I was lucky to get a chance to spend a week in Greece last fall. Both of the hotels we stayed in offered breakfast buffets, and both offered rich, creamy Greek yogurt and pots of golden local honey. I made sure to have some every day.
After I got home, I kept up the ritual, but also thought about how I could add more nutrition to it. And this is what I have come up with: high milk fat plain yogurt + honey + hemp hearts + chia seeds + dried nuts or fruit.
As much as I love eating leftover dessert cake for breakfast, I sometimes want something a little simpler. When I first stopped eating gluten, banana bread was one of the little things I missed, so I started looking for a reliable gluten-free alternative.
The first time I tried to make a gluten-free banana bread was also the first time I baked with coconut flour. I had no idea how different coconut flour is from other flours. The result was dense, leaden and dried-out mini loaves of banana bread that tasted good but fell far from my ideal.
Since going gluten-free, I have found breakfast to be a real challenge. I have never been a toast person, and most store-bought gluten-free bread is really only good for toasting. I also have found my appetite has changed. I don’t crave food the way I used to, and I am often not hungry at all when I wake up. This means I need something easy to eat that is filling and packed with real food.
I recently realized I needed to clean out my pantry, which led to the happy accident of a delicious version of homemade granola. The great thing about home cooking is that you get to put in lots and lots of whatever you like best. I worked off a recipe, but mainly based my amounts of things on what I had on hand.
I ended up with a cereal packed with protein and fibre that is not too sweet. It’s got sesame seeds, almonds, sunflower seeds and unsweetened coconut. Whole quinoa makes a nutty addition to cereal when it’s roasted, so I threw in what I had on hand of that, plus several cups of quinoa flakes. I used up bits of dried fruit I had too: it’s loaded with apple pieces, chopped figs and raisins. It has a touch of vanilla and honey, as well.
The best part is having both a cleaned-out cupboard and tonnes of great cereal waiting for me first thing in the morning.
Kalakand is an Indian sweet. My mother, who was born in New Delhi, loves this treat. My brother and one of my sisters don’t think much of it, but my other sister and I adore it, just like our mother. We three kalakand lovers aren’t sad that it’s not to everyone’s taste, because that means there’s more for us.
A Flour By Any Other Name 