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Are You Bored of Oatmeal? Try Barley… The New Power Grain!

July 28, 2010 in Breakfast

The past few weeks have been extremely busy: with family visiting from out of town, I barely had time to check my email (and definitely had no time to write any posts!). A few of the fun things we did around Chicago:

In terms of food, I wanted my family to experience eating out at some of Chicago’s restaurants (Carmine’s in the Gold Coast was great!), but I also wanted them to taste some of my food. Before they arrived, I made stuffed grape leaves, stuffed green peppers, tzatziki, coleslaw and salad for dinner on the day they got to Chicago. For dessert, I made rice pudding and brownies. For breakfast, I made ful medames (fava beans) and barley in advance. You’re probably thinking… that’s a ton of food! Believe it or not, it only lasted 2 days! ;-)

Barley is something we never had growing up…

I remember my family eating oatmeal or millet (bileela in Arabic) from time to time for breakfast. But barley wasn’t as popular in my household. That’s really a shame because barley has a lot of nutritional benefits:

  • Barley’s Fiber improve Regularity, Lower Cholesterol, & protect the intestines
  • Niacin in Barley Protects Against Atherosclerosis
  • Barley Has Significant Cardiovascular Benefits for Postmenopausal Women
  • Barley and Other Whole Grains Substantially Lower Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
  • Barley Can Help Prevent Gallstones
  • Barley’s Fiber and Selenium Protects Against Colon Cancer
  • Barley’s Copper Can Benefit Arthritis Sufferers

If that’s not enough to get you excited about trying barley, then I don’t know what to tell you… :-) It is important to note that just like other grains, barley should be bought in whole form (not crushed or rolled flat or steamed, and with the outer shell intact) in order to glean as much nutritional benefit as possible from it. The barley should also be soaked overnight in an acidic medium (filtered water with a few tablespoons of liquid whey will do) – in order to make it more digestible. This whole barley is called hulled barley:

Like the name suggests, the outermost hull of the grain is all that gets removed in this form of barley. While this makes for a chewier grain that requires more soaking and cooking, it also makes for a more nutritious food. Hulled barley is also sometimes called “dehulled barley,” and it is the one form of barley what would be considered whole grain (WH Foods).

Cooking Directions:

Making barley is really simple in terms of the effort required to make it, but it does require some time to soak and cook. Make sure to rinse the barley first, and to reduce cooking time and to make it more digestible, I suggest overnight soaking for the outer shell to soften a bit.  Use 3 cups water to each cup of dried barley. After bringing to a boil, throw out the water and heat some water separately to pour on the barley. Then, reduce to simmer and cook for about 50 minutes, until the grains are easy to chew. To reduce bloating that may occur for people who don’t usually eat a fiber-rich diet, I add a small bit of fresh ginger in the water as it boils.

There are many ways to add barley to your diet – sometimes it’s made with broth, added into hearty soups, or tossed into a cool summer salad. Personally, I like to have it sweet (gotta blame that sweet tooth!) as a sort of homemade fiber-rich cereal for breakfast. When I made it for my family, I set up a mini “station” on the kitchen counter with the plain cooked barley and the following ingredients for them to pick and choose what to add: milk, yogurt, raisins, dates, maple syrup, walnuts, chia seeds, shaved coconut, rose water, fresh fruit, cinnamon, ground cloves, and fresh ginger…

Of course, there are unlimited possibilities for the combinations you can make, but that’s how to keep breakfast interesting, right!? Here are just two ideas to get you started:

Milky Dessert Rose Barley

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 1 cup hulled barley (soaked overnight)
  • 3 cups filtered water
  • whole milk from grass-fed cows, preferably raw
  • raw honey, to taste
  • cinnamon, to taste
  • sliced almonds, to taste
  • raisins, to taste
  • rosewater (add only half a teaspoon and taste before adding more – it has a distinct flavor)

After cooking the barley, add the other ingredients in amounts that are suitable to your taste, and voila – you now have made a tasty sweet treat for breakfast! By the way, this can be served hot, cold or lukewarm – it’s up to your mood in the morning!

