Cold oranges & yoghurt.

As much as I wish it was summer already, I am enjoying the late winter oranges. At the moment they're sweet and juicy and perfect for breakfast.
But before we go any further, I want you to know: This is not a recipe. It is merely a suggestion.

Oranges pair perfectly with thick, plain yoghurt. They make a complete breakfast sprinkled with a few oats, and enjoyed with a cup of tea in the sunshine.

This suggestion is a very loose interpretation of this recipe. I wish I was organised enough to actually make this recipe, but I'm not.
Plus, I'm lazy. That's a bad combination.

If you're a bit more organised, you could toast your oats until they're crisp, and drizzle with honey before sprinkling on the oranges. The combination of hot crisp oats, and cold sweet oranges is pretty good.



Oranges with yoghurt:
Serves 1


1 orange, a few spoonfuls of plain or Greek yoghurt, oats.
Peel and segment the orange (I really enjoy this part). Place in a bowl and spoon over the yoghurt. Sprinkle with oats, and drizzle with maple syrup, if you're feeling fancy-free. Don't forget the cinnamon! Eat greedily in the sunshine.

Crispy grapefruit.

Today was one of those days. Those days where you can't find any clothes to wear and then you can't even be bothered to blow dry your hair.






In the end, I threw on my old jeans and one of Brent's t-shirts to wear to work. It turned out that the shirt had some (semi) famous artist's design printed on the front, and everyone complimented it.

I'm pretty sure that one good way to make you feel less scummy in the morning is to eat something girlie for breakfast. Like a ruby grapefruit.







I'd never eaten a grapefruit before this morning. The ruby grapefruit's looked so lovely sitting in a big pile at the shop that I though I would buy one and see how it went.

It met all my expectations: bitter, tart and slightly sweet. Delicious.







But grapefruit's have this... stigma about them. As if you can only eat a grapefruit if you're on a diet or something. I know they're good for you, but I don't understand why they're not an everyday thing.

I did think that I would still be hungry after only eating one half of the fruit, but I wasn't! And the oats, butter and sugar really make you feel like you're not trying to be super healthy.

Mmm.... butter and sugar. And in less than 10 minutes!




Crispy grapefruit:
serves 2
Adapted from All Recipes.


1 ruby grapefruit
1/4 cup oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat the grill to a high temperature.
Cut the grapefruit in half, and slice around the pink flesh so that it will be easier to scoop out later.
Mix the oats, cinnamon, butter and sugar in a small bowl until well combined.
Pile half the oat mix on each grapefruit half.
Place the grapefruit on a tray and stick under the grill until mixture is brown and crisp on top, about 5 minutes. Keep a close eye on the grapefruit, making sure they don't burn.take out from under the grill and serve straight away.

Oatmeal and raisin cookies.

Whenever I cook something with flour in it, Rooney gets all excited, putting his paws in the bowl and then putting flour all over his face. He's like a little kid that is too impatient to wait for the cookies to be cooked, so just eats all the batter raw.

Oatmeal and raisin cookies are such an American thing. I never say oatmeal, or cookies, or raisins. I say biscuit and oats. I don't even know if there's a difference between sultanas and raisins. (Is there a difference? Please let me know).

But if you say oat and sultana biscuits, they just don't sound quite as appatising, somehow. But thats ok. We'll eat them anyway, because these biscuits are tasty as. They're thick and chewy and all you could ever  want from a biscuit. If you made them with choc chips instead of sultanas, it'd be heaven!

Recipe:

Adapted from smitten kitchen

Oven- 170

1/2 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinammon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

pinch salt

1 1/2 cup oats

3/4 cup sultanas

Cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla

Add the dry ingredients, and mix

Spoon teaspoon sized balls onto a lined tray, and chill for half an hour (to stop the biscuits from spreading).

Bake for 10-12 mins. Should be gold around the edges but still soft.

Start your day right. Vanilla and almond museli.

