I hate breakfast! In fact, I take that back. I don’t hate breakfast if I’m in some schmancy hotel with an epic buffet where I can have a 5 course meal and still not be bored…cereal, yoghurt, fruit, waffles, bacon, eggs, pancakes, croissants, toast, jam…doesn’t that all sound absolutely fantastic!? What a terrible bloody shame then that:
a) I not only don’t live in but also never get to go to schmancy hotels
b) I have 2 kids who would disallow me from enjoying said 5 course breakfast, even if I did live in a schmancy hotel, and
c) I am far too rotund to enjoy a 5 course breakfast every morning…or any morning for that matter!
So, I come back to my original statement…I hate breakfast. For months since I had George I have been having a bowl of bran flakes for brekkie. It’s fast, it’s easy, and that fibre can work wonders for a post partum digestive tract (TMI! But you know it’s true!). But not only is a bowl of bran flakes every morning so very boring, it’s also not filling…an hour or two later and I’m cramming a peanut butter sandwich down my throat faster than you can say ‘500 calories’.
But what’s the alternative? Bread is like devil food for anybody trying to lose weight, plus it only tastes good with lashings of butter melting all over it (mmmmm). Clearly I can’t be tucking in to a fry up every morning. And, to make it all a bit more complex I cannot cope with soft eggs…just the thought makes bile rise in my mouth! So what’s left?
In truth, there’s no diet on the planet that suits me as far as breakfast is concerned, but I think I am finding that slimming world is the best of a bad bunch…sorry SW, that’s not much of a compliment for your method, but let’s just blame me and my aversion to eggs if you want given most of your breakfast recipes are egg-based.
So, speaking of egg-based recipes, I thought I would give this one a try first: www.slimmingworld.co.uk/recipes/baked-oats
Ingredients
- 40g Oats (HEB)
- 1 tsp sweetener
- 1 small egg
- 1/2 pot mullerlight vanilla yoghurt
- few drops of vanilla essence
- 100g raspberries
So, I made it and my goodness doesn’t it look damned delicious?!
Slimming world baked oats
But, it wasn’t totally edible. I think with just a couple of tiny tweaks though it will be perfect. So, next time I will be trying these small variations.
Firstly, rather than 1 small egg, just go straight for a large one. The mixture was a bit dry and made me want to down a glass of water, which coming to think of it, may not be such a bad thing after all given that water is good for you and fills you up. But nevertheless, a large egg I would suggest. Who even buys small eggs anyway? What a waste of grocery budget!
Secondly, don’t put the raspberries in. Raspberries can be lovely and sweet or just a bit tart and mine were a bit tart making the whole thing taste just a bit offputting. If I had the raspberries on the side with the strawberries however I think it would have been much better.
Third, don’t bake it for the 35 minutes Slimming World recommend. Even a fat chicken breast cooks faster than that!! I’m going to try taking mine out at 25 minutes next time, as long as the top is a bit crusty and golden. I reckon judge it by its colour, not by the time that it’s been baking for.
Lastly, add in a bit more sweetener. Might as well make it taste kind of like bread and butter pudding if you can! 🙂 If you don’t do icky fake sweeteners than buy a nice natural one like Agave nectar or Natvia…they are more expensive but totally worth it for their non-carcinogenic properties.
So, there we go, my top tips for Baked Egg success. Now I just need to actually go and do it myself, practice what I preach so to speak. I do promise to share with you the outcome…at least then you will know if my top tips are worth following or if this whole post is just content filler and totally not worth reading! Lol! #keepingitreal
Edit – Baked Oats, Round Two
So, I followed my own advice and amended the recipe as outlaid above. The new ingredients list is:
- 40g Oats (HEB)
- 1.5 tsp sweetener
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 pot mullerlight vanilla yoghurt (Iused the one with little flakes of chocolate but I would like to point out this was a total fluke…I promise!)
- few drops of vanilla essence
- 100g raspberries and strawberries
I also used a slightly smaller dish, especially given the raspberries were not in the mixture which reduced the overall volume somewhat. Buuutttt, I forgot to reduce the cooking time because I was watching Netflix (sans the chill unfortunately) and clean forgot #priorities !!
Basically I would recommend that you follow my recipe. The extra sweetener made the dish, and not including the raspberries in the bake but instead eating them cold on the side was much tastier. Is it as good as eating a 5 course buffet breakfast in a fancy hotel? Nope. But it fills a hole and offers a degree of variety over the standard Bran Flakes. Next time I will aim to make it a bit moister (oh, that word! It’s ever so unpopular) using some more yoghurt. And yes, I will probably deliberately get the vanilla with chocolate sprinkles this time!