The Order of Breakfast, and Tognini's Milton

I like alphabetical order.  It makes sense.  When making breakfast, I have an order for the food components which makes perfect sense.  There are so many components of a porridge breakfast though, so this allows me to put them in the bowl in alphabetical order - except it ends with porridge then spices (the spices, of course, are sprinkled in alphabetical order).  If my fruit of choice was apple, for example, it would be as follows: almonds, apple, goji berries, protein powder, ricotta, porridge, spices.  This morning, however, I was doing the dark chocolate and marmalade porridge (an excellent incentive to crawl out of bed on a cold morning).  This means no almonds or fruit, so I felt quite daring reversing the order of food into the bowl: ricotta, protein powder, goji berries, porridge, spices.  And instead of keeping everything reverse alphabetical, I put the chocolate and then the marmalade into the porridge. 

The end result, of course, was the same - yummy breakfast, mixed nicely.  My brain did not explode knowing the ingredients had been added semi-randomly.

After church, a few of us had coffee at Tognini's, Milton.  I used to live across the road from here, but I don't believe it was there when I was there.  This is most likely a good thing, as I would probably be the size of a house if I still lived so close.  The savoury selection looked pretty tempting, but the sweets - drool.....  It was a tough choice, but I went with the most amazing brownie ever.  That wasn't actually what they called it, but it was similar, and accurate.

Today's photo:

Not a great photo, but it looked pretty special in reality.  Walking up Ann St this morning, I was stopped by the sight of what looked like a sun shower.  The building next to Anzac Square had a mass of water droplets falling at its side.  I soon worked out it was something like window cleaning going on.  You can just get a glimpse of the water effect in the middle of the photo, all that haziness in the sunlight.  Hopefully tomorrow will be more artistic!

Apple and Barley Baked Pudding

The last time I bought pearl barley, I noticed there was a recipe on the packet for this pudding.  As I had not conceived of using pearl barley for anything other than soups and casseroles, I found this intriguing.  I needed the right weather (cold and rainy - check) and a few spare apples (thank you mum and dad) to bring it on.  So yesterday, it happened.  Warning: this is the healthiest version of a dessert I think I've come across (short of fruit salad).  It needs ice cream to make it less virtuous.

Recipe:
225g pearl barley
3 medium apples, peeled, cored and finely sliced
60g raw caster sugar (about 1/3 cup)
1 lemon, juiced
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon margarine spread (or butter or whatever - I use Dairy Soft)

Prepare pearl barley: I used the quick method, by putting the barley into a saucepan, covering with water, bringing to the boil and simmering for about 30 minutes.  I kept topping up water as required - once tender, drain any excess liquid.
Preheat oven to 175C; lightly grease a 5 cup capacity ovenproof dish.
Add apples, sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon to the barley.  Pour into dish, dot with the butter, cover with foil (or a lid), and bake for an hour.  Serve with cream or ice cream.

It's tasty and (without ice cream) practically guilt-free.  It's not, however, a dessert I would serve to most blokes.  Unless I drowned it in custard and cream and ice cream and maybe lied about some of the ingredients.  So you never know!

Today's daily photo:

This morning, I indulged in the chocolate and marmalade porridge I tried a few weeks ago.  Not all the chocolate made it into the saucepan - some landed on the stove, some had to be quality-tested, and some was left over for the top of my coffee.

Porridge with Dark Chocolate and Marmalade

It's well and truly winter now, and this long weekend is wonderfully cloudy and rainy and cool.  I've been hankering to make curry for a while now, and yesterday I was looking through the Jamie Oliver book for the ingredients.  The book opened up at the breakfast section, and I contemplated something different for breakfast.  Frozen fruit smoothies didn't appeal!  Varying the style of comfort porridge, though - that was more like it.  I decided against the banana and whisky option (church this morning, after all) and opted for the dark chocolate and marmalade version.  What a way to start a day.

Just before the porridge is ready (I use 1/3 cup oats, a couple of teaspoons psyllium husks, 1 cup water), stir in a heaped tablespoon of marmalade and a couple of pieces of shaved/grated dark chocolate.  I still included goji berries, ricotta and protein powder too.  This was amazingly delicious, and satisfied my desire for marmalade without having toast as well.  Win.  It feels a little decadent to have this every Sunday, but I can see it making a regular appearance.

Today's Daily Photo:

I neglected the last couple of days, mainly because of the photo overload from the North Queensland trip (Day 1 and Day 2).  Walking down Ann St today after church, I noticed the moss on the retaining wall next to All Saints' was particularly green.  I love the combination of green and grey, especially when the world is awash in these colours.