Strawberry & blueberry compote

I always have a tub of compote in my fridge as I have it with breakfast almost everyday. It works so well with overnight oats, porridge, granola and yoghurt or pancakes adding flavour and sweetness in a nutritious way - head to the ‘Breakfast’ section for recipes.

My blueberry-hating children will also eat this, so it’s a good way of getting them to eat a wider variety of fruit!

Ingredients

• 400g frozen blueberries & strawberries

• 1-2 tbsp honey or maple syrup (optional)

Method

• Warm the fruit in a lidded saucepan and once it has fully defrosted, take the lid off and simmer for 5 minutes.

• Use a potato masher to break up the larger pieces of fruit or blitz with a hand blender if you prefer a smoother texture.

• Stir in the honey or maple if you’re using. This compote is naturally quite sweet so you might like it without.

Mixed berry compote

This is a simple way to make breakfast or desserts more interesting, compote is lovely served with porridge, overnight oats, granola and yoghurt, muesli or with desserts like ice cream, lemon tart or frozen yoghurt. It’s easy to make and you can apply the same technique to any type of frozen fruit, you’ll just need to adjust the sugar depending on the sharpness. Cherries, strawberries and blueberries hardly need any sweetening, but raspberries, blackberries and currants are sharper and need more sugar, which you can add at any point while the fruit is still warm.

I keep a pot in the fridge all the time as I particularly like compote on top of my breakfast. Try making these coconut overnight oats as mixed berries go so well with it (recipe link, plus more below).

Ingredients

Makes approx 300ml

• 450-500g frozen mixed berries

• 70-80g soft brown sugar

Method

• Tip the frozen fruit into a large saucepan with 70g sugar and allow to warm on a medium heat. Once all the fruit has defrosted, simmer for 10 minutes.

• Use a potato masher to break up any whole berries, add a little more sugar if needed and leave to cool.

• Or if you prefer to remove the seeds and make a coulis, pass though a sieve whilst warm, pushing with a silicone spatula.

• It will take quite a bit of effort to get all the pulp separated, but keep going until you only have seeds in the sieve. Or as long as you can be bothered, but you’ll be surprised at how much you can get out even when it looks like mostly seeds!

Tip

• Recipes that work well with compote: granola, overnight oats, pancakes, muesli

• You might want adjust the sweetness to your taste, this recipe is on the tart side, so add another 1-2 tbps if needed.

Homemade granola

Making your own granola is really quick, easy and way cheaper than buying it off the shelf. You can also add the exact mix of ingredients that you like, so no more disappointing bits of dried pineapple to come across. I’m quite particular about the types of dried fruit I like in granola or muesli, I only really like sultanas, raisins and dates, I’ll tolerate a bit of apricot, but that’s about it! So it’s better to make my own, plus I can also add loads of nuts as they’re always a bit scarce in shop-bought packets.

With this recipe you can pick and choose the ingredients that you like to make your own ‘perfect granola’. Switch the nuts, seeds and fruit if there are others that you prefer; if you stick to these proportions you’ll still get a good balance. Same with the spices and vanilla extract, you don’t have to add them if they’re not your thing, the granola will still taste great.

Ingredients

Makes approx 1kg, or 20 servings

• 400g oats

• 200g raisins, or any dried fruit you prefer

• 100g almonds, hazelnuts, cashews or pecans

• 50g pumpkin seeds

• 50g sunflower seeds

• 40g flax seeds

• ½ tsp cinnamon, optional

• 1 tsp ground ginger, optional

• 2 tsp vanilla essence

• 2 tbsp coconut oil

• 170g runny honey or maple syrup

• 50g desiccated coconut

Method

• Preheat the oven to 160ºc

• Weigh out all the dry ingredients and put all of them, except the desiccated coconut, into a large bowl.

• Put the coconut oil and honey into a pan and gently warm until melted then pour onto the dry ingredients, mix well.

• Tip the granola onto one, or two baking trays so it is a max of about 2 cm deep and place in the oven for 10 minutes.

• Check and turn the mix and put back in the oven for a further 10 minutes, keeping a careful eye on it as you don’t want it to turn too brown. You might need to put it back in for another 5 minutes or so, but watch like a hawk it will suddenly turn! The mix should turn a pale golden colour.

• Serve with Greek yoghurt and homemade fruit compote. Or it work well sprinkled on top of overnight oats or muesli.

Honey & sunflower overnight oats

I always think that overnight oats are a nice alternative to porridge as they’re a nice alternative to porridge as I don’t always fancy a hot breakfast and they have the added bonus of being ready straight away in the morning. You just need to do a little prep the night before. Today I topped with mixed berry compote and peanut butter, but there are lots of other options you could try: any kind of fruit compote, chopped nuts or seeds, fresh or dried fruit, desiccated coconut, nut butter or yoghurt.

Ingredients

Makes 4 servings

• 200g oats

• 680ml nut milk or organic whole

• 25g flax seeds

• 25g chia seeds

• 25g sunflower seeds

• 1 ½ tbsp maple or honey

Fruit compote

• 200g frozen mixed berries

• 200g frozen blueberries

• 3 tbsp demerara sugar

Method

• Mix all the ingredients in a lidded tub and leave in the fridge over night.

• Heat all the frozen fruit in a saucepan for about 5 minutes stirring regularly so the heat is distributed evenly, then add the sugar and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Allow to cool.

• Top with compote, dark roast peanut butter, banana and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds.