Since having little X (OMG he’s 7 months now) I’ve had to streamline many aspects of my life. To put it simply I’ve had to get REALLY organised when it comes to making meals and doing work.
I try to get up earlier than everyone else so that I can get a little work out of the way then when X is awake I can give him my full attention. When I’m getting to sleep early this works really well but I have a terrible habit of going to bed late. I’m in a constant battle of being a night owl but needing to be an early bird. I try to get at least 30 minutes as a minimum each morning on my laptop but on the best days I manage an an hour or two.
In the very early days of the newborn bubble I was eating a lot of Marmite on toast. It’s my comfort food and my tired body just NEEDED IT. As much as I love Marmite I knew I needed to get more variety and nutrients into my meals to help with my c-section recovery (here’s my birth story) and breastfeeding.
I now like to prep my breakfast and lunch the evening before so that it’s all ready to go. This has become particularly useful now that we’re in the depths of weaning Xander.
Since the start of summer I’ve been making overnight oats. They’re quick, simple and delicious.
At first I was making them very simply with whatever I had to hand. My toppings were strong but the oats never really had much flavour. Then I received an email from the lovely team at Marks & Spencer and they helped me to take my overnight oats to the next level.
The team at the M&S in Sheffield kindly sent out a bunch of their M&S Fresh Market produce – gifted for this post. If you follow me on IG you may have seen the delicious treats over on my Stories.
I’m always in M&S picking up lunch, bits for our dinner or those magical Pornstar Martini cans. It’s fab to have the chance to work with a brand I love and shop with each week. I’m also a huge fan of their fruit particularly the grapes, strawberries and of course, the figs. We’ve also been loving their sweetcorn over the last few weeks which was in the Fresh Market section of our local star.
Anyway, you get it, I’m a big fan of the brand.
Let’s get back on track.
The team at M&S sent over a few of Chris Baber’s Fresh Market recipes. I was really pleased to find a rather luxurious recipe for Red Diamond Strawberry & Almond Milk Oats.
So, with the gifted products I recreated the recipe and added a couple of my own ingredients. Although we’re now in the middle of October I’m still making my overnight oats with this recipe. I find it much quicker to prep this in the evening than making a bowl of porridge in the morning. Instead I spend my morning making X’s breakfast, picking his books off the floor and singing songs.
I’ve read many times that oats are meant to be good when you’re breastfeeding so as I’m still feeding X I’ll be sticking to this as my breakfast for the next few months.
Most of the ingredients in these overnight oats are products I regularly buy. The Red Diamond strawberries, Plant Kitchen almond milk and Jumbo porridge oats are all firm favourites in our house. The Red Diamond strawberries are super sweet and juicy. They’re grown especially for M&S on Mockbeggar Farm in Kent – it’s nice to learn a little more about where your food comes from.
Red Diamond Strawberry & Almond Milk Oats
Serves 4 – we make one batch and have it over two days between the two of us.
Ingredients
1 punnet of M&S Select Farms Red Diamond strawberries
400ml M&S Plant Kitchen almond milk
2 tbsp M&S roasted almond butter (or peanut butter), plus extra to serve
1 tbsp M&S Scottish Heather honey (or use maple syrup to make this dish vegan)
160g M&S jumbo porridge oats
1 tablespoon of chia seeds – this is my own addition
60g almond flakes, toasted
Method
Dice half the strawberries and combine with the almond milk, almond butter, honey, chia seeds and oats.
Pop them into the fridge, ideally overnight.
When you’re ready to serve, give everything a good stir and add a little extra milk if needed.
Finally top with strawberries, flaked almonds, almond butter or whatever you fancy. I think I’ll be adding fresh figs to my oats tonight.
Let me know if you give these overnight oats a try. I honestly think this recipe from Chris Baber is a real winner. I think combining the almond milk, almond butter, honey and oats is the key. It gives the base oats lots of flavour and makes your whole breakfast experience much more luxurious.