That was never going to be the title of this post but who cares? I allowed myself to change my mind and ran with it. Y to the E to the Yes, I did.
This past Sunday, I went and saw my favourite Seattle orchestra cover songs from the Sgt Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band album and oh man. The only thing better than listening to a recording of the songs by the Beatles is listening to an orchestral arrangement of it in an early 20th century theater. The second best thing would be for the orchestra to follow me home and play my life’s soundtrack as I walk my way through the haze maze.
Which brings me to strawberries.
I’m still trying to figure out what’s seasonal here and what isn’t. All this while I was thinking strawberries were a summer berry but wrong wrong wrong you are Edlyn and how glad I am for that. With the brand new stop eating crap diet I’ve kindly made known to all who live within this little box, strawberries have become breakfast, lunch, drinks and dessert. Before you think I’m going crazy, that’s not all we consume. I wish! I need my carbs, girlfriend.
Which brings me to breakfast. Cereal. Breakfast cereal.
It really is an American thing, isn’t it? I remember when they came out with Kellogs cornflakes in India. At first it was like “yaaayy” and very soon it as all *womp womp*. If I could describe it better, I’d say I felt like I was eating milk-soaked cardboard. With sugar. I was happy to stick with chapatis and mango jam with tea. Here, breakfast cereal is sort of insane. As much as I love how easy it is for us all to throw together, it doesn’t do much for the hunger clock that ticks in my brain. It doesn’t play me Beatles’ songs and it doesn’t fall into the stop eating crap diet I’ve made known to all who live in this little box.
So I made my own. It has strawberries.
Rolled oats and strawberry breakfast cereal
This recipe serves two people and the toppings (apart from the strawberries) are completely up to you,
Ingredients
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 cup quartered strawberries
- 1 tbsp honey (or any sweetener of your choice)
- Roughly chopped walnuts and raisins to go on the top
Roughly chop the walnuts and quarter the strawberries and have them on standby. Until you’re ready for them, you know.
Put the rolled oats and almond milk in a bowl and let it sit for about three minutes. This will help the dry oats soak in as much of the liquid, making it a perfect bite in the end. If you like your cereal to be less liquid-y, just decrease the quantity of milk to 3/4 cup. If you like more milk, you can do that as well.
Once the oats have had a chance to sit for a while, distribute them in two bowls and top with half of the strawberries, walnuts, raisins and honey.
Nothing is real.
Is that “nothing is real” statement coming from a deeper understanding of the crap food we’re made to believe is alright to eat? Iv recently become a little too conscious of it. Things like “breakfast oats” that I would thoughtlessly toss into my shopping bag at Magsons are now scrutinised and labels read a million times over before I decide to buy.
I grow up on chapati/paranthas for breakfast, at least 4-5 times a week. Eggs on weekends. And it suited me just fine. And I totally hear you on breakfast cereal not doing much for my metabolism. The damn thing is supposed to be high energy high carb yada yada, but it would always disappear in about 2 hours, no matter what I put in it to pimp it up. Even the addition of fruit, nuts, muesli etc didnt really help all that much. Now I vary it around. The husband is a weird non-breakfast-eating alien. So since its just me, some days its eggs and toast, some days cooked oats, most days just lots of fruit..
No, but it is from the song “Strawberry Fields Forever”. But I like hiding messages in everything I write so I’ll pat you on the back for getting it.
I eat oatmeal sometimes but I always have something else with it, like a banana. I figure it’s normal for me to get hungry again by 11.30-noon anyway because it happens no matter what I eat or don’t eat. As for the cereal cereal in pretty boxes, it’s just too easy to believe that it’s good for you. For something that tastes like cardboard they sure have a lot of sugar and salt. Anyway, I didn’t buy it there but here even Rice Krispies have corn syrup in it. And there’s nothing remotely sweet about them. Another cereal called “great grains” has GMO ingredients that they don’t mention at all because why bother?
Don’t freak out too much because I’m sure it’s not as bad in India yet. Just buy as much as you can from the market and those people that put out the huge sacks of grains for you to inspect. I remember how we used to buy wheat and take it to the mill to grind…Ah conveniences are just not as convenient in the long run.
somehow i love the dried ones with oats. 🙂