Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Apple Breakfast Barley


I really feel like I have had a really relaxing couple of days, which is great cos hopefully I can go back to uni feeling refreshed. On Tuesday I baked my perfect failed macarons and then had a nice catch up and a walk with mum. I also got to go for my first run in about 5 weeks. Although it was a little tough fitness-wise my ankle held up fine.

Yesterday I had a beautiful sleep in until 8:30 which meant I got around 10 hours sleep, bliss! I caught up with Dad for lunch and one of my best friend's for afternoon coffee. I also did some spring winter cleaning in my kitchen draws. Everything looks so much nicer and organised now.

I got another 9.5ish hours sleep waking up at 8. Then this afternoon I made some delicious profiteroles!! These worked perfectly and are filled with a caramel creme pattisiere. I can't wait to have them for dessert tonight. Oh and even better my last exam result came through today! Two A minuses and an A. Not my absolute best semester but I'm very happy with that as none of my papers this semester were things that I was strong at.

Anyway, I thought after posting a couple of recipes for sweet treats it was time to get back into Real Food. To be honest I needed to get a little more on track myself as I noticed a few more processed foods like potato chips creeping back in. If you haven't caught up on it, I am trying to follow more of a real food diet. The aim is that 80% of my food is unprocessed, which means that when I do buy ready-made or packaged stuff, I should be able to identify all of the ingredients on the packet and they should be things that I could use for cooking and baking at home (i.e. no long, sciency sounding ingredients).

The other day I was watching an episode of Dr Oz. There are a couple of people in this world that I trust pretty much everything they say. One of them is Jamie Oliver as I believe that he is just a ktchen genius. The other is Dr Oz, not entirely sure why, but pretty much everything that he describes seems to be pretty reasonable. Its not that I jump and immediately start doing everything he says, but I take a lot of things into consideration.

The other day he suggested sometimes changing up your morning bowl of porridge/oatmeal for barley. As I had already planned a trip to a local shop, Taste Nature, that stocks organic foods as well as heaps of different types of grains, I thought I would give this a go. I cooked mine in the rice cooker so that I could go away and have a shower/get ready, but it can also be done on the stove top.

I wanted this to have some familiar breakfast flavours, so I used some fruit juice and chopped apple. However, like oats, you can flavour it with whatever you want. Now I will warn you, the texture may not be for everyone. It is veeeeeery different to porridge. The barley was much chewier but I loved it!!

Serves 2

Ingredients
1 cup pearl barley
1 medium apple, cut into small cubes
1 cup water
1 cup fruit juice

Option A: Place all ingredients into a rice cooker. Turn on to cook or the brown rice setting. Leave to cook until the moisture is all absorbed.

Option B: Place all of the ingredients in a medium pot. Bring to the boil over a medium heat, then turn the heat down and leave to simmer. Let simmer, stirring occasionally, until most of the moisture has absorbed and the barley is cooked through (about 20-30 minutes).

Serve with your choice of toppings such as yoghurt, nuts  or dried fruit.

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