breakfast time - from appam to crumpet

Being back from India is, like always when there is a big change, a time for readjustment. What and when? What to do first and when? What to eat and when? What to blog and when?

So now, after 1 ½ week back in Rotterdam, I’m getting a little bit in the flow of life again.
In India it was so much easier, with only one small bag and no computer, telephone, newspaper and adolescent to take care for, life was sweet: getting up at 06.00, take a walk and many pictures, get breakfast somewhere, take a nap, then strolling again, visiting nice spots, making pictures, time for lunch, napping again, afternoon fotoshoot in another beautiful area, dinner, maybe a drink and to bed at about 21.00. That, for 4 weeks was bliss, really!!
We landed in Goa and made a tour by train and local busses, via Kerala coast, Tamil Nadu coast to the far end Kanyakumari and then inland via Madurai, Ooty to Mysore and back to the coast again, Mangalore, Gokarna and Margao.
I will show some pictures (click on the picture for enlargement) coming weeks, so you all can have a glimpse and enjoy.

After 4 weeks of eating outdoors, it’s time again for cooking myself and I must say, I miss South-Indian food a lot. For a celiac person not eating meat, South-India is great. The staple food is rice and lentils (dal) and many, many restaurants and hotels are pure-veg. So you really can be sure that you don’t eat animal parts hidden in stock or something else, like for example in Thailand.

                                                 appam

In the morning they eat idli or appam, for lunch they eat a thali or a dosa, and dinner is maybe a masala dosa. I think, from my observations, that most people eat at home in the evening.
Everywhere they make sambhar and coconut chutney as an accompaniment for the idli or thali and dosa. Sambhar tastes different everywhere, so it never bored me.

The best food we ate was at a beautiful home stay in Fort Cochin, Sithara Homestay, with the very, very friendly owners Harry-John Bernard and his wife Mercy. I still dream about it and I hope we will be back there sometime. I can recommend it to all of my readers, they make your stay as if your visiting a relative you didn’t know before. When you have an allergy or in my case celiac disease, there is no problem at all, they just make an adaptation or something special. It was in one word: SUPER!!

                                                    upma
Next time I’d really love to spend some time in their kitchen too!
Because now I’m back it’s no as easy as I thought it would be. I tried to make vada and dosa, but without a grinder it’s very difficult to make good dough. You have to soak raw rice and lentils, grind it and let it ferment. The grinding is a problem. But I will figure it out. Or not.
I made a nice sambhar already, mmm and rasam. Also the coconut chutney wasn’t bad, but we don’t have fresh coconuts in Holland.

The differences are big, so is the climate. Being back means also a decline in temperature of 20 degrees C!! fortunately it is the end of winter, spring has just begun, I’m very happy for that!
So I need different food, warming, soothing food, soups, oats, potatoes, buckwheat, instead of summerfood I have to go back to winter-spring food. Besides the foodswing there is also the moodswing. From summer to early spring feels a bit odd, so when I can I seek the sun and go outdoors, I need to warm up all the time.

To stay warm is to start my day well. Yesterday I made these lovely oat crumpets with raisins and cranberries and cinnamon.

But before I’ll give you the recipe, I’m very proud to let you know that I got an award, for my blogging, from the lovely Sophie, my fellow
blog(h)ger from Brussels. This is so nice, coming back from my trip and seeing this in my mailbox:

Thank you again so much Sophie!!

Oat crumpets (24 pcs)

250 g rolled oats (I use Provena glutenfree oats)
6 dl milk or soymilk
250 g oat flour
1 tsp tartaric acid baking powder
1 tbsp cinnamon (optional)
75 g brown sugar
75 g raisins and/or cranberries, soaked
zest of a lemon
pinch of salt
coconut oil

Soak the rolled oats in 3 dl of the milk in a large bowl for 30 minutes. You can soak the raisins at the same time in hot water.
Add the oat flour, baking powder, sugar, raisins and/or cranberries, lemonzest and salt and mix well with a wooden spoon. Slowly add the rest of the milk and keep on stirring till it forms a thick, just liquid batter. Melt some coconut oil or butter in a pan and bake on a medium heat 3 heaps of a big spoonful of the batter, about 4 minutes, then turn gently and bake the other side 3-4 minutes till they are golden and done.
Keep them warm in the oven and serve with crème fraiche and jam or cinnamon.

You can freeze these babies easily, just warm them up in a moderate warm oven and enjoy them anytime you like!
Namaste!

Haver crumpets(24 stuks)

250 g havermout (Provena)
6 dl melk of soyamelk
250 g havermeel (Provena)
1 tl wijnsteenzuur bakpoeder
1 el kaneel (als je wilt)
75 g bruine basterdsuiker
75 g rozijnen en/of cranberries, geweekt
rasp van 1 citroen
zout
kokosolie of boter

Zet de havermout met 3dl melk 30 minuten in de week in een ruime kom. Week ondertussen ook de rozijnen en/of cranberries in heet water.
Voeg dan het havermeel, suiker, bakpoeder, (afgegoten) rozijnen en/of cranberries, citroenrasp en een snuf zout toe en roer door elkaar. Voeg dan beetje bij beetje de rest van de melk toe en meng goed tot een dik, net vloeibaar beslag.
Smelt de kokosolie in een koekenpan en bak steeds 3 hoopjes beslag (3 flinke eetlepels) op een middelhoog vuur ongeveer 4 minuten per kant tot ze goudbruin en gaar zijn.
Houd ze warm in de oven en serveer ze met een eetlepel crème fraiche en wat jam of extra kaneel.

Ze zijn gemakkelijk in te vriezen, zodat je ze wanneer je wilt kunt ontdooien, opwarmen in de oven en er bij een kopje thee heerlijk van kunt genieten!
Namaste!