2020 Second Place – Lisa Williams – PINOAT BUTTER, HONEY BANANAS AND CHOCOLATE, WITH A RAINBOW FRUIT KEBAB – MY PORRIDGE OF HOPE!! 

Pinoat Butter 

150g Pinhead oatmeal  15g Honey  

20g light vegetable oil 3g flaky sea salt 

Lightly toast the oats in a dry frying pan, keep moving them around, they will start to smell like popcorn, do not burn them, toast them until they are lightly golden 

 Add all the ingredients to a food processor, process for several minutes until you have a peanut butter like texture, it will be drier in texture to a jar of peanut butter but keep processing until it likes slightly damp 

Taste it, if you want add more honey or salt to suit your palate then you can 

 Honey Bananas 

While I like banana’s and peanut butter on porridge, I am not keen on the raw texture of the bananas and so I tried lightly frying them in honey and I liked it a lot! 

I used Cuban honey as it’s from the Caribbean as are bananas and so I thought for a special occasion they would work well together, the Cuban honey is rich and dark but runny at the same time and it brings a lovely flavour to the dish, equally local honey would be good, when in Scotland I really enjoy heather honey 

Just chop the bananas and toss in the honey, cook on each side for about 30 seconds that is all, it’s just to take the rawness not to make the bananas mushy 

You can use the same frying pan that you toasted your oatmeal in, I was working on only using 2 gas rings and an electricity point as we would in Carrbridge and being able to make it in 30 minutes 

Chocolate 

My grandchildren get one square of chocolate in their porridge, but this is a special occasion and calls for celebration, so I chose milk chocolate, white chocolate, and some smarties buttons as they are a bit like a rainbow!! I chopped the milk and white chocolate into small chunks so that the heat of the porridge would melt it and it would be melty and warm! 

Fruit kebab 

The fruit kebab adds the rainbow, it balances out all those calories and brings us back to the health benefits of a bowl of porridge!! Its part of the celebration bringing some fun and colour, but fruit also works really well with porridge so its not just there for its looks, its there to be enjoyed too 

This is a really tasty bowl of porridge but its also one you can make with children, there are skills they can use and learn and cook safely 

Its also a hug in a bowl, its colourful to cheer you up, its warming and its tasty so that is why its my porridge of Hope