Homemade Oat Milk, Menu Planning and Ingredients

 

I'm getting to the stage of the Food Cupboard Challenge where I am mostly running out of ready made things.  I say 'mostly' as there are still some pasta pot type things and I'm sure there must be some things in the bottom cupboard that I could just tip into a pan and call a meal.  But I have been concentrating on the top cupboard this past couple of weeks.  I went in there yesterday to get a carton of almond milk and found I had already used up the last one.

So with no time to soak almonds (they need at lest six hours or preferably overnight), I decided to make some oat milk to go on my morning weetabix. It's a simple milk to make:

 I just soak 60g of oats for half an hour or so in my Nutribullet cup, drain them, rinse them a couple of times and then put them in back into the cup with 450ml of fresh cold water, and blend for about 30 seconds.  Strain through a fine sieve ... I usually do it twice ... and then decant into a clean bottle and put into the fridge, it's much nicer chilled.

These measurements give you a pint of fresh oat milk.  You will have to shake it up every time you use it as without emulsifiers it does separate.  It's not my favourite sort of homemade milk but when you're waiting for your breakfast it's a nice quick one to make.

I added the leftover oat 'mush' to some scones later that day.

The original recipe is in this book, on page 20.

I haven't been shopping for a few weeks now and I am starting to miss the supermarkets, I've actually found myself watching more YouTubers than usual doing food hauls to get my fix!!  But I quite like that things are visibly finally starting to go down both in my cupboard and in the fridge.  In fact the fridge is so bare I have been wiping down the shelves as they empty ... it's like a long drawn out spring cleaning.  😄

I thought I would make a menu plan for this week to make good use of what's left in there, incorporating some things from the cupboard and the freezer too. Before anyone jumps in and says that I'm not eating enough veggies etc etc, I will be adding things to these planned out meals, but I'm not restricting myself to writing down what ... I'll wait until the actual mealtime and see what I fancy, sometimes I am in the mood for lots of vegetables and sometimes I have to make myself eat peas.

The main point of this particular menu was to space out the last four bread rolls and three slices of bread that I have in the freezer.  I want to try a week without bread next week and I know if there's some lurking anywhere in the lodge I will cave in and eat it, so what I have in has to be used up this week.

Now it's time to grab my hummus, chop some celery and carrots and have my lunch.

Sue xx