You know my feelings about oats. They are far too modest to say so themselves, but how many other foods are wholegrain, low GI and more than usually endowed with cholesterol mopping soluble fibre?  And so versatile in the kitchen too.  I’m always pleased to find another excuse to include them in my week and hence my delight at having these spinach, cottage cheese and oat pancakes as a new savoury oaty option.

I know some people pooh-pooh cottage cheese but if you buy the normal stuff it’s actually rather nice and creamy. I think it was all the extra low fat cottage cheese (very watery and lumpy) and those strange additions like prawns and pineapple that did for its reputation. That, and all those flavour free, soul-destroying diets of the 1970s and 1980s.  But if you’re still sceptical about the merits of cottage cheese then give this Baked cottage cheese french toast with a courgette and corn salsa a whirl as a stepping stone to moving on to these pancakes (honestly, I dare you not to like them).

Those savoury oat, spinach and cottage cheese pancakes combine both of these ingredients and are literally a case of blitz and cook.  Credit where it’s due to the awesome Shauna for spotting the sheer simplicity of this recipe. We like these as brunch and making a savoury twist on the original fruity recipe makes it really easy to fit in some extra portions of fruit and veg alongside the pancakes (today a heap of salad leaves and some roast cherry tomatoes).

People with problems absorbing lactose be aware that cottage cheese has much more lactose in it than hard cheeses.

Many more ideas for including more oats in your diet over here, plus a whole host of cheese and egg recipes.

Becoming mindful teaches you that the nothing is the same twice.  Each breath we take is different and though it might seem the same each cup of tea that we drink is subtly different in multitude of tiny of ways.  Same for those regular meals that we cook week in, week out.  So what has this got to do with leftovers and frittata I hear you ask? The same is true for portion sizes also. Cooking and eating mindfully includes deciding how much is enough today. Not the amount that’s usually enough or what worked last week but what seems enough today, at this particular one-off mealtime.

With these two lovely new chickens taking us up to five girls in total, we’re regular frittata eaters in our house.  The recipe I’ve posted below is for the amount that I always make. It’s a variation on this ever adjusting Parsnip, Red Onion, Kale and Gouda frittata which in turn is from this basic frittata recipe. I am forever indebted to Kathryn Elliott for pointing out the simple beauty of a frittata for those days when you don’t have anything planned. So long as you have some eggs, an indiscriminate assortment of vegetables and a few scraps of cheese then you have dinner.

A 6 egg frittata isn’t the right portion for two people every time. Sometimes it’s just perfect, other times it’s a bit too much.  Which leaves the happy accident of leftovers for breakfast or lunch.  Sometimes enough for two people, sometimes enough for one and sometimes none at all.

This post is for Helen’s Breakfast Club Event, hosted by Monica at SmarterFitter.  As I’m a big fan of Monica, Helen, breakfast and leftovers I thought I’d join in!

I’ve travelled just enough to know that here in the UK we don’t get sent the best fruit. I’m not blaming anyone – if you have the sun it’s reasonble that you also get the pick of the fruit. But I’ve seen enough Mediterranean markets to know that we get sent second pickings.   I wouldn’t bother – our homegrown brit-fruit is delicious – but in the  hungry gap at this time of year I crave a bit of variety and start to look around at what’s organic and hasn’t travelled across too many borders to get here. Hence these slightly too hard figs.

A little warmth brought them out of their skin a little and softened them up quite enough to make a decent breakfast, squidged onto ricotta-spread toast.  It’s as streamlined a breakfast to prepare as you could wish for; a portion each of fruit, dairy and decent quality low GI carbohydrate in the time it takes to make toast and jam. It’s super quick because the toast and fruit both go under the grill (broiler) together, which saves washing up too.

I’ve had good results with gently warming under-ripe pears, plums, nectarines and peaches in this way too.  It won’t save terrible fruit, but works for those that are just a little bit jet lagged or unyielding.  Thin slivers of apple could also work without the grilling, and in the summer mushed up raspberries on ricotta and toast eaten in the garden is a fine way to start the day.  If you really want to bring a taste of Italy to your breakfast you’ll not regret investing in a tiny pot of Honey Miele di Tartufo which in our house adds truffle-scented enchantment to anything it touches.

I hated fruit salad when I was a kid. Hated it. And then I grew up and started to enjoy eating fruit, but strangely the dislike of fruit salad persisted. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve realised the the secret to making fruit salad enjoyable. Only use fruit that you enjoy!  D’uh. I know this sounds obvious but it’s taken me so many years to realise that feel that I should pass the message on in case somebody else hasn’t realised.

For me a fruit salad should never be tainted by the smell of a banana, nor the grind of kiwi seeds. And it should definitely have some of the sweet softness of berries to complement the crisp and fresh. But that’s the beauty of making your own, you can cater to all of your own little iodiosyncracies regarding texture and taste, not to mention saving the planet by buying local and seasonal fruit.

