

Saffron and mandarin apricots

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Waffle batter and pancake batter

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Chia jams and a healthier marmalade

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Green tea brack

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Custard pud with amaranth, white chocolate and cherry

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Lapsang souchong fruit cake

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Hallelujah banana bread

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Cold brew coffee

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Freezer flaxseed focaccia, 5 ways

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100% rye sourdough

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Roasted butternut for poached eggs

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Black polenta fingers (great with fried eggs)

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Shakshuka base (great with eggs)

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Hummus (with eggs or toast)

Healthier Jam, 3 Ways

Blackberry Liquorice Jam

MAKES 10–12 SINGLE SERVINGS

2 small punnets of blackberries

3 Medjool dates, stones removed (or use pre-soaked regular dates)

2 tablespoons chia seeds, whole or milled

Pinch of ground liquorice root (optional)

Squeeze of lime

Raspberry Ginger Jam

MAKES 10–12 SINGLE SERVINGS

300g frozen raspberries, left to defrost

3 Medjool dates, stones removed (or use pre-soaked regular dates)

2–3 tablespoons chia seeds, whole or milled

1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger

Squeeze of lime

Strawberry Cardamom Jam

MAKES 10–12 SINGLE SERVINGS

300g frozen strawberries, left to defrost

3 Medjool dates, stones removed (or use pre-soaked regular dates)

2–3 tablespoons chia seeds, whole or milled

Pinch of ground cardamom or seeds from 1 pod

Squeeze of lime

Buy frozen fruit, to bring costs down

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Takes 20 minutes to set

Research confirms that scoffing more than 35g of dietary fibre a day can result in a 40% chance of living longer. Jeesh.

Here’s what happens in our very own waste plant. Insoluble fibre from our food acts like a traffic warden, clearing jams and keeping junctions clear. His job is to keep things moving. If nothing moves, waste can build up and re-enter the bloodstream. One way of ridding toxins is to sweat them out on a treadmill. Or visit the village sauna. But I think I’d rather fight with my fork.

These jams are criminally good and much more refreshing than the commercial store-bought stuff. One taste will ignite your dimples, like kissing Bradley Cooper or giving Michael Flatley a wedgie live on stage.

Pelt the fruit (blackberry, raspberry, strawberry) in a food processor or use a hand-held blender. Add your licky-sticky dates, the chia seeds, additional spice or flavour and the lime juice. Purée until smooth.

Scoop into a pristine-clean jam jar. Allow the chia seeds to thicken the jam for 20 minutes before using. I like to stir it every 5 minutes to prevent clumps from developing.

Store in the fridge all week and slather over brown bread and butter. Your frontal lobe is gonna love this one.

A Healthier Marmalade

MAKES 8–10 SERVINGS

3 unwaxed organic oranges

3 tablespoons psyllium seed husks

2–3 tablespoons (raw) honey

Pinch of flaky sea salt

Cheaper and better than the commercial, sugar-laden stuff

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Whizz and set

If you’re not eliminating waste from your bowels, you’ll end up wearing it on your face. The skin is our body’s largest excretory organ. Crazy but true. You want luminous skin? Make sure your pipes are on speaking terms with you.

Cranking up the fibre in your diet will have you shaking your booty like Lady Marmalade on the dance floor. By fibre, I don’t mean a bowl of wholemeal pasta – that stuff poses as a big shot when really it does very little. When you want fibre, you need to call in the services of black belts like flaxseed, bran, oats, prunes, beans, hummus and psyllium.

Psyllium seeds can be purchased in savvy pharmacies or health food stores nationwide. They help to set the marmalade. Prunes, shmunes – psyllium is the King Kong of the colon.

Start by grating the zest from two of your oranges into the bowl of a food processor, then slice the bum off all three of your oranges and sit them on a chopping board. Carefully carve off and discard the white pith from your first two oranges using a paring knife. Chop the orange flesh into chunks, checking for pips. Drop into the food processor.

With your final orange, carve away the skin and pith (but don’t go too crazy – much of the health benefits lie in the skin and white pith). Discard the skin and pith, then chop the orange flesh into chunks, again checking for pips. Add to the food processor bowl along with your psyllium husks, really good honey and sea salt. Pulse until jammy but not entirely smooth. You still want beautiful blobs of orange in there.

Scrape into a scrupulously clean jam jar and leave to set for 30 minutes before spreading over hot, buttery toast. Refrigerate for up to one week – it will set even more when chilled.

