I like muffins, I do. I can truthfully say that I’ve turned down invitations to go for a beer with friends in favor of cooking up a dozen. Actually heard over the phone in the background: “What, is she 80 years old?!” It was worth it.

I always gravitate towards the crumble topped, glazed or chocolate flecked varieties out of habit though… because it’s like eating a piece of cake. A piece of cake that you can sometimes have with a hot drink and call it breakfast. Oh, and healthy muffins are generally terrible. Like, more terrible than mornings pre-coffee. I wanted this to be different in a real way.

Here’s the thing. It’s hard to make a homemade, legitimately healthy muffin that tastes AMAZING + looks completely beautiful. I have high expectations in a general way. Brown, dome-y cake things are not always tasty and are definitely not inherently glamorous. I wanted it to be real good on all fronts for your health. Sometimes I irrationally worry about offering up recipes for more humble fare here. A muffin is not the most totally unique snowflake-kind of thing to post on a food blog, but it is decidedly everyday and approachable. I am slowly learning that this is enough.

When I lived in the city, I used to pop into the nearby Whole Foods from time to time for a matcha tea and one of their lovely vegan muffins. But it wasn’t entirely muffin-like! They baked them in petite bundt pans and put a sweet little glaze on top. The ingredients were all health-supporting for sure and the small hit of glaze brought it back into light indulgence territory. The idea was to emulate the overall feel of their muffin and fill the recipe out with things I really love.

I went to work, consulted with a new and wonderful book, and here we are. It’s a beauty, I assure you. It’s key to go wild with flavour-y things when undertaking more health-centric, vegan baking. The spices, the vanilla, the add-ins; they all work together to make a non buttered + egged treat so delicious. If I’m vegan-izing/health-ing something up, I generally double the vanilla specified, use spices and citrus zest with abandon, and reach for flavourful fats like nut butters or coconut oil as an overall strategy. Also, stirring the batter gently until just incorporated is key for a nice texture. You could apply that principle to any muffin recipe, but especially here with the inclusion of 100% whole grain flour.

In this particular breakfast marvel, I’ve used hearty spelt flour, almond meal, chia and flax seeds, warming spices, tropical coconut oil + vanilla (still savoring the bottle miss Ashlae sent me), walnuts, tart dried cranberries, coconut palm sugar, a smidge of banana to amp up the natural sweetness and some frozen Ontario blueberries stirred in to remind us of summer’s gifts. I topped them off with a zesty clementine glaze for an inviting hit of freshness. These would be perfect for a weekend brunch at home. Your grandma would be so proud of you for baking these on a Saturday night, just a thought :)

antioxidant power muffins + clementine glaze
adapted from Dr. Weil’s True Food
serves: makes 7-8 little bundts or 12 normal muffins
notes: If you eat them, feel free to replace the mashed banana with 3 beaten eggs to avoid any trace of banana-ness. Also! I know if you’re high on health, you might want to turn your nose up at the glaze portion. I found it pretty crucial to the whole experience. This batter isn’t terribly sweet, so the glaze has a rather serious function in the grand scheme (way serious).

muffins:
1 cup whole spelt flour
1/4 cup almond meal (or use more spelt if you like)
1 1/3 cups ground flax + chia seeds (or go with pure flax or pure chia)
2/3 cup coconut palm sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
pinch of ground ginger
pinch of fine sea salt
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 tbsp melted coconut oil + extra for greasing
1 3/4 cups milk of your choice (I used almond)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup frozen blueberries, thawed (or fresh if they’re in season)
3/4 cup unsweetened dried cranberries
1 cup roughly chopped walnuts
2 tbsp cacao nibs

clementine glaze:
juice and zest of 1 clementine
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease your mini bundt or muffin tins and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the spelt flour, almond meal, flax + chia seeds, coconut sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ground ginger and salt.

Mash the banana in a separate medium bowl. Make sure it is fairly smooth. To the banana, add the coconut oil, milk and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine.

