I need to go to the store later and get some more oats, my recent breakfast and snack of choice (just soaked in a little milk with nuts and berries, and served cold? Maybe a splash of maple syrup? Kind of addictive) Today, a little fall-like and mellow, seems like a good day for a couple servings of whole grains as well.
1.
The only white rice I keep around is for risotto, but I try to keep brown rice on hand. From a bulk bin at a Birmingham store I have a small bag of wild rice; what I miss are some of the red and purple rices I used to find in Berlin.
While perusing those same bulk bins a couple months ago I found some oat groats, and before that, shopping at the only local store (“Manna”) with a decent bulk selection, I filled a small bag with wheat berries.
2.
Oviously I’ve been an oatmeal fan for a long time. Several years ago I made the shift to steel-cut oats and only kept the rolled variety around for using in some bread recipes. In addition to just simmering them about half an hour, I found two other uses for the steel-cut variety:
- cooked overnight in a slow-cooker, often with a firmer fruit, like apple, and some nuts; these were especially delicious during the winter when cooked on the lowest setting in half-and-half. I never said they were low calorie.
- cooked and used as a replacement for rice in rice pudding. The oats were tender and nutty.
I remembered müesli, the more-or-less Swiss breakfast option. You can buy bags of it and often it looks like unsweetened, uncooked granola … a mixture of oats, perhaps some seeds, some dried fruit, and perhaps chocolate chips or chopped nuts. My main exposure to it was by way of a zillion different central-European youth hostels (and their breakfast options) in the 90s and 00s. But if you break it down, both deconstructing the ingredients and looking at its history, you realize that all you need are some rolled oats, some liquid (often fruit juice rather than ‘milk’), and fruit or nuts; you ‘roll your own’ (pardon the pun of sorts) at the breakfast bar. And so it was only a step away for me to just take my oats, soak them (usually in some sort of ‘milk,’ occasionally in yogurt), and then add berries or nuts. Then I realized I could do the same overnight with steel-cut oats; they’d be tender in the morning, no cooking necessary.
And then it was only a small step—the past couple months—to tossing about and ounce and half of rolled oats, a quarter cup of liquid, cinnamon, frozen berries, and occasionally walnuts or pecans together in a bowl whenever I needed a snack.
But back to those groats …
3.
Steel-cut oats are just cut groats; oat groats are just minimally-processed oats. And like all whole grains they take a while to cook.
The ‘recent fad,’ tied a bit to the raw- and paleo- crowds, is that you have to soak your grains, lest those same grains harm you with their so-called anti-nutrients.
Pardon my flippant tone.
I find the matter of how grains are processed and digested fascinating; I find the issue of phytates and how they function intriguing. I despise this know-nothing-but-I’m-an-internet-expert posturing about nutrition; this faddish, even fetishistic adherence to food ideologies of the week; this labeling of items as essentially ‘anti-‘ this or ‘toxin’ that without an understanding of context … and so on.
But I rant and digress.
No links in this section; if I cover that nonsense I’ll do so properly in a future post.
Groats take a while to cook … but since steel-cut oats are basically the same thing, they take about as long to cook. And so I took about 42g (ounce and a half, ~160 calories) dry, rinsed them, put them in a pot with some water (about a cup), provided a dash of salt, brought it to a simmer, and covered the pan. When the water was mostly absorbed I added a splash of vanilla almond milk … just to finish off that carton. And then I added some chopped walnuts, let the whole thing cook down until all the liquid was absorbed, and, after turning off the heat, added half a teaspoon of maple syrup, blueberries and raspberries, and a splash of vanilla extract.
A tasty, filling meal. The groats are so wonderfully chewy, but less creamy than the steel-cut variety, which makes more of a porridge, if that’s what you want.
4.
Meanwhile I put a bit more than an ounce (about 35g) of dry wheat berries in some water to soak for the afternoon. Ms. S. has rehearsal until about 7pm, so there won’t be dinner until after then.
If they’re just for me, that’s enough grain; if she wants some, too, I think a mixed-grain pilaf would be nice: the wheat berries, some barley, and maybe brown rice to round it out. Like the oat groats the wheat berries will hold their shape and become nicely chewy. Barley can be creamy, and brown rice ‘puffs’ if you overcook it, ‘fluffs’ if you don’t. Not only would they provide three different grains and flavors, they’d contribute to an interesting mix of textures.
But it’s only 3pm … there’s still time to contemplate.