Green Tea Brack

MAKES 1 LARGE LOAF

320g sultanas and/or raisins

350ml cold, strong green tea

220g sprouted spelt flour or 200g regular whole spelt flour

120g light muscovado sugar

1½ teaspoons baking powder

1½ teaspoons ground allspice or mixed spice

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 large egg

Zest of 1 orange

Sprouted flour will bump up the cost

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Pre-soaking required. Freezes beautifully in slices.

On any occasion that my husband is not overburdened with sweetness and light, I offer him green tea brack. It works faster than paracetamol. Within moments his face becomes improbably buoyant and I’m sure I hear him squeaking like a hamster in heat.

Soak your little army of dried fruit in the cold, strong tea overnight (or for 8 hours). Hot tea may sound preferable, but you’ll end up with no soaking liquid, resulting in a drier dough – snoresome but important fact.

The next morning, fire up your oven to 180°C. In a large bowl (or a saucepan if you haven’t got a big enough bowl), tumble in the flour, sugar, baking powder and your selection of spices. Rake through carefully.

Quickly beat the egg and orange zest in a cup, then add to your puddle of soaked fruit. Scrape the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Work it through until lusciously glossy.

Transfer into a loaf tin lined with non-stick baking paper, ideally a 1½lb tin. Specifics drive me crazy, so you’re on the right track if it looks like a loaf. Only half filling a long loaf tin? It’s probably a 2lb loaf tin, so bake your brack for 45 minutes, until a skewer comes out dry when gently pierced into the centre. Be aware that 1lb loaf tins will need extra time in the oven to make sure the centre is cooked all the way through. When I use my 1lb loaf tin, I bake the brack for 70–75 minutes.

And if you hit the 1½lb loaf tin on the bull’s-eye, bake for 60 minutes.

Remove from the oven once cooked and leave to cool in the tin for 20 minutes before unveiling onto a wire rack.

Serve it as is or toasted with a scrape of butter and a hot cuppa. If you want it to look really shiny on top, professional bakers brush it with a simple sugar syrup, which you can too.

Custard Pud with Amaranth, White Chocolate and Cherry

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

180g amaranth grain

375ml water

1 teaspoon vanilla paste or good-quality extract

¼ teaspoon flaky sea salt

3 tablespoons maple syrup, honey or date syrup

3 tablespoons tahini

2 eggs, beaten

50g good white chocolate (e.g. Green & Blacks), roughly chopped into chunks

50g dried Morello cherries

2 very ripe bananas, chopped, or 2 teaspoons psyllium husks

500ml your preferred type of milk

Not cheap, but goddamn delish

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Lasts all week in the fridge

This amaranth pudding is packed with unexpected pleasure: crunchy, sweet flecks of white chocolate chased by the sour smack of juicy cherries and gorgeous creamy custard. It’s the sort of thing I find very necessary to keep in my fridge for surviving this ridiculously demanding world we live in.

For a relatively shy grain, amaranth has more muscle than wheat, with four times the calcium and twice as much iron. And with this grain’s cargo of lysine, you can kiss sayonara to cold sores. Pretty good deal for half a cent per gram.

Preheat the oven to 165°C.

In a small saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, bring the amaranth, water, vanilla and salt to a soft boil. This means a gentle putter rather than a violent bubble that will blow the lid off and scare the bejaysus out of your dog. Cook for 15 minutes, until the water has been fully absorbed. Amaranth is not a dry, fluffy grain when cooked, so expect something that looks like a sneezy couscous.

While the amaranth is doing its thing, prep the rest of the gear. In a large bowl, beat your preferred syrup into the tahini and eggs until smooth. Sprinkle the chocolate chunks into the egg mixture along with your cherries and chopped banana or psyllium. Slowly whisk in the milk.

Remove the amaranth from the heat, stir briskly with a fork and add to the eggy party.

Pour and scrape your custardy mix into a medium-sized pie dish. You’re aiming for a pudding no deeper than 2.5–5cm. Cook in the oven for 40–50 minutes. It should wobble slightly in the centre when done, like a baked custard. I make this on a Sunday evening and look forward to breakfast all week.