Scrape the banana and milk mixture into the dry indredients (flour, ground flax etc). Gently fold the batter until it is just combined/there are no more dry bits of flour. Add the blueberries, dried cranberries, walnuts, and cacao nibs and gently fold them into the batter until evenly distributed. The batter should be quite thick at this point.

Fill the muffin cups/bundts with the batter to 3/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean and muffins bounce back when you press your finger onto the tops. Cool the pans on a wire rack completely before turning out onto a plate.

While muffins are baking/cooling, make the glaze: whisk the clementine zest, juice and powdered sugar together until smooth. Apply glaze to the tops of completely cooled muffins.

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The end of summer has all kind of gone along with that theme. A whole bunch of little, unassuming and wonderful things that make up the big beautiful and fill it with grace. Very simply satisfied with life at the moment.

What goes along nicely with little things that fill your life with shiny abundance? Oatmeal. Yep.

When we go on any excursion, not just the great-outdoors ones, food is my responsibility. Mark handles the fire building, wood chopping, the shelter construction, any navigation whatsoever, loading the canoe properly, lifting all the heavy things, tying our food up high in the trees at night like a pro (bears are a real deal possibility)… you get the idea. He does a lot and watching him carry on happily in that element, I couldn’t love him more.

So naturally I try to make the food aspect way good. Sure it has to be delicious, kind of easy to scheme up, slightly compact, but also crazy-fortifying. Hot oatmeal cooked over a campfire with a bit of hemp, vanilla sugar and fresh fruit on a cool woodsy morning fits the bill just right. I’m more of a steel-cut kind of gal normally, but for the sake of practicality this add-hot-water-and-stir number hits the spot and is just as tasty to boot. Sure I could have bought the little packets, but it’s crazy simple to make and ten times better. Actually.

A lot of the packaged brands include some kind of milk powder to achieve a sort of creaminess when the hot water is added. I wasn’t really all over this particular move, so I found a solution that I can deliciously live with. Justin’s and Artisana brands make some awesome nut butters in tiny packets for healthy peeps on the go. It’s brilliant. I boil up some water, dump in the pre-bagged oat goodness, add the packet of nut butter, stir stir stir over the fire, add some chopped fruit and voila. Tasty breakfast.

This is a pretty smart little strategy for the work week too. It’s easy enough to have access to a jar of almond butter (or whatever you like) and some hot water at the workplace so why not? Make up five little bundles of the good stuff on a day off, make sure no one’s snagging spoonfuls of your nut/seed butter at work and you’re all good for healthy, happy morning meals.

do-it-yourself instant oatmeal with nut butter
serves: for 1 packet/serving
notes: Use whatever flaked grains, nuts, seeds, dried fruit etc you like. This recipe is just an example of what I made for our little trip.

in the packet:
1/3-1/2 cup flaked grains (I used oats and rye)
2 tbsp seeds or chopped nuts (I used hemp and chia seeds)
2 tbsp dried fruit (I used dried sour cherries)
2 tsp dry sweetener of your choice (I had some vanilla sugar around, this amount may vary if you’re using stevia or something more concentrated)
teeny pinch of salt

to serve:
2 tbsp-1/4 cup boiling water (depending on how watery/sticky you want it)
1 tbsp nut/seed butter of your choice (I used raw walnut butter)
cut up fresh fruit (we had glorious end-of-summer peaches)

Place the oats, seeds/nuts, dried fruit, sweetener and salt in a bag or tupperware container of some type. When ready to serve, dump contents into serving dish of your choice.

Pour the boiling water on top and add the nut butter. Stir it all up until thoroughly combined. Place chopped fruit on top and serve.

