The HFBB requested "something different, but healthy" for breakfast today. He gets a bit spoiled during the week. Living in a hotel has its upsides, and one of them has to be the fabulous cooked breakfast he gets, but after nine months, even that gets a little old (not to mention a wee shade troubling for the old cholesterol).
We quite often have smoked salmon and either scrambled or poached eggs (now that I've got the technique down) at the weekend, but even that can get samey, so I thought I'd try something entirely different today. After rather too long wandering around Sainsbury's, I came up with the idea of a bowl of Very Berry Smoothie Muesli. Using fat-free yoghurt it's low fat, moderate GL and counts towards this 5 a day malarkey they keep going on about. Even better, it tastes good too. Result!
Ingredients
- Some berries (I used a Sainsbury's berry mix pack, which had strawberries, blackberries and blueberries)
- Some fat-free yoghurt (I used Yeo Valley Organic Fat-free Vanilla, correctly figuring it might be a little sweeter than natural yoghurt)
- Some muesli (You can make your own if you like that sort of thing. I couldn't be arsed, so spent 20 minutes in the muesli aisle trying to pick the best compromise between interest, taste and health factors and went with Dorset Cereals Fantastically Fruity Roasted & Toasted Muesli)
Equipment needed
- Blender
- Spoon
- Ramekin
- Bowl
- Glass
Method
Prepare your berries (wash them, dry them, and take the stalks off the strawberries) and then throw them into your blender. Give them a good whizz until you have a berry coulis.
Set aside some of your berry coulis in a ramekin or whatever you have to hand, and get out your muesli and yoghurt.
Admire the really lovely packaging of the museli for a minute, before opening it carefully and putting some muesli in the bowl.
Make sure the museli stays fresh by raking round the kitchen until you find one of those bag seal clippy things and putting it on the bag. Redo clip and bag a few times so you don't ruin the aesthetics of the packaging.
Open the yoghurt.
Bonus points if you manage to do this without getting a little splurt of prematurely ejaculated yoghurt on the worktop.
Turn the coulis into a smoothie by pouring some yoghurt into the blender and blending it all together. I used about half the yoghurt (250ml).
Pour some of your smoothie over the muesli, and mix it together with a spoon. Adjust the dry/wet ratio to suit your own taste by adding less smoothie or more cereal, depending on whether you went a little heavy handed with the smoothie pouring first time out.
Find the ramekin with the coulis in it, and pour some of the coulis over the top, to try and appear a bit posh.
Eat, and feel virtuous.
Pour any leftover smoothie into a glass, and pour any leftover coulis in the middle of it. This can then be put into the fridge to give you a bit of an energy boost later in the day.
One pack of berries and half a pot of yoghurt is enough for two bowls of very berry smoothie muesli, or one bowl, and an IKEA glass full of smoothie for later.
