Bayside Dietetics
By Sarah Smith of Bayside Dietetics
www.baysidedietetics.com.au or Facebook page Bayside Dietetics
So we seemed to have missed summer, but autumn can be the best time of year anyway. Sunny days. Colours in the trees. Unique seasonal produce.
If you are feeling inspired around food choices at the moment, here are some breakfast ideas that incorporate the best of autumn but with a big focus (as always) on keeping it easy and stress free. These ideas are full of nutrients for good health and balanced to keep you satisfied all day. With the hard work on nutrition done, your job is to simply enjoy them.
Easiest Bircher Muesli
There are hundreds of Google recipes to follow but here is a high-nutrient, easy-peasy idea that may hit the spot for you. It is particularly well-suited to anyone who finds it hard to prepare breakfast in the morning as the main step is done the night prior (and total time taken is only a few minutes). Oats are particularly good for health, full of fibre and recommended by The Heart Foundation, Diabetes Australia and often well tolerated by anyone with gut issues. If you are low FODMAP at the moment, you may need to use lactose free milk, choose strawberries as your fruit base and walnuts or pecans as your nuts.
Ingredients
½ cup oats per person (roughly – use more or less for appetite). Choose rolled oats rather than quick oats for optimal nutrition as there has been less processing.
½ cup milk (nutrient-wise I recommend full-cream dairy milk. See https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/media-releases/New-advice-from-the-Heart-Foundation-on-meat for more details) – match the quantity to the oat serve if you are more or less hungry in the mornings. Juice may also be used, however you will be missing the filling protein and bone-friendly calcium without the milk.
Autumn fruit such as pears, apples, blackberries and feijoa. If you are low on energy in the mornings, go for non-cut options such as blackberries.
Your favourite nuts or seeds such as slithered almonds, pepitas, diced walnuts.
A dollop of your favourite yoghurt.
Method
The evening prior, put both the oats and milk in a bowl then put in the fridge until you are ready to eat in the morning.
To serve, take out your oats, which should have absorbed all the milk by now and be the consistency of cold porridge. Top oats with your preferred fruit, then a dollop of yoghurt. Finally sprinkle with your nuts and seeds.
Enjoy.
Autumn Breakfast Plate
This one is typically well received by younger children as there is thrill in picking up individual items from a plate full of choice. It’s a particularly good option for anyone who wants to get more vegetables in their day or someone who enjoys the relaxed morning read over a slow plate of food to graze. It offers an opportunity for a really satisfying start to the day, which can reduce hunger and food drive for the remainder of the day.
Ingredients
Whatever you have available but here are some ideas that will help keep the meal balanced:
A choice or two of some sort of “filling” food such as hard boiled eggs (which can be done ahead of time to make breakfast easier), a large dollop of hommus, cubes of fetta or marinated goat’s cheese, slices of any other cheese you love such as tasty or camembert.
Fresh vegetables for crunch such as sliced cucumber, strips of capsicum or slices of Kohlrabi.
A salty food such as olives, dolmades, anchovies.
Satisfying bread that may be from a fresh loaf, or a packet or wraps that you have sitting in the cupboard waiting. Souvlaki wraps work particularly well.
Fresh fruit cut up for easy eating. Autumn figs can really make a plate look appealing.
Anything else you may have available. My kids love grated cheese and tinned tuna on their plate while I’ll add a small bowl of creamy Greek yoghurt.
Method
Put everything on a plate. Done.
This however, is a great opportunity to see how presentation can affect how you feel about a meal and how well you can then relax into and engage with the meal. Here are some pictures of particularly appetising looking ideas:
Source: https://acleanbake.com/turkish-breakfast/
Source: https://thefeedfeed.com/homemade.is.happiness/turkish-breakfast-flatbread
Homemade Granola
This breakfast is an opportunity to get all the benefits of the good fats and fibre in nuts as well as being a filling and fibre-filled start to the day. Of course there is no need for it to be homemade. Great store-bought options exist. They will often use similar ingredients for flavour. I’m providing a really easy option for homemade as sometimes a relaxing activity like mixing together nuts then popping in the oven makes for a relaxing autumn activity at home, alone or with the kids.
While this is how I put it together, I highly recommend another site for extra tips and recipe ideas if you are getting into the granola spirit:
https://cookieandkate.com/healthy-granola-recipe/ , including the useful tip that granola may be frozen to store it for longer.
Ingredients
3 cups oats
1/2 to 1 cup dried fruit – pick your favourite and how much of it you want to use! Most fruits have a diced option available from the supermarket which will save a lot of time.
1 ½ to 2 cups nuts – again go for your favourite and how “nutty” you want it. Great options include pecans, whole almonds, macadamias, walnuts, pepitas.
½ cup olive oil. I recommend avoiding coconut oil in cooking for health reasons – see https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/Blog/Should-you-be-cooking-with-coconut-oil for evidenced based information.
1/2 cup maple syrup. Honey is just as good here and probably cheaper, however I like the ease of mixing in maple syrup as it is much thinner and easier to separate the ingredients.
1 teaspoon cinnamon or mixed spice. Add some ground ginger too if you like that flavour
1 teaspoon salt
1-2 teaspoons vanilla essence (use more for a sweeter flavour – the sugar content doesn’t change but vanilla essence is perceived as sweetness by the brain)
Method
Preheat over to 180°C.
Mix everything together except the dried fruit. Better still, get the kids to do it. Once mixed, place in a baking tray lined with baking paper and gently press together. Ideally the layer is quite thin and even. Bake in oven for around 20 minutes, or until it looks golden brown.
This mix used 1 cup almonds, ½ cup macadamias and 1 cup apricots, however…I forgot to leave out the apricots before cooking and of course they all turned black in the oven grrr.
Once cooked, take out of the oven and allow to completely cool before you do the next step.
Once cool, mix through the dried fruit. Mix as little or as much as you like for the sort of consistency that you want to eat, or quite frankly, embrace crumbed granola if you let the kids take hold of mixing!
Serve with milk, yoghurt and your favourite autumn fruit.
I hope that helps you get off to a great nourishing start. Forget the fasting trend, a fibre and protein-filled breakfast like these really work well to meet almost all health goals.