A big batch of fruit salad is an indispensable tool for fitting in your five-a-day. Twenty minutes prep at the weekend and you have instant delectable, flexible fruit to hand for the next four or five days.  A fruit salad will live happily in the fridge for the best part of the week ready to be eaten at a moments notice:

• with yogurt
• on porridge or quinoa
• as an impromptu dessert, eton mess style
• naked
• on pancakes or sweet incarnation of this baked cottage cheese French toast

This combination of nectarines, berries and orange zest is how I like my fruit salad in the summer – you can design your own or copy mine.

Scrambled eggs are home-cooking at its most glorious. Quick, delicious, comforting, frugal, familiar.  And almost never nice when eaten out, with catering establishment incarnations ranging from watery through to bouncy. And then there are those diet police versions, throwing away yolks and with them a whole load of flavour, protein, Vitamin D, iron and beta carotene.

This meal is a regular in our house thanks to our girls. Cooking the eggs like this is a good way of enjoying your scrambled eggs while introducing a little healthy monounsatured oil and vegetable.  We use olive oil to cook the eggs and then a little knob of butter to finish them off with that silky texture. Zucchini are mild enough to let the taste of the eggs shine and cutting them into thin ribbons lets the vegetable meld into the soft scramble, rather than introducing unpleasant lumps.  I add the merest hint of a mint for a little whisper of freshness (any more and it will be overpowering).

Anyone who is a gardener has an abundance of courgettes this month.  Even I have one plant, despite drastically reduced home growing this summer in deference the aforementioned house move.  If I can recommend one piece of equipment to you it would be a julienne peeler – thin courgette strips have myriad of uses and a peeler is a doddle to use and clean, plus much less dangerous than a mandoline (I don’t think my cuisipro peeler is available any more, but you’re looking for something along these lines).

More ideas to use up zucchini / courgette

• Baked cottage cheese french toast with a courgette and corn salsa
• Ricotta, courgette, lemon and mint summer sandwich
• Chicken with courgette, halloumi and honey
• Spaghetti with courgette, lemon and goats cheese
• Aubergine, courgette and tomato stew with quinoa and feta

I don’t seem to be able to make up my mind what to call them. I’m starting to prefer using the word zucchini instead of courgette –  wonder if this is down to the hours spent hanging out in this multicultural space, or a nod to the fact courgette were probably my most hated vegetable as a child, whereas I really rather like them now. You’ll have to excuse me for the to-ing and fro-ing between the two for now.

Our house is the neighbourhood home for unwanted rhubarb. I love the stuff, while some of our friends who have rhubarb growing in their gardens just aren’t as keen (or possibly just have way too much).  It’s not uncommon for us to come home to find a bag of rhubarb hanging on our front door handle, sometimes with a cabbage for the chickens thrown in.

There’s just one difficulty with the free rhubarb  – it just doesn’t fit into the fridge easily. It’s too big for the salad drawer and ideally wants a shelf all to itself. I’ve tried leaving it out of the fridge and it just goes limp. Chop it into smaller pieces and it just dries out.  This spring though, I think I’ve finally got rhubarb sorted.  I can get a big bunch of fresh rhubarb from the doorstep and into a manageable, fridge-friendly, ready-to-eat tub of compote in under 10 minutes.

Here’s how to do it. Give the rhubarb a quick wash and cut off any leaves, plus an inch or so of stem from either end.  Chop the rhubarb into inch long segments and place in a ceramic bowl.  Add a splash of water or a squeeze of orange juice and a scant tablespoon of honey. Microwave on full power for two minutes. Stir and return to the microwave for a further two minutes or until the rhubarb is soft and disintegrating. Taste and add more honey if needed.

There’s nothing wrong with cooking rhubarb on the hob by the way, it’s just that cooking it on the hob requires a bit more time and attention. Which means that I’m more likely to want to cook it later when I can give it my full attention, rather than right away. Which means I’m going to try and wedge it into the fridge somehow, around the yogurt pots and over the relish jars…

The compote is great in a smoothie, with creamy natural yogurt, on oatmeal/porridge or with leftover quinoa for a quick breakfast.

Related posts

• Rhubarb and ginger thickie
• Is rhubarb good for you?
• Tofu with hot and sour rhubarb sauce

Alongside the lush new greens growing in  my garden are some productive older residents including  damson, apple, fig and plum trees. Most of the fruit bounty from the trees is taken care of between eating, passing on to friends and freezing (with just enough sugar). It’s the damsons that need a bit more thought; they are delicious in their own way, but not really all that good eaten au naturel.  

