If we ate the same thing for supper every evening, week in week out, I would find it boring beyond belief, yet I’m content to have the same breakfast every weekday with a little variation at the weekends. Strange then, that on holiday breakfast is sometimes my favourite meal of the day with fresh fruit, smoked meats, cheese and wonderful breads. The best breakfasts I’ve eaten were at Stranraer Homestead on Kangaroo Island. The first morning, having feasted on beautifully laid out bowls of fresh fruit, compote, yoghurt, granola, pastries and buttermilk pancakes we were amazed when the “cooked” option then appeared. We managed to eat toasted muffin with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon but the next morning we paced ourselves!
When we’re away walking, I happily eat a cooked breakfast; maybe not the “full English” but certainly some of the sausage, bacon, black pudding, tomato, mushrooms, fried bread and egg. We’ve found that, having eaten a farmhouse breakfast like this, we don’t get hungry again until well into the afternoon even though we may have walked fifteen miles or more. In contrast, after a breakfast of toast and marmalade, the biscuit tin looks very tempting by eleven o’clock. Maybe there is something in the old adage that we should breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper.
In the spirit of Farmhouse Breakfast Week*, which runs until Saturday 1st February, I’m trying to be a little more inventive with our breakfast. These are some of the things we’re eating for breakfast, based on porridge oats.
Winter Baked Oats
I’ve made a batch of Winter Baked Oats [click for the recipe] with dried fruits and seeds, cut them into bars and put them in the freezer, so all I need to do each morning is take out the requisite number, give them a whirl in the microwave oven for thirty seconds and breakfast is ready. They’re also good to pack for Breakfast on the Go.
Fruity Oats
Half a cup of porridge oats mixed with half a cup of apple juice, left to soak overnight and then topped in the morning with yoghurt and fruit compote. A variation on last year’s banana, honey and walnut topping. If I had fresh fruit I’d mix a little fruit puree with the yoghurt and top it with fresh fruit.
Porridge
Porridge with apple puree, yoghurt and a sprinkling of cinnamon. Sometimes I eat it with milk and a little brown sugar or I add some dried fruit when it’s cooking to sweeten the porridge.
Are you content to eat the same thing every day or do you like more variety? Or are you one of the many who skip breakfast altogether?
*Farmhouse Breakfast Week is run by HGCA on behalf of arable farmers who grow crops such as wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape. The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of the benefits of eating a healthy breakfast and demonstrate the wealth of wonderful breakfast produce available around the country. [Read more about Farmhouse Breakfast Week.]
You might like to try these recipes:
LIFE IN MUD SPATTERED BOOTS 
Yum yum. I love the idea of eating something every day, but not the reality of it (i.e. thinking about what to make, then making it). Result: I’ve eaten the same thing every morning for 20 years: fruit and yoghurt. I usually have a banana + 2 others, e.g. orange and apple, or apple and kiwi. These days I also have some seeds on top (pumpkin, hemp, sunflower…).
On Sundays, being in Brussels, I add a croissant. And when we visit family I sometimes have some toast!
My husband and children have porridge. It looks delicious and filling but somehow I can’t live without my fruit and yoghurt.
At least you have a bit of variety on Sunday. Yoghurt and three fruit with seeds for breakfast sounds very healthy.
Thank you so much for sharing your recipes and ideas.
I love the look of your fruity oats (!), and would be very tempted to try it.
Around about Sunday I’ll make a huge jar of muesli, also based on oats, and spend the rest of the week eating my way through it. Skimmed milk and a glass of juice. Job done.
This is really muesli without the bits! I got the idea because my husband always pours apple juice over his muesli instead of milk, which I thought was rather odd until I tried it.
That porridge looks splendid, Anne. Quite similar to what prepare for breakfast.
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I too usually always eat the same thing for breakfast – 2 eggs, straight in the pan with a wee bit of butter some salt and pepper and slowly stirred for creamy scrambled eggs. If you promise not to tell, I sometimes even eat it straight from the pan.
Have a super day.
🙂 Mandy xo
I always think eggs take too long, but in reality they’d be quicker than porridge.