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This seasonal shift brings me to salads and other cooler preparations for food. I still love a piece of sticky, barbecued tofu or tempeh, a pizza cooked on a hot grill, a summery sauteed succotash, lightly charred veggies and the like, but ultimately I find myself craving salad-y things and cool, tossed together items more often. Enter my secret, hardly-ever-indulged-in love of broccoli salad. You know the one I’m talking about. It has sunflower seeds, raisins, cheddar, other add-ins and a good amount of mayonnaise.  I used to work at a gourmet foods kind of place that made a version with cooked up cavena nuda (an oat-based rice sourced from the Canadian prairies). I had to literally fight myself from grabbing a bite every time I looked at it in the deliciously well-stocked to-go counter. I never felt exactly stellar after consuming it, but the combination of crisp broccoli, creamy dressing and crunchy add ins was pretty bang on to me. A wholesome, home spun version was long overdue in my life.

Another note on salad eating: the default mode of extra flesh-baring in the summertime has me gravitating towards raw foods for sure. A lot of cold weather butt-sitting has been, ahem, brought to my attention lately in some form or another. Don’t get me wrong, I’m crazy happy with life, feel pretty good and still fit into my jean shorts from last summer just fine. But sometimes when a gal slips into a little light dress for the first time and notices the dramatically bright white glow emitting from her (somehow less muscular-seeming) calves, she can’t help but get hell bent on some overall health improvement. A little time spent in the sun (vitamin D woop!) and a few salads later, all’s gonna be fine I’m sure of it.

So I give you a big bowl of broccoli. Yes! With crunchy soaked/sprouted wild rice, toasted salty sunflower seeds (you could use raw if you want to maintain an overall raw preparation), the very traditional golden raisins (you bet), and chive blossoms. The dressing is the best part though. It’s super creamy with avocado, full of basil, healthy fats and citrus-y goodness. I could eat it straight up with a spoon, no problem. The sprouted rice (technically a grass; not a grain) provides some complex carbs, protein, B vitamins, folic acid, and very delicious crunch. It won’t have the same texture as cooked rice, but I think you’ll be fine with that once you enjoy it here. I actually wouldn’t bat an eyelash at the idea of eating the whole recipe for this salad in a day. It would certainly be a fantastic barbecue potluck contribution to sway the steak eaters over to the plant enthusiast side. It’s one of those “Ha! We actually DO eat cool and exciting stuff, suckers!” kind of dishes. Also feel free to add “And check out how toned and tan my calves are!” for good measure.

broccoli salad with sprouted wild rice and citrusy avocado & basil dressing 
serves: 6-8
special equipment: a blender for the dressing
notes: I simply sprouted the rice by soaking it for a day or so, changing the water 3-4 times. The shot above (with the rice in the sieve) shows what stage it should be at. This recipe will make more than enough dressing for the salad–not exactly the worst problem in the world. Don’t have chive blossoms? Just use actual chives or finely minced shallots/red onion/green onion.

dressing:
1 medium, ripe avocado, pitted and peeled
juice of 1 orange
juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp agave nectar
1 small jalapeno, seeds and veins removed (optional)
1 cup lightly packed basil leaves
salt and pepper
3 tbsp grapeseed oil

salad:
1 bunch of broccoli, large woody stems removed
1/2 cup wild rice, soaked, sprouted and drained
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
salt and pepper
6-7 chive blossoms, broken up into smaller pieces/petals

Make the dressing: Combine all of the dressing ingredients except for the basil and oil in a blender. Blend on medium-high speed until a smooth and creamy mixture is achieved. You may have to stop the motor and push the avocado  down a couple times. Add the basil leaves and oil to the blender pitcher. Put the lid on and slowly bring the speed up to medium-high. Once you have a creamy consistency similar to mayonnaise, you’re set. It should taste sweet, tangy and rich. Adjust seasoning to your liking and set aside.

Chop the broccoli into very small florets. They shouldn’t be bigger than the end of your thumb (see photo above). Place florets into a large bowl with the sprouted rice, raisins and sunflower seeds. Pour about 3/4 of the dressing over the broccoli mixture. Give the salad a good seasoning with salt and pepper and toss to combine. Place salad into your serving bowl of choice. Garnish with chive blossoms and a sprig of basil if you like.