The first batch of purple blue damsons were made into a tub of decadent full fat, cream and sugar ice-cream, courtesy of Nigel Slater. The second batch were destined for Madalene’s Bullace and Conference Pear Breakfast Muffins. And so it turned out were the third batch.  Now before I get on to talking about the muffins, if you haven’t seen it already you should take a look at Madalene’s blog, The British Larder. Her photography is mouth-watering and her recipes are always inspiring me to try out more traditional British produce such as cobnuts, bullace and greengages.

This recipe produces wholesome, unpretentious muffins – the sort you’d have for breakfast or to tide you over until a late dinner.  And there are hidden treasures within the muffins; the damson pieces form little crimson, caramelised nuggets and the cereal flakes become chewy and malty.

My version has a few differences to Madalene’s including vegetable oil (also known as rapeseed or canola oil) for more monounsaturated fats, yogurt with a splash of milk in place of buttermilk (which I can never find to buy), and a touch of allspice (for that autumnal feel).  We don’t tend to have bran flakes in stock so my muffins use an unsweetened cereal flake made from a combination of buckwheat and rice.  Don’t think you can’t try the recipe without access to a supply of damsons either – I’m confident plums would work in their place.

If you’re in the mood for more baking ideas check out this earlier post on How to Make a Healthier Muffin.

Skirlie is an old-fashioned savoury oat dish from Scotland made with oats and onions cooked in butter or dripping.  I’ve been experimenting with this again recently made with olive oil, fresh herbs and a few extra veggies.  It’s ridiculously easy to make, healthy and far easier to wash up than porridge.

Skirlie has a different texture to porridge; it’s a little moist but also chewy, more like the consistency of cooked brown rice. Ergo, if you aren’t keen on porridge in all its gloopiness you may find that you enjoy skirlie. Likewise die hard porridge fans may find it takes a few mouthfuls to get used to.

That gelatinous wobble of properly made porridge comes from the beta glucan in the oats, a type of soluble fibre that becomes jelly-like when moist.  Large amounts of this soluble fibre is root of many of those health benefits ascribed to oats.  It can keep you feeling full through an ability to swell up dramatically when moist and also because it causes the energy from the oats to be released very slowly into your bloodstream (oats are low GI) .  Soluble fibre also seems to assist your body in getting rid of excess cholesterol, helping to protect against cardiovascular disease (and in case you wanted to know but didn’t like to ask, yes soluble fibre helps to keep you regular too).  Skirlie contains just as much of this beta glucan as porridge, it’s just that it is less physically apparent than in porrdige because the dish contains so much less liquid.  Instead all of that that expansion of the oats will happen inside your stomach instead making skirlie a fairly filling prospect.

Oats love the temperate UK climate, growing over the winter months with about half of the crop going for human consumption and half for animal feed (there’s more info on UK arable crops from DEFRA if you’re interested).

Like so many vegetarian dishes, top it with a poached egg and you have a complete meal (brunch perhaps?). I also use skirlie as a side dish to oily fish or roast chicken (it’s even better with meals that have a little gravy or sauce alongside).  You could also try using it as a stuffing or stirring it into mash.  The flavourings and vegetables you use can be swopped and changed, for example on other days I’ve made skirlie with orange zest, lemon thyme and skinny ribbons of leek.

There’s a recipe that keeps popping up and I’ve been trying to ignore it, because surely something that simple isn’t going to make a decent dinner?  It’s called pisto, a kind ratatouille that is a regular feature in Spanish home kitchens. Having given in and tried it, I’m now completely sold on the idea.  It’s not the pisto alone that has entranced me, but the traditional serving suggestion; the familiarity of rice with a homely, tangy tomato sauce and topped with a perfect runny egg. Pisto is a new stock item on our list of easy weeknight suppers but don’t let me limit your ideas.  For starters I’m sure this would make a perfect weekend brunch.

As a meal this is environmentally sustainable, nutritionally well balanced and stress free to make. What’s not to like?

It’s so darn easy
This is not an instant dinner (a misleading term if ever there was, as we discussed last week) but it is a forgiving sort of a meal to make, with very little active input required and little that can go wrong. Ximena Maier of Lobstersquad explains the attraction of making pisto “What I like about it is that it has a very relaxed rhythm. You only have to follow the order of ingredients, and throw them in the pan as soon as they´re chopped. There´s no anxiously waiting for something to be just right, no stressful wild chopping while something may burn. Things will happen while they must, and a minute up and down isn´t a big deal.”   In fact if you have a rice cooker then cooking dinner becomes a very leisurely affair indeed. 

The eggs are gently cooked in little dents made in the pisto with the back of a spoon.  This results in all of the gooey loveliness of a poached egg but with none of the scariness of egg poaching for the uninitiated (though there are many reasons why it is worth learning how to poach an egg if you haven’t already).

