Good morning beautiful people,
I’m so excited about today. My mother-in-law is coming over for breakfast and then we are headed out to the flea market. Finnegan’s flea market is an outdoor market in the town of Hudson, just a 15 minute drive away from our house. The market is only open on Saturdays from May till October and has been around since 1972. Finnegan’s market is a huge market with 100 or so vendors offering all kinds of goodies like antiques and organic produce. My aim for the day is to find all kinds of cool props for my food photography, buy some beautiful organic produce to inspire my recipes for the week and eat all the delicious vegan baked goods I can find.
And since the predicted weather for the day is cold and overcast, and because I don’t want us to make the rookie mistake of going to the market on an empty stomach, I’ve prepared my glorious fall breakfast. This breakfast is made of cream of barley that’s cooked in chai tea and served with caramelized butternut squash. It’s warm, nutritious, sweet and luscious. This breakfast is going to set the tone for the rest of the day.
I chose cream of barley as opposed to regular oatmeal as it has a much creamier taste and is not as chewy as oatmeal. Although I do enjoy1 oatmeal quite often, there’s something that makes cream of barley feel more like a weekend treat. And to cook it in Chai tea simply infuses all those delicious flavours into your breakfast. The longer you steep the tea, the bolder the flavours. I personally steep my tea for about 2 minutes when used for cooking. When it’s for drinking, I like it a bit stronger so I’ll steep it for 5 minutes. You can use any variant of Chai tea you like, whether you want the energy boost of Chai black tea, the detox benefits of Chai green tea or if you’re like me, and you just want a sweet Chai herbal tea. My personal selection is a Chai rooibos tea from Yogi Tea.
Rooibos tea is from South Africa and according to Organic Facts, “the health benefits of rooibos red tea include its use as a cure for nagging headaches, insomnia, asthma, eczema, bone weakness, hypertension, allergies, and premature aging. The tea is absolutely free from caffeine content and is also low in tannins. It is also rich in many mineral contents such as iron, calcium, potassium, copper, manganese, zinc, magnesium and alpha hydroxy acid. It also contains antioxidants”. Now that’s something I want to drink more of!
I hope you guys enjoy this breakfast and let me know what tea you chose!
xx
- 2 cups of water
- 1 Chai tea bag
- 1/2 cup cream of barley
- 1 cup butternut squash, peeled and cut into little cubes
- 1/2 Tbs coconut butter
- 1 Tbs coconut sugar
- In a pot, bring the water to a boil on high heat.
- Take the pot off the heat and add the tea bag. Steep for 2-5 minutes, depending on taste.
- While the tea is steeping, prepare the butternut squash and steam cook for 10 minutes or until tender.
- Remove the tea bag and bring the pot back onto the heating element.
- Bring the water/tea back to a boil and add the cream of barley. Stir and reduce to low heat.
- Let the cream of barley cook on low heat for 5 minutes then remove the pot from the heat. Stir.
- While your cream of barley is slowly cooking off heat, add the coconut butter and coconut sugar to a pan set on medium high heat.
- When the coconut butter is melted and mixed with the sugar, add the cooked butternut squash.
- With a spatula, coat the squash with the buttery sugar mixture.
- The squash will start to caramelize.
- Allow all the squash pieces to caramelize for another 2-3 minutes.
- Pour the cream of barley into a bowl and top with sweet butternut squash.
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