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I caught myself doing something really weird the other day (not like in a feel-super-awkward-after-reading kind of way, don’t worry), but ultimately I laughed at the whole thing. I do a little bit of photography for a food magazine here and there. Just little jobs, yes, but something to take a bit more seriously and work at, which I love. Anyway, I had made one of the dishes they requested, plated it up, brought it over to my lighting rig (a giant window with a tinfoil-ed sheet of bristol board–super advanced), and set everything down.

Then I started meticulously fluffing a pristine, bright white kitchen towel gathered next to the dish, as if it were a pillow on a sofa. And then I placed a serving spoon just so on top of the towel, gleaming from the vinegar polish I gave it prior to–purely for appearance. The whole thing was getting tupped (term of endearment for placing food in tupperware) immediately following this exercise. Looking at a few initial shots, the image seemed bare so I considered a casually calculated placement of some raw ingredients or knick knacks in the background. But did I  have enough perfect-specimen raw ingredients left? Do I even have knick knacks that are rustic-chic enough? I do not want to look like a try-hard with, like, anything remotely new-seeming and non-antiqued. My kitchen twine is pure white! Not even remotely burlap-y and how am I going to even fray this stuff for a picture and… WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME.

Actual life situation: None of my kitchen towels are virginal white. Nor are they ever fluffed/futzed with pre-service. Sorry in advance if you were looking forward to that. They hang haphazardly on the oven door handle, like everyone else’s. Oh, and they generally have a couple of avocado fingerprints on them, you know, the ones that start bright green and then change to gross brown in 5 minutes. My serving spoons probably all have water spots. I say probably because a soup spoon seems to work fine for serving on most nights. I’ve never made a habit of artfully arranging raw ingredients on the dinner table to fill in the white space between plates so that my peeps can get a real sense of the meal’s contents. “Can you pass the roasted potatoes, but PLEASE! DO NOT adjust those thyme sprigs and lemon slices nearby. Dude, I spent a lot of time arranging those to enhance your dining experience!!” I don’t own knick knacks. I do not aspire to own knick knacks.

Not that there is anything wrong with having clean kitchen towels, polished silverware, sprawling food-based arrangements and rustic-chic-but-slightly-modern-urban-sophisticate items in the home. There really isn’t! I honestly have a bit of envy for that dedication to ambient, gorgeous home-dwelling, but I’ve accepted that it will never work for me in a practical way. It’s not an accurate reflection of what happens in our warm, slightly disorganized and sunny kitchen, so it will never appear that way in this space, which is essentially a food-focused journal of sorts. It’s a little bit of life right here.

I like imperfections in a non-lazy way, realness if you will. After being annihilated (in the best way) by this post, I started thinking about that a lot more. I started a blog because I wanted to make-contagious my love of cooking whole food at home, however clumsy or ho-hum at times; not to make home cooks feel like shit because they couldn’t stack, drizzle and present table-side something in the exact manner that I did. I want the cooking masses to have reverence for leafy greens, ripe fruit in season, and whole grains like I do. Seriously. There’s a vibrance in spring time, when out from the cold dirt comes fresh and delicious things we can all eat together to remind us of greater systems at work. It evokes the big mystery that you can’t always explain with words but you feel completely. I know that antique cans wrapped in twine with blossoms inside, food props and perfectly clean and pressed table linens with adorably quaint non-hemmed edges (beautiful as they are) don’t bring me to that place. A garlic scape just poking out of some straw-covered dirt in the shadow of a decidedly unglamorous tractor shed is always ready for its close up around here and I hope you can appreciate the honesty in that as much as I do.

And today’s recipe? It’s pretty awesome if you’re a super-bitter greens lover. You can throw the salad portion together well in advance, then grill the endives last minute, drizzle the reduction on top and you’re golden. This makes a wonderful lunch or a side attraction to some protein, maybe a maple and hot mustard glazed piece of tempeh, a couple of poached eggs, whatever you like. It’s nice to have outside on the still slightly cool evenings, all bundled in a warm sweater, with wine or a beer or whatever. I love the chewiness of farro, but since we’re all about approachability you could use any grain that you have lying around. That principle applies to all of the other add ins as well. Go wild and go forth with realness.

farro and white bean salad with grilled endives
serves: 6-8
notes:  I really mean it on the bitterness, the grilling brings out that strong flavour in the endives, kind of bringing it into love or hate territory. Also, I like to slightly undercook the farro to retain some of the chewiness and deep brown colour. If you like your grains softer, cook about 10 minutes longer than I’ve specified.