Nutritional balance
Pisto with brown rice and an egg is the very model of a well balanced meal.  Vegetables predominate the dish and are there in a range of colours which intimates that you are about to eat a good variety of vitamins and antioxidants. Eggs provide low fat protein and are cooked without the addition of any extra fat. The carbohydrate source is wholegrain. The total amount of fat used in the recipe is small and monounsaturated in nature.  And there is synergy between the ingredients too with the brown rice, egg and vegetables combing to give a reasonable hit of iron and the added benefit of vitamin C from the peppers which enables your body to better absorb these vegetarian iron sources.

Flexibility and Flexitarianism
I’m bound to offend some (Spanish) people with my messing about with the basic pisto recipe (then it’s not pisto, right?) but another very pleasing quality about using this as the inspiration for a meal is that you can adjust it a little according to what’s in the fridge.  If you want to make your pisto more seasonal and local you can; as it is mid Winter here I compromised with canned tomatoes in place of the traditional raw but used imported organic peppers.  An official common variation in Spain is to use eggplant (aubergine) instead of courgette but a carrot works just fine too.  And if you’ve got half a bag of spinach or another greeny leafy veg in the fridge then why not chuck some of that in too (I also keep frozen spinach which you can just chuck straight in from the freezer).

Brown rice is my accompaniment of choice but try experimenting with other wholegrains like buckwheat groats or quinoa. 

This is definitely a no meat required dish adding to its sustainable
credentials but the flexitarian among you might enjoy a bit of chorizo sausage for an occasional variation. 

Built in portion control
The sauce, rice and eggs are all introduced separately providing ample portion control opportunities. Looking for a light lunch? Reduce or skip the rice and just have one egg. My husband, who spends his evenings running and weekends cycling up huge hills needs more calories than me so he tends to have the pisto, rice and eggs with some crusty bread on the side.

Cook once, eat again later
Once you’ve made a big batch of the sauce the leftovers will sit happily in the fridge for about a week or freeze giving you a really easy dinner option on some busy weeknight when cooking is shaping up to feel more of a chore than a pleasure.

I’d really encourage you to make extra of pisto sauce ready for another day as it is really handy thing to have in the fridge.  You don’t need to eat it with rice and eggs; how about using it as a pasta sauce or adding a can of chickpeas for a vegetarian stew?  If you want to save some for another day stop just before the stage of adding the green leafy vegetables (which are best added at the last minute) and put aside any sauce that you don’t want to use today.

Other people making pisto
Pisto Manchego With Eggs from Marth Rose Schulman’s New York Times column as raved about last week
Winding down on a friday evening : Pisto from lobstersquad
Serious eat highlight a summery version of pisto to made with grilled vegetables
Not pisto, but I’ve also written about some healthy eating habits I picked up on holiday in Spain

This combination of juicy fresh fruit, sweet dried fruit and a hint of spice was my food flask breakfast for a very early train journey a few weeks back, inspired by a leftover bowl of quinoa.  Porridge (possibly more commonly known as oatmeal?) is my regular nutritious winter breakfast in many, many different guises, but quinoa makes a very pleasant change from oats.  Quinoa, it turns out, is also a much more forgiving grain to prepare in the morning rush.  Povided that you cook a little extra earlier in the week, this essentially just entails reheating; there’s no need to wait for that magic moment when those “oats floating in milk” magically elasticise into real, gooey porridge. Plus like porridge, this breakfast is really, really filling stuff, most likely because of the low glycaemic index of the grain which means that it keeps your blood glucose levels on an even keel well into the morning.

The mix of fresh and dried fruit covers water-soluble vitamins (particularly vitamin C), minerals and fibre all in one.  Porridge and quinoa are nutritionally similar in many ways; both are wholegrains and both low GI provided that you choose the right sort of oats.  Quinoa has a GI of 51 (classified as low), old-fashioned rolled oats 42 (also low) while instant porridge is 82 (high GI). Other nutritional aspects are more of a trade-off; porridge has its cholesterol-busting soluble fibre, while quinoa is higher in protein.

The quinoa can be soaked in the milk overnight but don’t worry about that too much – this dish still works fine made just before eating.  If you’re wondering why I’m suggesting adding honey to something that already contains naturally sweet dried fruit and clementines, the reality is that quinoa often has a very distinctive earthy note to it (the kind of flavour a wine buff would describe as a tad vegetal).  A little drizzle of honey among all of these other healthy ingredients is not going to cause any lasting damage but if you use a sweetened milk like certain soy milks then you might not need it.

Credit for this post goes to fabulous and thoughful dietitian Elaine of Greens and Berries for prompting me to blog about it after she caught me rambling from the train about my breakfast habits on Twitter.  She was right to get me to write the combination down.  This way I will remember it when the clementine season comes around next year.  There’s something about this one that is more than the sum of it’s parts (I suspect it’s the way that the milk soaks into the clementines making them super juicy).