Sweet Potato Barley Parfait

Another way to enjoy barley in the morning is to have it in a parfait! Adding fresh fruit is always a great option, but a few weeks ago, I had some leftover baked sweet potato and became inspired to add it to barley and yogurt. Half awake, I somehow came up with the ideal spices to add to this recipe: ground cloves and cinnamon! It was absolutely delicious!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 1 cup hulled barley (soaked overnight)
  • 3 cups filtered water
  • organic whole yogurt, preferably raw
  • organic baked sweet potato, diced
  • 100% pure Grade B maple syrup
  • ground cloves, to taste
  • sliced almonds, to taste
  • cinnamon, to taste

This recipe works better with leftover barley that is cold. Just add the other ingredients in quantities you like, and enjoy!

How delicious does that look on a scale from 1 to 10!? ;-)

Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to cook barley every day. You can make a batch for the week, and then heat or eat cold in the morning depending on the recipe you feel like putting together in 3 minutes!

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Oatmeal is the New Cereal: Banana Nut (with Strawberries!)

June 14, 2010 in Breakfast, Oatmeal

Over the past few decades, Americans have adopted cereal company giants like General Mills and Kellogg’s into their homes and have invited them to their breakfast tables every morning (and every evening too, for some malnourished college kids!). Breakfast has been transformed from being a refreshing and nutritious meal that fuels a person throughout the day to a measly bowl of prepackaged corn byproducts with extra doses of sugar, that end up spiking the blood sugar level and leaving a person unsatisfied within a couple of hours. With a few exceptions, most cereals are unhealthy – and a waste of money!

A better option for breakfast, though still quite carb-heavy, is oatmeal. Now, I am not referring to the instant 2-minute oatmeal because that too has a lot of added sugar and flavorings (even some of the organic ones!). A better alternative is organic rolled oats. Alternatively, steel cut oats are not rolled flat, but each oat is cut in half to speed cooking time. These too are healthy, but take longer to cook since they aren’t rolled flat and aren’t steamed. Steel cut oats are less “processed” in the sense that they haven’t been tampered with (not steamed and not rolled), so some people argue that they’re healthier. I would likely agree with that, but for now, since I’m also concerned with the time it takes to prepare breakfast in the morning, I’ve decided that the best option is the rolled oats! :-)

I can hear you say: “But Heba, oatmeal by itself has no interesting flavor… it’s so boring.” My comeback: “Give it some flavor!” The most flavorful and healthy foods that can be added to oatmeal are fruits! Bananas and berries are my favorites. For this recipe, I added bananas (which go into most of my oatmeal recipes) and some ripe organic strawberries. Strawberries are some of those fruits that you should buy organic: over a dozen pesticides are absorbed into the porous skin of this delicious fruit, and genetic engineering of the conventionally-grown strawberries decreases their nutritional benefits, which are numerous:

The anthocyanins in strawberry not only provide its flush red color, they also serve as potent antioxidants that have repeatedly been shown to help protect cell structures in the body and to prevent oxygen damage in all of the body’s organ systems. Strawberries’ unique phenol content makes them a heart-protective fruit, an anti-cancer fruit, and an anti-inflammatory fruit, all rolled into one (WH Foods).

I also added a generous sprinkle of chia seeds, for that extra antioxidant kick!

This recipe I’m sharing with you today is absolutely delicious – it tastes like a cross between a banana nut muffin and a strawberry shortcake in terms of the flavor, except of course that this oatmeal version is much healthier!

Here’s what you’ll need to make Banana Nut Oatmeal (with Strawberries!) (serves 2):

1 cup old fashioned organic rolled oats, soaked overnight in filtered water and a tablespoon of liquid whey
1 cup water
3/4 to 1 cup organic whole milk (preferably raw), or unsweetened coconut milk
pinch of unrefined mineral salt, like Himalayan
1 small fair-trade bananas, chopped
6 medium or large organic strawberries, chopped
1 and 1/2 tablespoons flaxseed oil
1 tablespoon 100% pure Grade B maple syrup
1/3 cup of pecans, broken up in pieces
1 tablespoon organic chia seeds
Directions:
  1. Soak oats overnight in filtered water and a tablespoon of liquid whey. This is an important step – in order to make the oats more digestible. 
  2. Add 1 cup water and 3/4 to 1 cup whole milk to a pot with 1 cup of oats.
  3. Bring to a boil. Add a pinch of salt, and lower heat to medium-low.
  4. Keep pot covered and stir occasionally for 5 minutes.
  5. Add 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of flaxseed oil, and stir.
  6. Remove from heat and chop two small bananas and add to the oatmeal. Mix well.
  7. Add 1 tablespoon of 100% pure maple syrup and 1 tablespoon of chia seeds, and stir.
  8. Break pecans into smaller pieces into oatmeal, and stir well.
  9. Chop strawberries and add on top. Enjoy!

