EDDY'S BREAKY: OATS & BERRIES

Edward, like most toddlers, has a love hate affair with food.  He loves it, but with his delayed development, he's just always teething.  Bitey, but not hungry.  Some days I pat myself on the back over some grapes and seeds and a handful of popcorn or just one kind of pasta on repeat because I'm like hey, it's food and it's going in.  But one thing I am guaranteed to get into him, no matter how bad the night was before, regardless of seizures galore, he will smash a huge bowl of oats and berries every morning for breakfast.

It's gluten free, dairy free and added sugar free but it tastes so creamy and delicious and naughty, kinda like a pancakes vibe in it's dessertyness yet healthy in it's wholefulness.  Vegan too btw.  Packed full of protein and low-gi energy to give him a slow steady release without sugar spikes.  Oh yeah and it gets the bowel moving so you can get that out of the way first thing.  Nappy life. His, not mine!

(I am not advocating skip caffeine.  I literally cease functioning without copious inputs of caffeine.)

I try not to get worried about him losing weight when Edward doesn't eat much.  It's just every time he gets sick he loses his appetite. Which is often. Every time his medication doseage increases it really upsets his stomach and whatever little goes in comes out very quickly.  If he has daytime seziures he will rarely be hungry after.  So this meal is my go-to.  It's my saviour because I know no matter else he refuses later on, at least I have this big power packed bowl into him early on.

It's a really easy recipe, one I've modified from a specialist we saw in Thailand.  He told me the base ingredients (oats cooked in water + high vitamin c fruit uncooked) and I've modified it from there.  As it's a daily meal in our house we crank through the oats. I like buying in bulk and the Harraways Organic Oats are my fave because they come in a massive 1kg bag.  Berry powders come down to personal taste and nutritional needs more than anything.  We alternate Super Red Smoothie Mix and Organic Acai... or mix em together.  Sometimes we skip em out.  They are a nice to have but flavourwise, not necessary.

For the oats to go real creamy, real fast, without any dairy, you need to finely mill them down to a fluffy soft flour.  It takes the same amount of time to do a cup in my Nutri Ninja as 4 cups so you might as well do in bulk. This sounds like lots of work but we are talking seconds and minutes here.  It's very quick.  Likewise the fruit puree, under a minute.  Put the berries in first - fill the container and leave to thaw or blast in the microwave for 1min - 90 sec - you do not want to warm or cook them, only soften.

The berries and apple puree you should prep in advance same time as the flour and portion it out equally into jars or tubs. Orchard Gold does raspberries which I go absolutely mental for but Edward isn't fussy.  He like blueberries and boysenberries and strawberries are a staple.  For the apples, obviously Granny Smith is the highest vitamin C.  But Braeburn goes so beautifully with strawberry and the crisp sweetness of the Jazz is a delight with raspberry.  If the berries are sour sweeten them with an appropriate apple rather than use honey.

When it's finished it looks more like this.  I don't like to stir it all 100% of the way through so you still get the contrasts of sweet and sour fruit against warm and creamy oats. But each to their own.  Eddy could care less how I serve it - the faster the better.

EDDY's BREKKY: OATS & BERRIES

4 heaped dessert spoons of milled oat flour

1-2tsp of superfoods powder (optional)

1 tsp of cinnamon

Pinch of Himalayan salt

Apple or 2 of your choice

1-2 cups of berries

1.  Mix the powder to distribute all the flavours evenly

2.  Cover with boiling water and mix, mix, mix until everything is cooked and goey

3.  Stack the berries at the bottom of your mixer, roughly chopped apple on top

4.  Blitz until a deep red

5.  Scoop 3-4 desert spoons of the apple and berry puree onto the oats and stir

Cold temp and quantity of the fruit should counteract the hot oats down to eating temperature

We usually add a dollop of puree on top so Edward can make some bites extra fruity!