RECIPE: Jamie Oliver's granola dust breakfast smoothie

My thoughts on sugar, and a great breakfast recipe with no added sugar

I find myself joining the sugar debate quite a bit these days. I sat next to a nutritionist at dinner this week, and the first thing I asked her was what her thoughts were on the white stuff. 

I think its power to infiltrate and detriment whole societies and cultures really hit me during the four weeks I spent in Mexico last year (Mexico City, Oaxaca, Merida, and Tulum), where in the poorer parts, I regularly witnessed babies being fed Coca-Cola instead of milk or water. I was surprised at just how uncomfortable this made me; it's an incredibly jarring image.

breakfast smoothie made with
Jamie Oliver's granola dust 

Out of the more populas nations (so, excluding the little Pacific islands that even manage to surpass US and Mexico when it comes to inches around the waist), Mexico is now the fattest country on the planet. 

They've overtaken the Americans, with a whopping seventy percent being overweight, and almost one-third registering as obese. In the poor districts, there are obese parents and malnourished children. And it doesn't help that in Mexico, the fizzy pop is cheaper than a bottle of water or milk.

And then when I returned to the UK from my eight months of travel, I watched Jamie Oliver visit Mexico in Jamie's Sugar Rush, a programme he presented that investigated sugar's contribution to global health problems, such as type 2 diabetes and obesity. He discovered that in 2014, Mexico introduced a 10 per cent tax on sugar sweetened beverages, in a bid to reverse the trends which helped it take the accolade of being the most obese country in the world. 

And just in January this year, the British Medical Journal reported that Mexico's sugar tax has resulted in a 12% drop in sales of sugary drinks, and an increase in sales of bottled water. Which can only be a good thing.

So good old Jamie put his balls on the line, and decided to take this same idea to the UK Government, to prevent the UK going the same way as the USA and Mexico. After months of campaigning, he finally succeeded - the UK Government announced that a sugary drinks tax will be introduced in the UK in 2018.

Why am I ranting about all this? I'm not anti-sugar, not in the slightest. The last two recipes I published attest to that - gluten-free hazelnut and coffee cookies and 'The Elvis Sandwich' peanut butter, banana and bacon mini cakes. 

There is always a place for sugar. In sweet treats - cakes, biscuits, chocolate. And who doesn't love a dessert after dinner? We go to these things because we fancy that sweet hit. And they should be treated as just that - treats. The occasional reward we give ourselves because we've earnt it, and there's nothing wrong with that.

me and JO, just hanging

My main problem with sugar, is when it appears in places it just doesn't need to be. Like pasta sauces, daily drinks, and a real gripe of mine, cereals. Especially the ones that try to market themselves as 'healthy' - *rage*.

Turns out my good pal Jamie Oliver (pretty sure this picture 👈 means he's ok with me calling him that) has the same bugbear. 

Jamie mentions in his ace book Everyday Super Food, that he and his wife get particularly frustrated over how most breakfast cereals are full of added sugar, and nutritionally aren't the best start to the day. So with his nutrition team, he developed this epic megamix of great ingredients - oats, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. There are also a couple of pages covering the number of ways you can use this magic granola dust. 

The guys over at personal healthcare providers Benenden asked me if I had opinions on sugar and if I wanted to take part in a blogger challenge they're running, to help spread the word about their Sugar Hub. Clearly, I have opinions on sugar that I'd been meaning to write about anyway, and I wanted to share how great JO's granola dust recipe is as a part of that. So I said, why not.

Unless I'm out of the country or in a restaurant for breakfast, this is the stuff I start every morning with, throughout the year. 

In the winter, I heat it up on the stove with milk and make porridge, and maybe throw on a sliced banana if I'm feeling fancy. It tastes so much better than standard porridge, because the toasting means the natural sugars present have begun to caramelise, adding a whole new flavour dimension. I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to un-toasted oats when it comes to porridge. Plus, it's gloriously nutty.

In the summer, I blitz up the powder with milk, fresh fruit and cinnamon, for a gorgeous morning smoothie.

However you decide to use it, make up a big batch, store it in a jar, and use 50-60g per serving.

Jamie Oliver's awesome granola dust - nuts, seeds, oats and fruit galore

Makes about 15 servings

500g porridge oats
125g unsalted mixed nuts, such as walnuts, Brazils, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, cashews
50g mixed seeds such as chia, poppy, sunflower, sesame, linseed, pumpkin
125g mixed dried fruit with no added sugar, such as blueberries, cranberries, goji berries, mango, apricots, figs
1.5 tbsp quality cocoa powder or raw cocoa nibs
1/2 tbsp freshly ground coffee
1 large orange 

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas 4. Places the oats, nuts and seeds in a couple of large roasting trays, toss them together, and roast for around 15-20 minutes, until they start to golden and caramelise.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool, then add the dried fruit, cocoa and coffee to the mix. Finely grate over the orange zest, then in batches, blitz the whole lot to a rough powder in a food processor. Tip it into a large airtight jar for storage.