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (doesn’t have to be baller-level quality)
1 cup farro (whole grain spelt or spelt berries), rinsed
1 cup cooked white beans
1/3 cup raw almonds, toasted and chopped
1/3 cup dried currants
2.5-3 ounces arugula, chopped
1-2 belgian endives (probably 2, mine was crazy huge), trimmed of rough outer leaves and cut in half lengthwise
1 head radicchio, trimmed of rough outer leaves and cut into quarters
1 tbsp grapeseed oil
salt and pepper

dressing:
juice of 1 orange (about 1/2 cup-worth)
splash of apple cider vinegar
1/2 shallot, minced
1 tbsp maple syrup
salt and pepper
1/2 cup grapeseed oil (or olive, sunflower etc)

Place the balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Simmer until vinegar is reduced by half and it coats the back of a spoon, about 15 minutes. Once adequately reduced, remove from the heat, scrape into a separate container and place in the fridge to set up.

Place farro in a medium saucepan with 2.5 cups of water over medium high heat. Bring to a boil and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until slightly tender but still chewy. Drain, rinse with cold water and dump into a large bowl. Set aside.

To the cooked farro, add the white beans, chopped almonds, currants, chopped arugula, salt and pepper. Set aside.

Make the dressing: whisk together the orange juice, apple cider vinegar, shallots, maple syrup, salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the oil while quickly whisking the mixture. Taste for seasoning. Pour over farro and bean mixture and toss to combine.

Heat a grill to medium high. Brush the endive and radicchio pieces with the grapeseed oil. Season with salt and pepper. Place the endives on the grill on their cut sides. Grill for 2-3 minutes or until you see some charring/browning of the leaves. Flip them over and repeat cooking process. Remove from the grill when charred a bit on all sides and slightly tender to the touch.

Place dressed farro and bean mixture in a serving plate. Arrange grilled endive pieces on top. Drizzle balsamic reduction over the whole thing and serve.

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In general I admire everything that cookies represent: portability, preparation, variety, adaptability, staying power, loving gestures and a bit of sweetness. I’ve always gravitated toward cookies like these little wonders: sort of energy bar-ish, lots of stuff in them and oat based. They’re lovely to take on a hike, bike ride, scenic walk etc. and frantically(!) nom at the end of it all. Delicious, wholesome, nutrient dense, gluten free, vegan and surprising.

I made these with coconut sugar, my new sweetener obsession of choice (I’m toting packets of it in my bag for coffees on the road now). It’s derived from coconut tree sap and is kind of brown sugar-ish with a bit of complexity. You can swap it 1:1 for any dry sweetener (like sugar, brown sugar, sucanat etc). I also used a pre-fab gluten free flour blend for these cookies as an experiment. Typically I’ll mix up my own depending on what I’m making, but I realize that this step isn’t for everyone. Convenience won this round and the results were delicious, a perfect everyday cookie. A little rough and textured, yummy surprises within, nicely sweet, a bit complex, open to change/interpretation and particularly wonderful with ice cream. That’s living! Cookie metaphors? You bet we’re going there.

everything cookies
adapted from here
serves: makes 2 1/2 dozen
notes: Give the flax and water some proper gelling time (like a good 5 minutes) to achieve that egg-like consistency. Also, whatever GF flour blend you use, make sure it has potato or some other type of starch in it to hold things together.

3 tbsp ground flax seeds
3/4 cup water
1 cup gluten free flour blend (I used Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose)
1/4 cup almond meal
1 cup gluten free oats
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
2.5 cups add-ins (I used pumpkin seeds, dried sour cherries, chopped walnuts and dark chocolate chips)
1/3 cup soft coconut oil (not liquid, but not crazy hard either)
1/4 cup grape seed oil
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Mix the ground flax seeds with the water in a small bowl and set aside, stirring here and there. It should be thick and gel-like by the time you’re ready to use it.