Your breakfasts always look completely delicious. I never seem to have time to do anything beyond bog standard routine for myself and it’s kind of become a hard-to-shift habit so it’s porridge made with whizzed up oats, milk and a teaspoon of maple syrup on top pretty much every day. In summer I do switch to homemade yoghurt and honey. I always have some fruit – and that does vary seasonally but always separately from anything else, oh and several buckets of Earl Grey tea! E x
Porridge is hard to beat in the winter. I find tea too filling for breakfast. Coffee only before 2pm then I switch to tea.
I’m definitely going to try your recipe for the winter baked oats. I do sometimes get bored with rotating my two breakfasts (apple juice soaked muesli with yoghurt in summer, porridge with dried fruit in the winter) but I have to overcome huge inertia to make anything else. Although when guests come I sometimes make a stack of pancakes with bacon, maple syrup, blueberries and creme fraiche!
I’d like to be a guest in your house! The best thing about the baked oats is that it’s so quick in the morning to whip them out of the freezer and heat them.
yum! this looks delicious!
The oat bars sound great – not too much sugar which I like a lot. I’m a real stickler for having exactly the same thing every day. Oats and cashew nuts soaked overnight in unsweetened soya milk, with some Greek yoghurt on top. If I eat anything else my whole day is put out! I do think I’ll make your bars though, they’d be excellent for taking on walks to refuel little people.
Your breakfast sounds interesting. I would never have thought about eating cashew nuts for breakfast.
I like the idea of your fruity oats – quick to make and healthy too! And it would make a nice change from the weekday standard of a piece of toast.
Love the look of those fruity oats too. You’ve made me think about the fact that although I’m often inventive with my daughter’s breakfast I always go for toast, porridge with honey, or the home-made granola and muesli. Inspired to be more inventive. Must dig out the fruit glut languishing in the freezer and make some puree or compote for one thing.
I am trying very hard to work my way through the freezer. The fruit compote in the picture was red gooseberries, which I thought might taste strange for breakfast but turned out to be rather good.
I eat the same breakfast every morning mostly because I’m not at my best in the morning and just can’t get up the energy to make something more interesting than an orange and a pastry. When I’m on vacation though, boy do I go crazy with breakfast!
You’ve got me thinking about the tin of Irish oats in the pantry and I should make up a batch. I never used to bother until someone told me that it was great microwaved the next day. Only problem I have with it is, no matter how carefully I watch it, I always miss the boiling over and making a mess stage. I guess with the new stove I’ll just have to babysit it. It would be perfect for this extended cold that we’ve been stuck in here in New England.
Even if it doesn’t boil over, the porridge saucepan is always a pain to clean. Porridge always seems a warming option, though I’m not sure it’s any better than anything else. Hope you’re keeping warm.
Ah yes, the cleaning of the saucepan! After I cook some things I leave them in the sink with the excuse “that’s a soaker”.
How good do the Fruity baked oats look? Makes me want some and I’ve just eaten my lunch! Oh dear …
Hi Anne, I am exactly the same. I have eaten the same breakfast…give or take a little for years. It is nearly always something ‘oaty’ such as muesli or porridge with yoghurt and fruit. Then a piece of toast with Vegemite. My day cannot progress without these things!
Your breakfast ideas all look delicious. I am going to try soaking oats in apple juice. That breakfast on Kangaroo Island sounds very memorable.
Jane I can still remember those breakfasts even though it was years ago. I vowed to come home and try harder with breakfast but it’s only in Breakfast Week that I make the effort. Not sure I could eat Vegemite for breakfast. Definitely has to be marmalade on toast for me.
Yum, I am going to make the baked oats with fresh figs (which I do have) and frozen raspberries (too hot to grow em here) I might even go and see if there are any ripe mangos. My tree is deep in the forest and fruits long after everybody elses.
Also going to make the raspberry cake. I am not a very big cake maker but you have inspired me, the cake looks so good.
Hi Anne, I was looking for the recipe for the breakfast bars. Have I missed it?
It’s here (you just cut them up to become “bars”):
http://annewheaton.co.uk/recipes/winter-baked-oats/