Nut Pulp Granola with Chai and Pistachios

MAKES 12–16 SERVINGS

125ml extra virgin coconut oil

125ml good honey, maple syrup or barley malt syrup

Flurry of flaky sea salt

300g nut pulp left over from making nut milk (or use ground almonds)

250g jumbo oats

120g salted pistachios

5 caffeine-free chai spice blend teabags, torn open

Repurposes nut pulp from making nut milk (see here, for example)

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Little effort, big return

For security purposes, I like to keep a jar of homemade granola in my cupboard at all times. I’m a better human being when my belly is busy.

The older I get, the more I need my food to fill an emotional crypt too. I get a better burn from lovingly crafted granola than the store-bought stuff. I get a theatrical high knowing my corner café hand-roasts their coffee beans to Shostakovich. Or that my daily loaf is blessed with a wave from the baker himself. It’s the love and adoration bestowed upon ingredients that really grips me, like a tummy rub for a homeless puppy. Food is more than fuel. There’s no love in highly processed food – it’s just conveyor belt crap and cannot service you physically or emotionally. Not the way this granola can.

Plus, I finally found a worthy way of repurposing nut pulp left over from making nut milk. Namaste.

Fire up your oven to 160°C. Line your largest baking tray, or two smaller ones, with non-stick baking paper.

In a big saucepan, gently melt the coconut oil, your chosen syrup and a smattering of salt. You want them to smooch each other, not violently grumble. Parachute the remaining ingredients into the pan, turn off the heat and stir to thoroughly coat.

Spoon onto your prepared tray and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Toss the granola twice while baking to prevent the edges browning. This recipe requires a longer cooking time than regular granola because the wet nut pulp needs to dry out in the oven. If it’s not dry, it won’t store well.

Remove from the oven once cooked. Clouds of warm spices and honey will waft through your house, reminding you (and the apartment block) of your culinary wizardry. Cool before shelling your pistachios and tumbling into the granola.

This granola can be stored for up to three weeks in a tightly sealed jar, to be sprinkled over despondent salads or eaten on languorous mornings.

Lapsang Souchong Fruit Cake

MAKES 1 LARGE CAKE

Olive oil, for greasing

200g roasted hazelnuts

210g regular pitted dates

75g dried dark unsulphured apricots

375ml hot, strong lapsang souchong tea, divided

375g raisins

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Zest of 1 unwaxed orange

180g walnuts or salted pistachios (or a mix of both)

Reasonable

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Freeze in slices

Amy Chaplin was the midwife of this genius. New York City (and my elevenses) is a better place because of it. Feel free to use Earl Grey or chai tea instead of the smoky lapsang souchong.

This fruit cake will keep for three or four weeks in the fridge. You can find almost all the ingredients in your local four-letter German supermarket. Serve in thin slices with a shot of coffee – or brandy butter and a Christmas photo album.

Fire up your oven to 150°C. Line a 30cm springform cake tin with some oiled non-stick baking paper.

Grind the hazelnuts in a food processor. Tip into a large mixing bowl and set aside. No need to clean the food processor – you’ll be using it later.

Now soak the dates and apricots in 250ml of the hot tea for 10 minutes. Drain well and set aside.

Boil your raisins in the remaining 125ml of hot tea. As soon as they reach the boiling point, stir, cover the pot, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to cook for a few more minutes, until all the tea has cooked off and the raisins are bursting with plumpness. Juicy juicy.

Spin the cooked raisins in your food processor with the vanilla extract, all the spices and the zippy zest. Blend until smooth. Tumble this paste into the bowl of ground hazelnuts along with the drained dates and apricots. Fold really well. Now stir through your walnuts and/or pistachios.

Press the cake mix into your prepped tin and smooth the top. If you have extra nuts, you can decorate the edges. Bake for 1 hour, until set. Eject from the oven and allow to cool completely before removing from the tin.

Popped Amaranth

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

8 tablespoons whole amaranth

Patience (not optional)

On a budget

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60 seconds

Amaranth is dirt cheap, delightfully odd and indecently healthy. What more could you ask of a superfood? This popped cereal is regularly dropped onto kitchen tables and into conversations to impress even the most stubborn of hipsters.

Which got me thinking – the word superfood is misleading. Every food is super. No, honestly. Listen. Studies consistently show that over 80% of us eat convenience foods on a daily basis. In other words, highly processed ‘pseudo’ foods, or foods pretending to be foods. Investigative journalist and author Felicity Lawrence reveals that we each neck about 4.5kg of sneaky food additives every year. Gross.