For my smoothies, I take 60g of the dust and blend it with one fresh banana, a handful of frozen berries, around 200ml of milk, and a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Related posts
RECIPE: Blueberry and almond smoothie

Fruit n' Veg Crisps

How often does a well meaning piece of fruit, offering the promise of good intentions on a Monday get left by the side of your computer at work, slowly degrading over the course of the week to a pathetic shadow of its former glory by Friday? This happens a lot for me.

I'm a grazer. I like to constantly pick at food and I have usually consumed at least one thing edible most hours of the working day. A whole piece of fruit doesn't really fit this criteria - I may just want a bite of apple for now. Its unspoken expectation for me to consume the whole thing in one go is not something I may necessarily want to commit to. And if I don't, it starts to turn the familiar brown as it reacts with the air. I'm not going to eat it after that. I could of course throw back to my childhood years and cut up a bunch of fruit into bite size pieces. And despite how old you are, this always seems to make it easier to eat - it's actually a good option.

I've discovered a different way to consume the fruit and veg I want to eat over the course of the day - turn them into crisps. Packets of vegetable crisps available in the shops are nothing new. But they are high in fat, more often than not fried in oil so not exactly the healthy option. It is in fact very possible and quite easy to replicate these crispy crunchy bite-sized pieces of goodness at home, and without the need for any oil.

These are an excellent alternative to taking whole pieces of fruit to work - I guarantee you'll actually eat these. They're also a great way to consume veg that you would usually not on a daily basis - like beetroot for example.

Fruit n' Veg Crisps

You want one piece of each type of fruit or veg for every day you are making these for. For example, if you're making these snacks for three days, take three apples and three beetroot. Get the biggest beetroot you can find as they'll provide bigger individual crisps. And they're all the ingredients you will need.

The other thing you will need and is well worth investing in is a V-slicer, something like this. They will slice your fruit and veg into uniform wafer thin slices in no time at all, quite difficult and time consuming to achieve without one. They have additional attachments which dice and also julienne your ingredients - great for making coleslaw or when julienne vegetables is required.

Preheat the oven to about 100C (fan).

Slice up your apples so they're wafer thin - skin and all. Slice right through the core, you can just remove any bits of pips or stalks after if they're present.

Peel your beetroot and then slice these the same way. Don't forget you'll get the colour everywhere, so do these last so as not to stain everything else.

Lay all the slices on oven dishes covered with foil - you can overlap them quite heavily as they will shrink considerably. The slices of around two apples will take up almost a whole tray, so really pack them in. You want to be able to fit at least three trays in your oven - I usually have two on shelves and one on the bottom of the oven.

Put the trays in, and give them a couple of hours. As the oven is so low, they're not really cooking but are in fact getting dehydrated. All you will need to do is check them every 20 minutes or so - when you open the oven door you'll be greeted with a face full of apple and beetroot steam, which is exactly what should happen.

When you do check them, shift them all around a bit so they don't stick to each other and the foil. You'll notice them shrinking, and then starting to go crispy. As the beetroot has less water content, they usually get done first. After 1.5-2hrs they will start to feel crispy - as they do remove them from the tray and transfer to an airtight container. The apples will be the last to crisp up.

If you're not sure if they're crispy yet, take the tray out of the oven - often a few seconds exposed to the cold air finishes off the crisping process.

This would work with any root veg and I plan to try them with sweet potato, parsnip, swede - but remember you want something that has a decent diameter or they'll shrivel to nothing. So carrots are also suitable but get huge ones, cut them in half and slice them lengthways rather than across their diameter, so you get a bigger surface area.

I suspect that the lower the water content, the more likely they could burn. So if you do try the above mentioned veg, toss your slices in a very small amount of oil to give them a light coating. You can also season with salt and pepper at this stage if you wish.

In terms of fruit, pears are also excellent alongside the apples.

Keep them all in the container and consume a handful everyday - you've retained all of the fibre and nutrients and just removed the water. The perfect grazing snack.

Alfiyet olsun.

Fruit and nut cake

It’s the weekend – rejoice.  Like most, if not all of the weekday workers in the country, I look forward to my weekends with great anticipation.  My reasons are, in no particular order: lie-ins, Homeland and ample time for cooking endeavours.   Therefore multiple entries over the two days of the weekend are likely to become regular occurrences – I hope this is something my readers look forward to getting used to.

