I am not always a morning person and very often I just prefer to snooze instead of having more time to eat breakfast. And I do LOVE breakfast! But since I have tasted overnight porridge at grannies, I have started experimenting with different types of grains for a simple morning breakfast. My mum also makes porridge a lot and I did grow up on that type of breakfast. And porridge does’t just stop with oats! You can also use barley, rice, quinoa, buckwheat and many more. I only tried out few and I am really glad I did. I feel much more organised when I prep my breakfast the night before :-).
And this is how my lovely warm porridge breakfast journey went:
Day 1: I have mixed steel cut (pinhead) oats with 3 parts of water (1:3 ratio) and added a pinch of salt. Next morning I added yogurt, mixed berries, seeds and honey. The best oats ever!
Day 2: It’s a spiced apple morning. The night before I have added one cored and sliced gala apple into 1:3 ratio oats (you can try other apple types, but if you pick a cooking apple such as bramley or granny smith then your porridge might need some sugar). I also added some ground cinnamon together with the pinch of salt. This also came out wonderfully well! I had it with some yogurt and honey :-).
Day 3: I don’t know what came to me, but I got attracted by the idea of adding spinach into the porridge (crazy, I know!). I have seen this “green monster” overnight oats recipe and I just wanted to try it in porridge form. I mixed oats with almond milk, added chopped banana and some frozen spinach. Little did I know that in heat banana discolours and spinach turns all khaki. So if you can guess, we could not eat it, even if it had a wonderful banana aroma…
Day 4: Another unlucky day. I decided to try out rice pudding grains, so I mixed 1/2 cup of rice with 3 cups of almond milk as I would with oats. Turns out rice requires more liquid when slow cooked, so rice burned in the slow cooker by the next morning!
Day 5: I mixed 1/2 cup pudding rice with 4 cups of almond milk.The consistency turned out great! Served it with cherries, yogurt and almonds. Although I think this would be soooo nice with some condensed milk and cherries. But then this would be a pudding, not a breakfast. But maybe pudding for breakfast is not that unacceptable?
Day 6: This time I used a regular milk instead of almond milk and mixed it with some molasses. I suggest you don’t do it! It’s too rich while maple syrup would compliment this sooo much better. Anyways sliced banana and pecan nuts are good match! Don’t you think?
Day 7: I used my mum’s recipe. I finely chopped 1/5 butternut squash, added 1/2 cup rice, 1/2 cups raisins, 4 cups of milk, 1tbs sugar and pinch of salt. It’s lovely just as it is as it has sweetness of it’s own! 
Day 8: Tried out barley grains today! But not pearl barley, but the flaked ones. We usually have them savoury in Lithuania, but decided to have sweet this time. I mixed 1/2 cup barley with 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt. In the morning I had it with some yogurt, pouched pear, honey and some poppy seeds. I loved pouched pear, even if I don’t like pears in general!
Day 9: Decided to have barley the traditional way: savoury! In Lithuania we usually add fried onions and carrots on top of cooked barley porridge. But I wanted to keep it simple and healthy! So I added some butter (butter has lots of goodness in it!!) and sprinkled with some chopped carrot and cucumber. Indian or moroccan spices go really well here too!
Day 10: tried out quinoa. I have mixed quinoa with 3 parts of water (1:3 ratio) and added a pinch of salt. Next morning I added yogurt, chopped pineapple, seeds and honey. I found quinoa tasting dry and a bit bitter. 
Day 11: Went all Christmasy! I mixed 1/2 cup quinoa and 2 cups of milk with some dried cranberries. Next morning I added a little bit more milk, pecan nuts, clementines and maple syrup. It was fab!
Day 12: Had the best of all! I mixed 1/4 cup steel cut oats, 1/4 cup quinoa and 2 cups of milk. In the morning I had it together with cherries, extra milk and some maple syrup. It was quite filling indeed!
So I tried overnight porridge with steel cut oats, rice, barley and quinoa. I loved oats the best. No wonder it’s the most popular. But I guess it is nice to have some variation sometimes. I really hope you found this inspiring!
Enjoy healthy breakfast running up till Christmas 🙂
Rasa xx