So the term superfood is actually missing the point. All fresh food is super in comparison to the lab-created junk packaged under the pretence of being ‘convenient’. Convenient for whom, exactly? Instead of asking why fresh food is expensive, we should be asking why ‘convenience’ food is so cheap. Therein lies your answer.

You’ll need a reasonably high-sided, heavy-based saucepan for popping, as amaranth tends to jump out of small pans.

I find gas flames perfect for popping because we need to heat the heavy-based saucepan rather high – 60 seconds does the trick. If you have an electric hob, just leave the dry pot (no oil) on the ring a little longer to achieve a scorching hot temperature – 3–4 minutes normally achieves this. The heavier the base of the pan, the better the result.

Add a few grains of amaranth and watch it pop over 5 seconds. If it takes any longer, chuck the batch, leave the pan until it’s hotter and start again. Don’t worry – your first time popping amaranth is messy. The second time, like anything else, is a cinch as you’ll know what you’re aiming for.

Once popped, circa 5 seconds, pour onto a plate to cool and continue with the remaining grains.

Sprinkle onto granola in the morning, eat plain with cold milk, parachute onto salads or keep stored in a jar for up to four weeks.

Chocolate Buckwheat Granola

MAKES ENOUGH FOR 1 MASSIVE KILNER JAR

125ml extra virgin coconut oil or ghee (here)

125ml rice malt syrup or barley malt syrup

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or good-quality extract

150g oat flakes

150g barley flakes (or more oat flakes)

150g whole buckwheat groats (not flakes)

100–130g hazelnuts or pecans 4 tablespoons raw cacao nibs (optional)

Pinch of flaky sea salt

200g regular pitted dates, chopped

100g dark chocolate, such as Green & Blacks cooking chocolate, chopped into chunks

Pricey, but still cheaper than store-bought stuff

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Lasts for weeks on your kitchen shelf

The number of expensive granolas to choose from in our supermarkets is unprecedented in the history of Homo sapiens. Trust me, you can make a much better one for a fraction of the price at home. This one has three different grains, making it a complete protein by virtue of its amino acid permutation. That’s bench presser speak for ‘high-five’. Sporty teens will go mental for it.

Find rice malt and barley malt syrup in savvy delis and health food stores nationwide.

Fire up your oven to 160°C. Line your largest tray (or use two smaller trays) with non-stick baking paper.

In your biggest pot, melt your preferred fat, your syrup, cinnamon and vanilla over a timid heat. Turn off the heat.

Now tumble in all the remaining ingredients except the dates and dark chocolate. Scrape the contents of the pan out over your lined tray(s).

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes and not a minute longer. Allow the granola to cool completely before stirring through the chopped dates (Medjools are even more magnificent, but can bump up the price) and glorious chunks of chocolate. Store in a tall glass jar on the kitchen counter. Stunning stuff with ice-cold milk.

New Age Porridge, 6 Ways

Autumn is porridge party season. That steaming bowl of goodness before an icy walk to work; that comforting smell of the kitchen as your oats happily burp on the stove; that sweet syrupy mess you so love to launch on your porridge like a giddy orchestra conductor. We’re a nation that loves our oats.

This grain’s platoon of soluble and insoluble fibre has the nifty ability to service our pipes in more ways than one. There ain’t nothing sexy about constipation, especially given that our skin often takes over as an excretory organ. Yes, oats will make you regular, but they’ll also sat nav our pipes for cholesterol and escort it out of our bodies like a bad-tempered bodyguard. Bonus!

Here are some sonic ways to tart up your porridge so that your pipes continue to party …

Cacao Butter Porridge

SERVES 1

130ml your preferred type of milk

1 tablespoon raw cacao butter, roughly shaved

4 tablespoons rolled oats

Pinch of flaky sea salt

Whipped honey or a dusting of coconut sugar, to top

On a budget

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Cooks so quickly

Cacao butter will take your porridge to a whole new level. Soon you will wonder how on earth you ever had oats without it. We serve our cacao butter porridge with coconut sugar scattered on top. This new exotic sugar is tastier than white sugar and sufficiently pretentious to earn bragging rights with that annoying athletic dude in your office. Nowadays, you’ll even find coconut sugar in your local four-letter German supermarket.

I bet you have a particular way of cooking porridge, attentive to your own neuroses. Me too! This recipe will work whichever way you choose to cook it. For everyone else, I recommend bringing your preferred milk (mine is oat milk) and the cacao butter to a gentle heat, below simmering point. Add the oats and flaky sea salt and cook for 5 minutes, until the oats expand. Add extra milk for a looser porridge (which I prefer). Try not to let the pot boil, burning the taste of the milk.