A fruit bowl can be a sorry looking sight at times.  When first filled with produce straight from the shop, they are colourful and inviting corners of the kitchen with the promise of fresh snacks, tangy flavours and wholesome satisfaction.  More often than not however, they look considerably past their best – flaccid, wrinkly, bruised, unloved.  Time to accept their fate and turn them away towards the bin - right? Wrong. Never does a fruit bowl beckon me with such calling than when their fragrance just begins to turn to ferment – my single interpretation translating to cooking them up in a dessert.

On Saturday I was faced with such fortune – five paltry looking pears sitting in the bowl helping to ripen the last of my initially insipid garden tomatoes.  And they did a good job, turning them fragrant and a fruity red after a few days.  The pears were a failed attempt to eat one a day for the week as part of my 5-a-day. Plans not having gone quite accordingly, I resort to the only natural alternative.  Make a cake with them.  

With head cocked in contemplation, eyeing up what had been five fine beacons of seasonal produce, I recall a recipe I recently thumbed over from the November issue of delicious magazine.  And from one of my most favoured cooks – Nigel Slater.

A pear and hazelnut cake

Nutty sponge meets fruit crumble for a delicious combination.

There will be enough for 8-12

175g softened butter
85g golden caster sugar
85g light muscovado sugar
80g skinned, toasted hazelnuts
2 eggs
165g self-raising flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Few drops of vanilla extract

For the pears
A large juicy lemon
750g pears (5-6 pears)
3tbsp caster sugar
Ground cinnamon

For the crumble
100g plain flour
75g butter
2bsp demerara sugar and a bit extra for the crust
A little more cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 160C / fan 140C/ gas 3 and line the base of a 21-22cm square cake tin with baking paper.

For the pears, squeeze the lemon into a small saucepan.  Peel the pears, cut them into small chunks and place into the lemon juice – it wills top them browning.  Bring the juice to the boil and turn the heat down to a gently simmer.  Scatter over the sugar and a liberal pinch of cinnamon.  Cook with the occasional stir until the pears are translucent and tender.  They should be soft enough to pierce with a skewer with little or no effort.  Try not to colour them beyond the palest gold or to let the juice boil away – you’ll want it for later.

Tip If your pears are particularly ripe as were mine, note that they will need less cooking time before they’re the desired tenderness.
Make the cake – beat the butter and sugars in a food mixer or with an electric hand whisk until a light and pale coffee colour.  This will take a good five to ten minutes, longer if done by hand with a wooden spoon – also an option.  Meanwhile, grind the hazelnuts quite finely.  You can do this in a food processor or with a hand blender and its snug container.

Tip Don’t over grind the nuts or they will become oily.  Also the less fine you grind them, the more texture you’ll get in the sponge.  It’s really up to personal tastes how fine or course you want the nuts.

Break the eggs, beat them gently to just mix the white and yolks and gradually add to the mix with the beater on slow.

Tip If the mixture begins to look like it’s curdling (common when adding eggs to the butter/sugar mix, especially if all added at once) – don’t panic. Just add a tablespoon or two of the flour and it will bring it back to the right consistency.

Add the ground hazelnuts, flour, cinnamon and a couple of drops of vanilla extract. Allow the mixer to go round a few more times on slow to fully combine all the ingredients until smooth.  Scoop out the mixture into the prepared tin (where bowl scrapers come into their own) and smooth it flat.
Lift the pears from their syrup with a draining spoon, reserving the juice.  Place the pears on top of the cake mixture.

To make the crumble topping, blitz the flour and butter to crumbs in a food processor. Add the demerara and mix lightly.  Remove the processor bowl from the stand.  Add a few drops of water and run a fork through the mixture – this will cause some of the crumbs to stick together like small pebbles.  This will make for a more interesting mixture of textures.  Scatter the crumble loosely over the pears, followed by a little more demerara and a pinch of cinnamon.


Tip There is no necessity in having a food processor to make this crumble.  The desired sand like texture can be achieved by rubbing chunks of the butter into the flour with your fingertips.  Although the processor does achieve this in seconds, it does also create extra washing up.  One of life’s many compromises.

Bake for about an hour and check if the sponge is done with the skewer method.  Remove the cake from the oven and set aside. Bring the reserved pear and lemon juice to the boil for a couple of minutes until there is just three or four tablespoons left.  Trickle it over the surface of the cake and allow to cool.

The reason this cake is so good is because it brings together two wonderful elements – sponge and fruit crumble.  The sponge is light, moist and satisfying with its buttery flavour cleanly sliced through by the tartness of the pear and citrus.  Nigel’s pebble crumble suggestion is wonderfully fitting, providing little nuggets of crunch – a welcome presence amongst sponge and cooked fruit.

The other reason this cake is good is because Matt doesn’t like cooked fruit in dessert.  This means that I get a whole slice plus extra crumble with every portion.  Seeing as I think the fruit upwards is the best part of this cake, that’s a winning situation for me.

I think an apple pie should be next on the list.  

Alfiyet olsun.