This is the second oatmeal recipe I’ve posted. The first one I posted was Ginger Oatmeal, another delicious favorite! I’ll be sharing other variations for oatmeal recipes in the future, but until then, do try this one and let me know what you think. :-)

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Gingering up Oatmeal

April 13, 2010 in Breakfast

Hi everyone!

This past weekend, we had four different parties to go to in two days! One of the parties we went to was a henna party for a bride friend of ours who is getting married in a month. Henna parties are much more popular in Indian and some African cultures than they are in Egypt (where we’re from and where the bride was from too), and they are even less popular in Western culture. Most modern Egyptian brides either don’t have a henna party, or if they do, they might have a very informal one a few weeks before their wedding, rather than having a specific emphasis on henna shortly before the event. We took some portrait photos of the couple and several shots of the henna. Here’s one of the photos we took of the artwork that henna artist Bridget Punsalang drew on the bride-to-be’s hand:

Here’s a shot of all the pretty decorated hands:

I just had to share these pictures – I love the designs! :-)

These two pictures above show the henna paste right after it was applied. It needs to stay on for a while until it dries and starts to flake off. When it flakes off, it leaves an orange color, but then darkens by the next day (next day pics below!). It takes that long for the henna to give the intended appearance, which is supposed to last for about a week before it starts to fade.

This morning, I was trying to figure out what to have for breakfast. As I mentioned in a previous breakfast post, I usually make a hearty breakfast of either eggs, beans, or oatmeal. Of the three, oatmeal is the one we eat most frequently (4-5 days of the week). So, I figured it’s time for a post about oatmeal! When Sherif and I moved to Chicago, we bought packets of organic oatmeal. For the first 5 months, we were eating this stuff every day. It took us 15 minutes in total to make breakfast for both of us.

Now, for the past 2 months, we have been getting creative with our oatmeal by trying different ingredient combinations. So far, we have come up with four or five tasty recipes, and today, I’d like to share with you our most recent original recipe: ginger oatmeal! We were really pleased with the results!

Of course, we had to take a couple of fun shots to show off my henna art… ;-) These actually show the final result, which you can’t see in the previous pictures:

Here’s what you need to make enough ginger oatmeal for a hungry couple at breakfast:

  • 1 cup old fashioned organic rolled oats, soaked overnight
  • 1 cup filtered water
  • 3/4 to 1 cup organic whole milk from grass-fed cows, or unsweetened coconut milk
  • pinch of  sea salt
  • shavings of fresh organic ginger root (I used a grater to grate about 2 inches of fresh ginger)
  • 4-5 organic ginger snaps, preferably homemade (in this case, I used a packaged kind – albeit organic – that I regretted buying later)
  • 1 and 1/2 tablespoon of flaxseed oil
  • 1 tablespoon of raw honey
  • 1/3 cup of walnuts
  • sprinkle of organic cinnamon

Here are the solid ingredients, haha. :-)

Here’s how to make it in under 10 minutes:

  1. Add 1 cup water and 3/4 to 1 cup milk to a pot with 1 cup of soaked oats.
  2. Bring to a boil. Add a pinch of salt, and lower heat to medium-low.
  3. Keep pot covered and stir occasionally for 5 minutes.
  4. Using a grater, grate about 2 inches of fresh ginger root into the oatmeal, and stir.
  5. Turn off heat, add 1 tablespoon of raw honey, and stir.
  6. Break walnuts into smaller pieces and crumble 4-5 ginger snaps into oatmeal, and stir.
  7. Add 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of flaxseed oil, and stir.
  8. Add a pinch of cinnamon.

Not only was this oatmeal delicious, it was also one of the most nutritious variations we’ve made so far. Ginger has an astounding number of health benefits including gastrointestinal relief, relief of nausea during pregnancy, anti-inflammatory effects due to “very potent anti-inflammatory compounds called gingerols,” protection against colorectal cancer, anti-tumor effects on cancer cells, and immune boosting action (WH Foods).

Have you ever had ginger oatmeal before? What are your favorite oatmeal recipes?

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