Hot Breakfast Cereal (porridge) with Cracked Wheat or Rye

This is a delightfully simple recipe that's easy to double or triple to feed a hungry horde -- or to make once for breakfast all week long.  It's equally good when made with Janie's Mill Organic Cracked Wheat or Cracked Rye.

Ingredients

• 3 cups water (or water and milk in the ratio of your choice)
• 1 cup of Janie’s Mill Cracked Wheat or Cracked Rye
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cream or milk of your choice (optional)
• 1 cup raisins or other dried fruit (optional)
• butter, cinnamon, honey, maple syrup or other toppings of your choice

Instructions

• Bring salted water to a rolling boil.
• Add Janie’s Mill Cracked Wheat or Cracked Rye
• Stir briskly for a minute, then turn the heat down to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until almost all of the water has been absorbed.
• Add 1/4 cup of cream or milk of your choice. Keep on low heat for another few minutes, but don’t let the milk boil.
• Add 1 cup of raisins or other dried fruit and briskly stir the fruit into the creamy porridge. Put the lid on the pot and let it sit for 3-4 minutes to let the fruit hydrate and the cream soak into the cracked grains. Stir again and serve, topped with more cream, butter, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, or cinnamon if you like. 

Background from Cecilia

When we were kids growing up in a big noisy house, right on the beach (literally just above high tide) in Westshore, New Zealand , my Dad would always get up very early in the morning to have a nice cup of coffee by himself. While he pottered about the cool morning kitchen he would make a huge pot of porridge for the family winter breakfast. My mother was not a morning person so everyone was happy with this arrangement. Once he had made the porridge, he would come downstairs and wake us all up. There were six of us kids, and to tell the truth we were a wild bunch, but the thought of hot porridge got us into our dressing gowns and slippers and up the stairs to the kitchen.

We ate the porridge hot with cold creamy milk and sprinkles of brown sugar. The porridge is not sweetened and for some reason the combination of cold milk and hot porridge and then hits of sweet brown sugar with the savory slightly salty grain were a perfect mouthful. There is something deeply satisfying in being able to taste each individual note in the profile of a simple spoonful of honest food.

The porridge was made with rolled oats and, as a grown up in America and far from home, I could never quite emulate the taste of Dad’s porridge until I switched to Janie’s Mill cracked wheat instead of supermarket rolled oats. This Cracked Wheat Porridge is a very grown-up version of our simple children’s breakfast.