Heart Healthy Oats?!

I know oats/ragi porridge or the Kellogs Speical K Cereal are decent breakfast choices and even pretend to enjoy them..  But I really really love basic South Indian breakfasts, Idli Vadai Sambhar, masal dosa, utappam, poori all made in the traditional way.  Ragi dosa is nice,  nothing wrong with it, but Regular white rice dosa is comforting and awesome all at once.  I do want to try to wow everyone at home with excellent breakfast choices made with one of the healthier grains/proteins.  Now pay attention to the caveat.
 
There is a huge disconnect between a grain/protein being declared heart healthy or diabetes friendly or gluten-free and how it actually ends up being cooked and consumed in the kitchen.   Someone needs to put a disclaimer in headline font : 

Healthy ONLY WHEN COOKED AND CONSUMED WITHOUT BUTTER/SUGAR/SOME OFF THE SHELF JUNK

or even better:

healthy ONLY WHEN NOT CONSUMED, JUST VIEWED AND SALIVATED

then even ice cream would be heart healthy :)

Coming back to the cooking, my dad makes the trip from Pondy to Chennai every weekend.  With the legacy left by my mother in mind, I always try to make a special breakfast on sundays, meaning something sweet and oozing with  ghee along with some uniquely iyer breakfast item.  This week I had two things made with the heart healthy oats sitting in my pantry for 4 months now, Oats Kesari and Oat Muffin and I also made a Rava upma. Thus serving up Bangalore's  Chow Chow Bhath with a twist :)

Let me start with the Oats kesari:

1. 2 tbspoon clarified butter
2. 3/4 cup oatmeal (quaker oats, 3 minute kind )
3. 3/4 cup milk (2.5% is what we get)
4. 1/2 cup sugar less 1 tbspoon
5. 1 cup water
6. 2 spoon raisins
7. 2 cardamom pulverised

• Heat the ghee in a wok and fry the oats until golden and fragrant, transfer to a plate
• Brink 3/4 cup milk and 1 cup water to boil in the wok
• Add the oats and raisins and stir continuously
• When the mixture comes together, add the sugar, cardamom and stir until desired consistency is reached.
• Cool and serve garnished with nuts if desired.

If there is any heart health lurking anywhere in thus recipe, please let me know.  It tastes awesome though, not at all like the usual food-for-invalids breakfast oat porridge, this was a sweet, creamy ultimate dessert served for breakfast; The ugly duckling morphing into the swan.  My 9 year old did not complain about the lack of chocolate in the dessert, but that could be because he was too busy playing his quota of computer games for the week while I fed him.  My toddler gobbles anything sweet.  The adults loved it.  I might add a hint of nutmeg next time.


I will get to the muffins soon, an adaptation of Heidi's recipe.