Bilberry Apple Walnut Breakfast Bowl

Happy days start here.

This is the simplest of breakfasts, has a pile of protein, great flavor, a nice crunch from the apple and chia, and a touch of sweetness from the jam.

First you need to understand why I need the color and super foods in my life: Winter has finally arrived in all it’s snow-covered, long-lasting, sigh-begetting glory.  I am not a fan.  I much prefer the rainy days of a milder winter, but nonetheless, here we are, parkas unpacked, hats unrolled, scarves unfurled, ready to face a morning commute, and the only thing between us and departure is breakfast.  We might as well make it a very good one!

Any apple will do here.  You could even substitute pears or pommelo, pineapple or pomegranate seeds – or even thawed berries that you lovingly froze last summer.  Any jam will do too:  I happened to have an open jar of Bilberry Thai Basil jam, so I used a generous spoon of that.

Any type of yogurt that makes you happy works well too – or do as I did one morning and use viili instead.  Delicious!  Chia seeds  and walnuts could be replaced by sunflower seeds, sesame seeds or ground flax seeds, almonds, cashews or pecans – or a few spoonfuls of your favorite muesli.  You can really make this one your own.  And it’s dead simple:  layer the ingredients in the bowl, one on top the other, grab a spoon, and indulge sitting, or standing, or on the bus. Your call.

One side note on viili:  once you have some, you can easily make your own from there on out.  All you need to do is save one tablespoon of viili.  Put it into a clean one liter bowl or container and smear it around the edges of the container.  Add one liter/quart of whole milk (or other milk if you insist – even coconut milk will work), cover, and leave at room temperature for 24 hours.  The natural cultures in the viili will inoculate the milk, and there you’ll be, smiling into your breakfast bowl.  If you live outside of the Nordics, here’s one source for the cultures.  

Bilberry (Blueberry) Apple Breakfast Bowl 

1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup yogurt (or viili)
1/2 apple, core removed, diced
1 heaped tablespoon of bilberry, blueberry or jam of your choice
8 walnut halves, crushed in your hand
1 heaped teaspoon of Chia seeds

Layer the ingredients in a bowl in the order listed.  Sprinkle Chia seeds over the whole thing.  Grab a spoon, take a seat, enjoy.  This also travels well – so make a second one in a portable container while you are at it, and enjoy it as an afternoon snack!

Serves 1.

Kamut, Egg, Goat Cheese and Veggie Breakfast Skillet

Whole Grain Mornings.  That’s the title of a new cookbook I don’t yet have, but whose very title has my head spinning with ideas.  Megan Gordon‘s new cookbook will be arriving at my front door soon, thanks to Amazon, but I already have to thank her for inspiring me to make one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in a long time.

A week or so ago, while prowling the aisles of my local Punnitse ja Säästä shop (it’s a bulk foods store for those of you who don’t understand Finnish or live nowhere near here – the name means “weigh and save), I came across a bin of Kamut. A relatively unknown grain, Kamut is believed to be the grain of the Pharaohs, with legend proclaiming grains found in their tombs in Egypt – a great story, even if unproven.  Though its actual origin and history are not known, it is believed to have been cultivated in small quantities in the Near East, North Africa and Central Asia.  It had not been grown for commercial wheat until, the story goes, an American airman sent a few grains across the ocean to America to his family in 1949.  Eventually two farmers from Montana, Mack and Bob Quinn, decided to begin growing the grain.  Originally called Khorasan, the Quinns registered the grain under the name Kamut(r) after the Egyptian word for “wheat or wheaten bread” (source: Wikipedia)

So what’s the big deal about Kamut?  Besides the fact that I love the idea of cooking with an ancient grain, I also like that Kamut seems to have far fewer allergens than common wheat, with tests showing that two-thirds of people with wheat allergy have no allergy to kamut.  Like all wheat, it contains gluten, but many gluten-sensitive people can eat it without side effects.  (Source: Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford) In addition, it is rich in unsaturated fats and proteins, slightly larger than the modern wheat kernel, and has a pleasant, chewy flavor that holds up well next to heavy meats and vegetables, in soups, or, well, as a pleasing base for your breakfast.  I had it first with Teriyaki Chicken and Steamed Broccoli and it was fantastic.

I don’t know yet if Whole Grain Mornings has any recipes for kamut, but here’s one I’d like to share with you.  This recipe is for one, because I was the only one home for breakfast by the time I dreamed this up.  If you are feeding more people, get a bigger skillet and multiply the quantities accordingly.   Could be served up for any meal of the day – but I especially liked it for breakfast

Most health food stores and many larger grocery stores now carry kamut.  Here in Finland, Punnitse ja Säästä carries a big bulk bin of it.  You can also order it online.  If you can’t find it, substitute regular wheat kernels, farro or brown rice instead.

Kamut, as with many whole grains, takes a while to cook. I recommend pre-soaking it: I soaked it for about 8 hours (overnight) and then cooked it for 30 minutes.

Thank you Megan, for the inspiration.  I look forward to cooking through the book.

Kamut, Egg, Goat Cheese and Veggie Breakfast Skillet

Kamut, Egg, Goat Cheese and Veggie Breakfast Skillet

small knob of butter, approx 1 teaspoon
1/3 cup / 3/4 dl cooked kamut (can substitute other whole grains if you can’t find kamut)
1 small shallot, diced small
1/4 yellow pepper, sliced in half and then into thin strips
1 organic egg
1 tablespoon soft goat cheese
1/4 cup alfalfa sprouts
4 basil leaves, julienned
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a small frying pan over medium heat.  Add the shallots and cook until slightly softened, about 2 minutes.  Add the kamut and stir until the grains are fully heated, about 1 minute.  Add the yellow pepper and stir to lightly cook it, one more minute.  With your spatula, spread the mixture toward the outer edges of the pan to create a hole in the center.  Put a small piece of butter there, and crack an egg on top.  Allow the egg to cook for 1 minute, then pour in 3 tablespoons of water and cover the pan with a lid to steam-cook the egg.  Allow it to steam for 2 minutes.  Remove the lid and distribute the goat cheese in small dollops around the kamut mixture in the pan.  Cover with a lid and cook for one more minute.  Turn off the heat, arrange the sprouts over one side of the mixture, sprinkle on the basil, add salt and pepper to taste, and enjoy!

