This savory oatmeal recipe was borne out of a desire for whole grains, the backbone of many healthy vegetarian recipes. After spending a week in Olympos where our dinners were made for us, I had to think of something to make that would make up for all of the white rice we'd eaten.
Tonight Phil and I are in a town called Kas, on the south coast of Turkey. The population is about 6,900, and the buildings are built up into the surrounding, very steep, hills. Unfortunately, whole grains are pretty rare around here. The only one we could find was rolled oats, and that got me thinking that I'd been wanting to try making a dinner with rolled oats.
We use them a lot for breakfast, but like most people had never made them for dinner. I picked out some nice looking vegetables to go with them, and made sure to pick up an onion to really make sure this dish was savory, and got thinking about how I wanted to make this dish. It turned out really nicely - very nice flavors, and a nice soft grain rather than the solid brown rice or other grains we usually have at dinner.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Time from start to eating: 30 minutes
This transcription will have some mistakes because it is partially automated.
Hello and welcome to Freshly Served, healthy vegan recipes in Europe. Tonight Phil and I are in a small town on the very South coast of Turkey called Kas and we are cooking in the kitchen on the, on the roof top of our hostel looking out into the surrounding hills around Kas, very very beautiful spot.
Tonight, I am going to make a dish out of rolled oats because they were the only whole grain I could find in the grocery store and I am actually been meaning to make a dinner with oats for a while so we’ll see how that comes out.
And what I’ve got so far is some vegetables that I’ve chopped up. I got onion, zucchini and mushroom. I’m gonna cooked those and then throw in the oats and get everything cook together and then I’m gonna throw in a raw avocado which is a little different from what I’m used to seeing because it has more of a smooth skin but it feels really soft, looks beautiful.
(Video Clip Playing)
So, I’ve got this pan heated up and then I got all the stuff in the hostel come in to the company so far, they have a lovely bottle of Turkish olive oil right here so I’ll pour this a little bit into the pan and then I’m gonna grab my mushroom first.
Mushroom are the only vegetable that go in before the onions and that is because they take longer to cook and they like to soak up the oil, when you first throw them in you might feel like you need more oil but you don’t.
Just give it a stir, leave them on the heat and they will start to release their own juices, you don’t need any more oil than that. Now, mushrooms do takes a little more time to cook so leave them enough time on the heat.
While they are cooking I want to remind you to go read the recipe down below, HealthyVeganRecipes.net and you can also sign up for the hidden section of our website to check out all the stuff that we’ve been doing on our travels, be sure to go and sign up for that at HealthyVeganRecipes.net/Europe.
Everything is free there but you do have to go to that section of our website.
So, I’m not sure if you can see it in the screen but these mushrooms are starting to release their juice here. Getting nice and soft, that was all the oil you needed there.
So you can see now that the mushrooms have reabsorbed all of the liquid that they put out, that’s when you know they’re done and it’s time to add the next thing which I’m gonna put the onions in and another reason you put the onions in second of the mushroom is because of that juice so if the onions been in first, the mushrooms would be kind of infused with all the onion flavour. This way they stay separate but as you combine them in the dish their flavours merge together just not as much as if the mushrooms were totally in first.
So I let the onions soften up a little bit before adding the zucchini and letting them soften a little bit as well. What I’m gonna do next is put a little sprinkle of salt on there. I’ll give it a good stir around and then put the lid on this dish so that the juices can come out from the vegetables while they cook.
The salt helps that cooking process so as soon as you get that salt on there, give it a little stir around and then get that lid on pretty quickly.
Alright! So giving it a few minutes to cook in here and as you take the lid off you can see a lot of steam coming up. There’s gonna be lot of moisture in here which is perfect because the next thing were gonna add is the seasoning.
And what I’m gonna use is some of my garlic and onion powder. You can find these mixes on the hidden section of the website at HealthyVeganRecipes.net/Europe.
So, I’ve got some garlic and onions, I’ve really want to make sure that this dish came out savoury because it is oats and it’s usually a breakfast dish.
So I’ve got a whole onion in there as well as the onion and garlic powder and then I’m just gonna use some of my Italian herb mix, also in that hidden section of the website. Give it a squeeze as you put it in there and I’m gonna put on what’s goona looks like a lot, the reason is it’s going for the vegetables as well as the oats.
Like I said, we really want to make sure that this taste like dinner and not breakfast. So give that a stir around. And then make sure that those seasonings coat the vegetables first and then you’re gonna put the grains in which I’ve got about two cups of oats here.
They are rolled oats?
Yes, sorry. Rolled oats!
And you want to season those oats as well so I’m gonna give them a two minutes in the heat with no moisture just the vegetables. Make sure those flavours really coat around the rolled oats.
So, the oats are looking a little bit toasted, they’ve got seasonings on them so I’m gonna do now is add the liquid and I’m using water but if you have vegetable broth that would be perfect. I’m gonna be kind of careful with it because I’m not sure how much to add before the oats gets to be really mushy but I’ve got about two cups of water here ready to go.
And if you have an oven this would be lovely if you put the water in and then pop it in the oven to bake it since I don’t what I’m gonna do and looks like I’m gonna do about cup and a half of water and so like I don’t have an oven what I’m going to do instead just put this lid back on here and allow those oats to really cook in there.
So my avocado was a little bit different and what I’m gonna have to do is scoop it out with a spoon rather than my usual flip it inside out because the skin is very flimsy. Doesn’t like to flip!
And over here are oats that have a few minutes to cook. I can see they’re looking very soft, they’re trying to stick to the bottom of the pan a little bit so I turned the heat off for the last few minutes and now I think it’s time to give it a try and see how this works out.
That’s gonna be hot.
It’s nice! Very savoury but soft! A little bit different from your normal grain.
So, I hope you enjoyed your savoury oatmeal dinner, we’re gonna have ours put in a plate and topped it off with the avocado and enjoy it here on the roof top in Kas.
And then again if you want to see all our travel videos for free you just need to go at HealthyVeganRecipes.net/Europe.
Savory Oatmeal Recipe Ingredients
1 onion, diced
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 zucchini, sliced
salt, pepper
1 Tbsp Italian Herb Mix
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cup water
1 avocado, diced
Savory Oatmeal Recipe Directions
Heat a pan to medium and saute the mushrooms in olive oil. Once the mushrooms have released their juices and it has evaporated, add the onions and allow them to soften before adding the zucchini. Once the zucchini has softened slightly, sprinkle salt over the vegetables, stir and quickly cover the pan with a lid.
Once the vegetables are very soft, add the oats, pepper and herbs. Stir to season everything, then add the water to the dish. Add slowly, to make sure the oats don't get too mushy. Leave this to soften the oats for a couple of minutes, then serve, topped with the fresh avocado and a sprinkle of black pepper. I hope you enjoy this savory oatmeal recipe, the latest of my healthy vegetarian recipes.