In a large bowl, mix the gluten free flour blend, almond meal, oats, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, xanthan gum, sea salt and various add ins. Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, combine the soft coconut oil and grapeseed oil. Mix on medium speed until combined. Add the flax and water mixture. Mix on medium speed until a thick mixture is achieved, about 1 minute. Add the coconut sugar and maple syrup. Mix on medium for another minute.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and add the dry ingredients. Mix gently with a spatula until thoroughly combined and there is no visible flour left in the dough.

Drop the dough onto the lined baking sheets in heaped tablespoonfuls. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through the process. Remove from the oven and cool thoroughly on the sheets.

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But back to Thanksgiving (yes!). It’s definitely my favourite holiday. I love the sincere appreciation of harvest time and how it brings people together. It’s pretty special. We’re at a peak time where I live: all kinds of squash and vegetables and fruits are available. I’m so thankful for it all. It’s been brisk and mostly grey and well.., I wanted to eat some squash. Stuffed with delicious and maybe just slightly festive things. Not too festive, just a little bit. A taste even.

So I made a stuffing for some garlic-roasted acorn squash with wheat berries, a few veggies, some herbs, spices, dried fruit and toasted nuts. There’s a lot of flexibility with this recipe though! You can use any kind of rice, farro, millet, different vegetables and spices, leave out the dried fruit, maybe add some chopped olives etc; whatever you fancy. I was going for that sage-y, hearty, traditional stuffing-flavour thing and it worked out beautifully.

stuffed acorn squash with pine nuts, sour cherries and sage
serves: 2
notes: Roasting the squash with the garlic clove underneath is totally optional but so, so tasty. I try not to use frou-frou and buzz-y terms here, but it totally aromatizes it to high level, game-changer deliciousness (I’m sorry, really).

squash:
1 acorn squash
2 cloves of garlic, lightly smashed
salt and pepper

stuffing:
1/2 cup wheat berries, soaked for at least a couple hours
1 tbsp grape seed oil
2 shallots, small dice (or 1 small-medium cooking onion)
1 celery stalk, small dice
1 medium carrot, peeled and small dice
1 bay leaf
1 tsp ground coriander
3 sprigs thyme, leaves chopped up fine
1 sprig sage, leaves chopped up fine
splash of white wine (alternatively you can squeeze a bit of lemon at the end or use a bit of white wine vinegar at the end too)
3/4 cup vegetable stock (or water)
1/2 cup dried sour cherries, chopped up roughly
salt and pepper
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted (I just slide them into the oven for a bit while the squash is cooking)
3 sprigs parsley, leaves chopped fine

Start the grains: strain the wheat berries and place them in a small sauce pan with 1 cup of water and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then lower to medium. Simmer for about 40 minutes or until they are still a bit chewy (they will absorb more liquid later when making the stuffing). Drain if necessary.

Cook the squash: preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. season the inside with salt and pepper. Place the smashed garlic cloves on a parchment lined baking sheet with a good amount of space in between. Put the seasoned squash halves over the garlic cloves so that the squash form upside down bowls over the garlic cloves. Place in the oven and cook until tender, about 30 minutes. Once cool enough to handle, scrape a bit of the cooked squash flesh out. It should amount to about a 1/4 cup. Set it all aside.

Make the stuffing: heat the oil over medium and add the shallots. Cook until they begin to soften (4 minutes), add carrots, celery and the bay leaf. When the carrots and celery have softened up a teeny bit (about 4-5 minutes), add ground coriander, thyme, sage and dried cherries. Add the splash of white wine and stir the mixture around, scraping any bits off the bottom.