Serves 1.  Multiply quantities to suit the crowd.

Enjoy!

Salmon and Pomegranate Salad with Raw Vegetables & Sprouts

There’s been no lack of cooking around here – the problem is the most of the stuff that’s landing on my table these days is getting consumed long before any thoughts of photographic evidence enters my mind.

This year, I’ve begun to focus on three things more and more:  using whole foods, playing more with herbs and spices, and making really great artisan bread at home.  Using whole foods means more than just cooking from scratch, something I have spent the last couple of years learning how to do with greater efficiency.  Instead, I am looking at using foods in their most unrefined state:  whole grains: barley, wheat, rye, and seeds: quinoa, amaranth, chia, flax.  Unrefined sugars from honey, maple syrup and organic coconut palm, for example, rather than white sugar – and mostly leaving out sugar as much as possible except for on the occasions when only a lovely dessert will do – more on that at a later date.  For fruits and vegetables, it means going local and organic as much as my budget allows so that I can eliminate the pesticides and eat food that is simply of better quality most of the time.  This also means eating more with the seasons:  there is no point in having asparagus in the winter; I am happy to wait until spring when it’s popping out of the ground all over the world and I can have it at its best.  It means that all the berries and vegetables that I picked and froze last summer are now being used more actively and being put to good use on a daily basis.  It means questioning the wisdom of peeling vegetables and fruits:  if the food is organic, do I need to peel the carrots, beets, or parsnips before roasting them?  Does it negatively impact the flavor or cosmetics if I leave the peel on?  The answer to both questions is often no.  For example, nowadays when I make a stir fry, I wash the carrot before slicing but I don’t peel it.  No problem.  Save yourself the time in many cases and you’ll find you’re really not making a compromise at all.

I have thought of Michael Pollan’s line many, many times:  “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants”.  Great advice.  I still eat meat – just a lot less of it, and what I eat is much better quality.  I eat a lot of plants – and love the color and flavor variety they add to the plate and how easy it is to whip up a great salad or a flavorful stir fry in 10 minutes with great vegetables, good oil, tasty vinegar, and carefully selected spices or fresh & dried herbs.

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.

Herbs and spices are used most masterfully in the Asian, Indian and North African kitchens in my opinion.  It’s not uncommon to see a list of 10 – 15 different herbs and spices in a recipe:  some pounded together to make a paste, some toasted and then ground to make a special spice mix, and any way you spin it they add an astonishing level of flavor that let’s free yourself from pre-packaged mixes and bags and boxes and cans found in the store, and to know what’s really gone into the food on your plate.  I am working to understand how these sometimes exotic spices & herbs (galangal is a brand-new one for me this year) work together to transform a dish from ordinary to mouth-watering.

And bread.  Ah, this one has been a five year journey for me:  from the day I first put flour and water in the bowl, determined to learn how to make bread using wild yeast, and waited and fed it and waited some more, hoping for the telltale bubbles that indicated that my starter was alive. I produced a lot of rye bread and wheat bread that served better as doorstops then as welcome additions to the table.  Then slowly, I started getting bread that if not awesome, was at least palatable.  The bread got better, the starter stronger and I began to understand the art and science behind it all just a little better with each attempt.  I read & researched & experimented; tried and failed and ate a lot of bread.  At the end of December last year, it finally happened: I discovered awesome coming out of my own oven.  A satisfying moment that is hard to explain, I’ll share some of that with you here too.

The staff of life.  Sunflower Millet Sourdough.  Pretty awesome.

So if you’re ready for a year of a journey toward putting even better food on the table, welcome along for the ride!  I look forward to comments, questions and suggestions as we move through the year, from plate to plate, meal to meal, from one culture’s cuisine to the next with a lot of fusion cooking along the way.

And to start us off with a seasonal bang, here’s a salad highlighting my favorite fruit of the winter season, the pomegranate.  I used to think getting the edible fruit out of the pomegranate was almost more work than it was worth, until I learned the easy way to make it happen.  Cut the pomegranate in half around the equator.  Hold one half in the palm of your hand, cut side down and your fingers spread, over a bowl.  With a wooden spoon, hit the outer surface of the pomegranate and watch with great delight as the seeds obligingly fall into the waiting bowl.  You can also garnish a salad or finished dish directly by performing this banging action directly over your plate.  You may need to dig out the last few seeds and remove a few pieces of white pith, but at least you won’t be pulling out each sweet seed one by one as your stomach growls unhappily.

Now that we have that down, let’s get started.

Plated.

Salmon and Pomegranate Salad 
with Raw Vegetables & Sprouts

In a medium bowl combine:
1 small head of dark lettuce, separated and washed and torn into small pieces

Pour the over (no need to pre-mix):

1 carrot, sliced into thin rounds
1/2 cup alfalfa sprouts
150g smoked salmon (or baked if you have some leftover from a previous meal)
seeds from 1/2 pomegranate
1/2 avocado, diced
1/4 cup fresh mozzarella, diced

Serve immediately.  Serves 2.  Can be double or tripled easily to make you or a crowd quite happy.