Serve with great big globs of whipped honey or a dusting of coconut sugar and a cup of Earl Grey.

Three-Grain Porridge

MAKES 1KG FOR YOUR SHELF

625g regular oat flakes

125g buckwheat or barley flakes

125g milled chia seeds

125g amaranth flakes

3 teaspoons ground turmeric

1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

Still a budget option per portion, but the cost is ramped up initially from sourcing four different grains

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Stores for months, ready to rock your mornings

This three-grain porridge is kickass comforting – whole, unrefined, unadulterated yumminess that takes minutes to prepare, but feeds your body all day long. The best part? It’s a complete source of protein too. By socialising oats with other grains and seeds such as amaranth, buckwheat and chia, we achieve a full quota of essential amino acids that otherwise would have fallen short of the bench presser’s sweet spot.

Put all the ingredients together in a 1kg jar. Shakey shakey shakey. Store this way for up to six months.

When you fancy a bowl, just treat the mix like regular oats. I like using 1 teacup (250ml) of this three-grain mix to 2½ teacups (625ml) of plant milk, which serves two adults and two nippers.

Simmer gently for 10–15 minutes, until glossy and creamy. Serve with sticky set honey.

Golden Amaranth Porridge

SERVES 1

150ml your preferred type of milk (rice, oat, almond, cow, soya)

3 tablespoons oat flakes

2 tablespoons amaranth flakes

Pinch of ground turmeric or grated fresh turmeric root

Pinch of sea salt

Honey, to serve

Blueberries, to serve

Reasonable

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5 minutes in the morning

I need you to collect yourself. Ready? Gluten is not a poison. Such is the misinformation surrounding gluten, my poor husband thinks we should be taking an insurance policy out against it and our neighbour thinks gluten is something that wild teenagers sniff. If you want to evict something in your diet, ditch the sugar-coated cereals from your cupboard, but leave gluten alone.* I’ve never seen a herring so scarlet.

*Eh, unless you are indeed coeliac.

Gently heat all the ingredients in your smallest saucepan. Simmer for 3–5 minutes and cook until the flakes swell. Try not to let the pot boil, burning the taste of the milk. It’s worth remembering that the milk you choose will dictate the flavour of the porridge. Rice milk is plain but seriously sweet. Oat milk is earthy and sweet. Soya milk gives a more savoury feel.

Serve with extra milk tipped on top and a blob of set honey or blueberries. Pistachios and dried Morello cherries go really well with this combo too, as do strawberries, vanilla and flaked almonds.

Carrot Cake Porridge with Crystallised Ginger

SERVES 1

5 tablespoons oat flakes

300ml (1 mug) plant-based milk, such as oat milk, or regular cow’s milk

Pinch of sea salt

Pinch of ground cinnamon

Splash of maple syrup (optional sweetness)

Good pinch of grated carrot (using the finer zesting side of your grater)

Raisins, to serve

Pistachios, to serve

Crystallised ginger, chopped, to serve

On a budget

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Not demanding

I like oats for their slow-release magic mojo. Have you ever noticed that your body chugs for longer on a bowl of porridge than a plate of toast? That’s because oats break down slowly in our system. This makes porridge an excellent breakfast for athletes, chronically hungry teens and anxious cabinet ministers. More importantly, wholefood carbs like oats won’t give you the highs and lows associated with sugar-coated breakfast cereals, responsible for many code-red situations in classrooms and Parliament. Yup – oats put the super into superfood.

Gently simmer your oats, milk, salt, cinnamon, maple and carrot for 3–5 minutes over a gentle heat, being careful not to boil the milk and spoil the flavour. It’s worth mentioning that oat milkis naturally sweet, so you might prefer to leave out the maple syrup, whereas unsweetened soya milk and almond milk could benefit from a nip of extra sweetness.

Once all the liquid has been absorbed (I prefer mine on the runnier side), pour into your breakfast bowl, top with cold milk and decorate with raisins, pistachios and crystallised ginger. Bloody delicious.

Summer Overnight Oats

SERVES 1

6 tablespoons oat flakes

1–2 tablespoons dark chocolate chunks

A little grated apple or squeeze of lemon

Flurry of flaky sea salt

125ml oat (or other) milk

A drizzle of runny tahini

Drizzle of maple or date syrup

On a budget

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