Add the drained wheat berries to the saute pan and stir to coat them in the mixture. Add the vegetable stock and simmer until most of the liquid is evaporated. Add the squash flesh you scraped out earlier and stir it around, incorporating it into the mixture (this will act like glue for the stuffing). Add the parsley and pine nuts, reserving a bit of both to garnish with at the end. Take off the heat.

On the same lined baking sheet, fill the squash halves with the stuffing as much as you can (there may be some leftover). Slide them into the oven to heat through completely. Garnish with remaining pine nuts and parsley, serve.

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When did the mornings get so cold? As soon as I sleepily clamber out of the sheets, I’m fast tracking to the tea kettle lately. The days are still quite warm, but I’ve been feeling hot breakfasts in the early, brisk hours before the sun peeks out over all of the pretty trees and buildings. I love a big bowl of whole grain porridge once the deep fall sets in, lightly spiced and still a bit chewy with a heavy drizzle of maple syrup. It’s steamy-warm, filling and wholesome.

Truth bomb: I don’t exactly love standing over the stove, endlessly stirring oats for 20 minutes on a work or school day. It makes me stress-y because I know there’s probably a million other things I should be doing besides lingering over the pot. Sunday morning in my jams with some tea and my man? That’s a whole other (wonderful, dreamy, cozy etc) thing. I needed a plan-ahead strategy that could make this healthy porridge work for my every day.

This recipe features raw buckwheat and quinoa in addition to the more typical steel-cut oats. They lighten up the mix and provide a lot of nice texture and flavour variation. I toast the grains in a bit of extra virgin coconut oil and warming spices before adding hot almond milk. It has a bit of an indulgent chai tea and rice pudding effect. The final, teeny addition of some vanilla extract seals the deal. Also, I’ll show you how to make it so that you can have wholesome hot cereal from scratch all week without 20 minutes of stirring and ravenous waiting. Neat, huh?

chai spiced multigrain porridge
serves: 10
notes: Toasting the grains in the warmed spices and oil makes this porridge so delicious. Also feel free to use all oats if you like, the amount of liquid would stay the same. All quinoa or buckwheat? Use double the amount of liquid (ie 1 cup grain: 2 cups liquid).

1 tbsp extra virgin coconut oil (or butter, other oil etc) + a bit extra
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground cardamom
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 cups steel cut oats
1/2 cup raw buckwheat groats (not kasha, these are light green and not toasted)
1/2 cup quinoa, soaked and rinsed
3 cups boiling water
3 cups milk of your choice (I’ll usually reach for almond or hemp), warmed to a simmer
heaped 1/4 cup dried currants (or other dried fruit)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish with some of the coconut oil. Set aside.

Heat the remaining coconut oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and cloves. Stir the spices around in the oil until fragrant and not so raw-smelling, about 3-4 minutes.

Add the oats, quinoa and buckwheat to the oil and spices. Stir the grains around in the pot, evenly coating all of the grains and toasting them up a bit. You should be able to smell the oats getting a bit nuttier. Keep stirring and toasting for about 4 minutes.

Add the boiling water slowly and give the mix a good stir. Scrape the bottom of the pot if necessary

Once the grains have absorbed a good amount of the water, start adding the hot milk in 3/4-1 cup increments. Once the milk gets to a simmer, I usually just put it on low and leave it to the side of the porridge pot, slowly adding it in as the grains absorb the liquid. Keep stirring the porridge frequently.

Once the porridge has absorbed all of the milk and the grains are cooked to your liking, add the currants and vanilla. Stir to combine. Scrape the mixture into the greased 9 x 13 baking dish and smooth it out. Let cool at room temperature for about an hour. Cover and cool in the refrigerator completely. Once cooled, cut into 10 even portions.

To serve: remove one serving of the porridge from the dish and place in a small sauce pan with a heavy splash of milk or water over medium heat. Start breaking up the porridge with the back of a wooden spoon until it returns to its original consistency. Stir until mix is uniform and hot, about 2 minutes. Serve with a drizzle of maple syrup and fruit/chopped nuts/whatever you like. Alternatively, you could sweeten the actual porridge in the pot as it’s heating up.

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