A quick orange porridge for the whole family 

Even though it is March, spring feels way off, with the weather being cold and rainy! And what do we want on days like these? Hot meals! And if there’s something that the little hands have loved since he was 8 months old, that’s oat creams, also known as porridge. Besides the little hands, I love porridge as well, since it’s a quick breakfast, afternoon meal, or even dinner for the whole family. Oat porridge is nutritious, and delicious, and if you add some orange zest and cinnamon-like we do, then it’s super aromatic! If, on the other hand, you serve it with a chopped Nutree Bar and fruit, then its flavour and nutritious value will skyrocket! And all of this without any sugar, gluten, or dairy. Isn’t it great? 

What we are going to need 

For the porridge 

• Water or milk. You can make your oat porridge any way you like it. You can prepare it with plant or animal milk, or even water. Of course, the taste will be much richer if you use milk, but if you have a child that’s younger than one year old, then you should use either water or plant milk. 
• Oat and/or buckwheat flakes. 
• Banana. 2 small, ripe bananas, or one large, should be enough to grant our recipe a creamy texture and all the sweetness it needs! 
• Peanut butter. It helps with the flavour and binds the mixture. You can skip it or substitute it with any other nut butter. 
• Orange zest. The oranges we choose have to be unwaxed. Use only the orange part of the skin, because if you get any of the white parts into it, it’ll turn bitter. 
• Chia seeds. 
• Spices. Cinnamon or ginger for us. What kinds of spices do you like?  

To serve

• Nutree bar. Nutree bars are handmade, nutritious, healthy, and complete bars, a healthy snack with pure raw ingredients, all coming from the Greek land. They have a wide variety of options, all suitable for little hands. My own little hands have grown to love them, and I decided to add them as a topping for the oat porridge, for additional flavour and nutritious value! Our choice was Carob Orange. The carob orange NUTREE bar has low fat, is rich in plant fibre, and is an amazing healthy alternative to chocolate orange bars. You can choose peanut butter, cookie dough, banana-almond butter, cinnamon apple, or any of the other 4 Nutree flavours.
• Fruit. We are obviously going to add slices of orange to our porridge. The little hands love orange with their skin, but I suggest removing it so that you don’t need to get your fingers dirty by grabbing it. Additionally, we added frozen raspberries, which I broke apart for the little hands.
• Puffed quinoa. Our beloved popped quinoa couldn’t be missing from our oat porridge. 
• Cacao nibs. The cacao nibs are unprocessed cacao, a healthier version of chocolate drops essentially. It created an amazing combination, of course, but because they’re hard little pieces, I wouldn’t suggest offering them to babies. 
• Nut butter. One of our staples is peanut butter. You can skip it or add any nut butter you like. 

How I offered it to the little hands 

I offered the orange oat porridge with orange slices, raspberries, popped quinoa, cacao nibs, some nut butter, and a chopped Nutree Carob-Orange bar. He loved it! It became his after-school lunch, which we enjoyed together. The leftovers were stored in a food box in the fridge for 2 days, after which I reheated them in a pot and offered it to him for breakfast, which was of course served the same way! The ingredient ratios for this porridge are such that you won’t see it becoming like putty in the fridge. That means it won’t even need additional water or milk when reheating. It remained creamy and tasty like the day we made it. 

Tips

• Dosages below make 3–4 portions of orange porridge.
• Enjoy it at all hours and experiment with the ingredients you have available. 
• The recipe is a good alternative to the baby creams you can buy at the grocery stores. It’s a homemade oat cream, pure, and suitable for babies over the age of 6 months.
• If you serve it with orange slices, remove the skin. Another good idea is to dice the orange, making it easier for the little (and larger) hands to eat it. 
• Remove the pot from the heat just as it starts to thicken, to keep it creamy. If you let it boil for longer, you might need to add additional liquids to keep it from being too thick. 
• Enjoy it warm. 

How the little hands can help 

• Allow your little helpers to drop all ingredients in the pot and mix while the porridge is heating up.
• Another good idea is to arrange all toppings before them, allowing them to serve their porridge as they want, adding their choice of toppings.

Are you looking for more breakfast ideas? 

Read my article, “11+1 ideas for breakfast for babies and children” and print the free printable document to never run out of ideas. 

Το περιεχόμενο αυτού του blog αποτελεί πνευματική ιδιοκτησία της εταιρίας LITTLE HANDS BLW. Συνεπώς, ΑΠΑΓΟΡΕΥΕΤΑΙ κάθε αναδημοσίευση, αντιγραφή ή τροποποίηση του χωρίς την έγγραφη συγκατάθεση της εταιρίας. Εάν ενδιαφέρεστε για το περιεχόμενο του blog, μπορείτε να επικοινωνήσετε μαζί μας για να συζητήσουμε πως θα μπορούσαμε να συνεργαστούμε.