love affair with porridge continues...

Porridge: a hearty morning repast!

Breakfast, my favorite meal time! The last 3 months have been full on in Mysore, India. With focus primarily on yogasana practice. To support that practice, a good sustaining breakfast in on order. As much as I love Indian breakfasts, it doesn't have the sustaining power of a good power porridge made at home.

Depending on where you are from, you might have certain ideas about porridge. In Asia, porridge is often a made out of rice and is a savory affair, often made with chicken stock. In Chinese cuisine, this is often referred to as congee. Around the world, there are cold porridges and warm porridges. Porridges made of different variety of oats and grains. Made plain or mixed with dry or fresh ingredients.  

Me? I like to mix and match. The only rule I really adhere to about food is that it tastes good and that it's good for you. So, my porridges have become more fusion, a fusion of what exactly, I'm not entirely sure. Last year, I was all about the raw blended porridge. Will fish out pics and post soon!

Because I'm nuts (which I also like to add into it) about porridge, I actually brought a bag each of some newly discovered breakfast grains: pin-eye oats and creamy buckwheat, which I mixed often with ordinary oats, raisins, other dried fruit. I also brought some special ingredients in my luggage: hemp hearts and goji berries. Most things I was able to source locally in India though: dried raisins, figs, and dates. Fresh fruit, even spirulina from Auroville is easy to find in Mysore. Sometimes, I go crazy and put just about every ingredient in there. 

Here are two kinds of easy-to-make staples that kept me happy and healthy during the past Mysore yoga season, amidst the serious demands of yogasana practice, yoga philosophy classes, self-study, and hanging out with friends and loved ones, most I see only once a year:

Half cooked/Half raw
Cooked pinhead oats
dried raisins
dried figs
chopped fresh bananas
chia seed rehydrated in soy milk
and soy milk.

This is a quick one, no cooking actually,
and what I was quickly making in between
my own practice and assisting in the shala.
It was light enough so I felt quite spry but also
felt quite sustained--I was assisting
for nearly 2 and a half hours.

Fresh chopped bananas,
ready prepared muesli
raw cashews
spirulina crunchy flakes
all on top of milk curd (yogurt)