Breakfast is my most favourite meal of the whole day. I usually eat breakfast by myself, because Brent goes to work super early in the morning, but this means that I can eat whatever I want! I could have eggs, or toast, or porridge or cake, if I felt like it. Or all of these together. Wowser!

I like eating oats. A lot. They make me feel homely and wholesome and ready for the day. Especially if I eat them in museli rather than in anzac biscuits or oat and raisin biscuits, which has been known to happen on occasion.

When I was little, Mum would make us breakfast all day on special Sunday's. We'd have cereal for breakfast, pancakes for lunch and eggs for dinner. I never do this anymore. I like to have a roast on Sunday's, and that's not really a breakfast meal at all. I never really eat pancakes either, I prefer to have savoury things for breakfast. This museli is an exception to that rule though.

You totally don't need a recipe for this. Just use what you think tastes good.
I used cranberries and sultanas and almonds because I like them. I used vanilla and mixed spice because I like them, too, and they taste good.
Obviously it's not peach season at all because it's the middle of winter, but I used canned peaches (no added sugar!) because I like to eat peaches all year round. We didn't have any milk or yoghurt this morning, so I used the juice from the can of peaches. It was excellent. I didn't miss the milky goodness at all!

Recipe:

Serves one

1/2 cup oats

1/4 cup each of dried cranberries and sultanas

couple of almonds

between 1/4 and 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp mixed spice

peaches, or whatever fruit you like.

Mix everything together (except peaches) and top with fruit.

Relax into your day.

Feeling patriotic? make some Anzac biscuits

When I make anzac biscuits, I feel like I should have my hair curled and be wearing an A-line dress, so that I can send the biscuits off to my husband/son in the war.

Hopefully no-one I know will have to go off to war, so I won't have to send anything off to them.
But it's fun to play pretend.

I'm not sure where this recipe came from, it was just in my recipe book. The amounts of sugar and syrup were a bit off- maybe I wrote the recipe down wrong?- but I tweaked them a little bit and now they're pretty perfect.
They're crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, and not too sweet (you could add more sugar if you like them a bit sweeter). The ones you can buy in cafe's are usually a lot flatter than these, but I like my biscuits chunky. yeah!

Recipe:

makes about 20

oven- 150

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup oats
3 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp bicarb
6 tbsp water
1 tbsp butter

mix dry ingredients
heat golden syrup and water, then add bicarb and melted butter.
pour into dry ingredients and mix.
roll into tbsp sized balls and bake on a lined tray for 20-25 mins until golden.

Museli bars (of the homegrown variety).

When I was little, Mum would always pack museli bars into my lunch box. They were always just Uncle Tobys ones, but I'm sure that Mum would've made these for me, if she had the recipe.
When I'm feeling a bit homey, I imagine what kind of a mum I'll be. The kind that makes you choc chip biscuits but still makes you eat all of your carrots. I'll definately be the kind of mum that makes museli bars and packs them into your lunch box as a treat for little lunch.

These museli bars are super crunchy with just the right amount of sweetness. They also fall apart like there's no tomorrow, but you'll get over dopping oats on the floor once you taste them.

The original recipe calls for all honey, but I used half honey and half marmalade, because I love marmalade. No other reason.

Recipe:

Oven: 170

Adapted from smittenkitchen

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup almonds, chopped

1 cup desiccated coconut

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup marmalade

1 tsp vanilla

pinch salt

3/4 cup cranberreis chopped

3/4 cup sultanas, chopped

Mix oats, almonds and coconut and bake for 10-12 mins (on a tray) until golden. Stir occasionally.

Transferoat mix to a bowl. While still warm, add honey, marmalade, vanilla and salt. Stir until coated.

Add fruit, mix.

Press mix into a (lined) baking dish with wet fingers until tightly packed.

Bake 25-30 mins until golden.

Cool for 2-3 hours before cutting. (Don't think about skipping this point. The bars will just totally fall apart)