Cooking Jumbo Oats
For a luxuriously creamy porridge, combine oats with water in a slow cooker and leave on the low setting for 8 hours without stirring. Once they are cooked, stir in some cream or coconut cream and your favourite topping and serve.
It may sound a faff cooking porridge in the slow cooker rather than 5 minutes on the stove but it will be worth it! Instead of a chewy and fluffy porridge this will be very soft and creamy.
If you really want to ramp up the nutrition factor, add a sprinkling of chia seeds to the slow cooker at the start and watch them expand.
To mix things up, just add flavour. Nut butters such as almond, hazelnut or cashew give porridge a real hearty depth – just make sure you stir to dissolve any clumps. Try simple spices like cinnamon, nutmeg or mixed spice (add at the end of cooking), vanilla extract, creamed or desiccated coconut or a touch of jam.
If you fancy something sweet, try honey, maple syrup or agave as an alternative to refined sugar.
You could also try a fruit compote (stew some fruit with a little syrup or sugar); add some sliced fruit or scatter some berries; sprinkle over some crunchy granola clusters; add chopped nuts; add vegetables! Roast some butternut squash and fry up some bacon – this might be the tastiest quirkiest porridge you’ve ever had! You could also go for a superfoods blend – just linseeds, sunflower, pumpkin, chia seeds and goji berries. Yum.
Organic oats are also great in smoothies, baking into muffins and biscuits, to use as a crumble topping and also they are great to make into oat milk.