This is a new favorite breakfast recipe, and it makes an enormous amount that can just be heated up in the microwave during the week. I usually add a poached egg on top, especially now, when we are getting between 8 and 11 eggs every day! If you are not up on your fiber, ease into this---just a word to the wise... This probably has a full day's ration in one serving. Can be halved if your slow cooker is smaller than mine.
Slow Cooker Porridge:
1 1/2 cups mixed whole grains (I commonly use 1/2 cup hard white wheat, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup barley, but I've also used rye, wild rice, hard red wheat, whatever is in the cupboard)
1/2 cup dried fruit
1 t vanilla extract
1 t lemon juice
8 cups water
Put it all in the slow cooker, cook on high until the water starts to steam, then on low for 12 hours.
That's it! I find it plenty sweet just like that, but you could add maple syrup when serving. It's dynamite with a couple of poached eggs on top, and there's something about a big bowl of grains that makes my belly happy all the way through to lunch time.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Danni update...
It's been a while, so here's an update on the gorgeous girl!
She's running up to three years old now, and so her winter has been full of changes. She grew another inch (at least!), all in the legs, it looks like. She spent several weeks being higher behind than in front (oh no!) and then several weeks higher in front than behind (hooray!) and then too high in the back end again (oh no!)... But I'm quite certain that when she's doen growing, she'll be built uphill, like a proper dressage horse!
Along about the end of November, she started losing her baby teeth, and spent most of December and half of January on the near side of completely cranky, because the caps were tearing up her mouth a little as they worked loose. Yet another reason to give her most of the winter off!
About two weeks ago, she started sleeping through the night. Until then, she'd wake up at least once, maybe twice, and start banging at her stall: "I'm awake and I'm bored! Someone come entertain me!" only slightly maddening to the humans in the house, because horses are big and strong and stalls are big and echo-ey, and so it was all loud enough to hear in the house!
Of late, the weather has been quite bad---wet and rainy and muddy. For a bit, it was so muddy that we couldn't turn the horses out in their paddocks. So they had to go out in the arena (probably the best engineered piece of flattish ground on the planet!). Danni had all kinds of excuses to be bad, and she did not take them.
She's been much better about her feet in general, although she still prefers to have all four on the ground, rather than me holding one up... But she improves, and today, even though the grooming stall was muddy and slick with creeping damp, she eventually let me pick out her feet.
I've been doing a bit of ground work with her when I can, and she is gradually learning the three most fundamental lessons a horse can learn:
1) kicking and rearing are COMPLETELY unacceptable around people (young horses always think you are a horse, and that they can't really hurt you). Today, she actually kicked herself, by mistake, so I bet that has come to an end...
2) all those noises and gestures and nudges have information in them that leads to treats, pets, and praise, if she can figure out what they mean.
3) pressure means "move away", not toward. This is a surprisingly hard concept for them. If you rub on a horse, they will lean into you, because it feels good! But if you press on them, you mean for them to move away. It's counter-intuitive for them. But eventually, they figure out the difference between an "aid" and a rub.
Meanwhile, she grows more beautiful by the day, with her snip becoming more prominent, and her body and head becoming more like a grownup horse. In a couple more weeks, I'll put her back to work, and her grownup life will begin. By the end of March, I will have her in regular work under saddle, and we'll see if we can learn to dance together. Between the introduction to riding that she had in the fall, and the intermittent work we've been doing on the ground, the foundation is there, and I can't wait to see how she comes along in the spring!
She's running up to three years old now, and so her winter has been full of changes. She grew another inch (at least!), all in the legs, it looks like. She spent several weeks being higher behind than in front (oh no!) and then several weeks higher in front than behind (hooray!) and then too high in the back end again (oh no!)... But I'm quite certain that when she's doen growing, she'll be built uphill, like a proper dressage horse!
Along about the end of November, she started losing her baby teeth, and spent most of December and half of January on the near side of completely cranky, because the caps were tearing up her mouth a little as they worked loose. Yet another reason to give her most of the winter off!
About two weeks ago, she started sleeping through the night. Until then, she'd wake up at least once, maybe twice, and start banging at her stall: "I'm awake and I'm bored! Someone come entertain me!" only slightly maddening to the humans in the house, because horses are big and strong and stalls are big and echo-ey, and so it was all loud enough to hear in the house!
Of late, the weather has been quite bad---wet and rainy and muddy. For a bit, it was so muddy that we couldn't turn the horses out in their paddocks. So they had to go out in the arena (probably the best engineered piece of flattish ground on the planet!). Danni had all kinds of excuses to be bad, and she did not take them.
She's been much better about her feet in general, although she still prefers to have all four on the ground, rather than me holding one up... But she improves, and today, even though the grooming stall was muddy and slick with creeping damp, she eventually let me pick out her feet.
I've been doing a bit of ground work with her when I can, and she is gradually learning the three most fundamental lessons a horse can learn:
1) kicking and rearing are COMPLETELY unacceptable around people (young horses always think you are a horse, and that they can't really hurt you). Today, she actually kicked herself, by mistake, so I bet that has come to an end...
2) all those noises and gestures and nudges have information in them that leads to treats, pets, and praise, if she can figure out what they mean.
3) pressure means "move away", not toward. This is a surprisingly hard concept for them. If you rub on a horse, they will lean into you, because it feels good! But if you press on them, you mean for them to move away. It's counter-intuitive for them. But eventually, they figure out the difference between an "aid" and a rub.
Meanwhile, she grows more beautiful by the day, with her snip becoming more prominent, and her body and head becoming more like a grownup horse. In a couple more weeks, I'll put her back to work, and her grownup life will begin. By the end of March, I will have her in regular work under saddle, and we'll see if we can learn to dance together. Between the introduction to riding that she had in the fall, and the intermittent work we've been doing on the ground, the foundation is there, and I can't wait to see how she comes along in the spring!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)