No Oat Oatmeal… It’s No-atmeal!
When you’re looking for a protein-packed breakfast, eggs and meat seem like the most obvious choice. But if you go for the most obvious choice every single morning, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut. So on those mornings when meat and eggs aren’t what you’re craving and you wake up feeling less like a hunter and more like a gatherer, try Mark’s Daily Apple reader Doug Descant’s ingenious recipe for No-atmeal.
Pronounced “note-meal” (as in, no oatmeal) Doug’s recipe, that he submitted for the Primal Cookbook Challenge, is for all you ex-cereal lovers out there and for anyone who needs a warm bowl of comforting goodness on a cold winter morning. As Doug says, “it’s a hot meal full of essential proteins and fats, not to mention the necessary vitamins and minerals, in order to stay energized for the cold weeks ahead.”
In Doug’s recipe a blend of pecans, walnuts and a dash of flaxseed is warmed up with almond milk custard, mashed banana and almond butter to create a wholly satisfying hot cereal. The texture is rich and so is the flavor, especially when you add warming spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and a topping of fresh berries and almond milk. Just thinking about eating No-atmeal for breakfast is guaranteed to coax you out of bed in the morning.
Ingredients:
- 1 small handful of walnuts
- 1 small handful of pecans
- 2 tablespoons ground flax seed
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch of ground nutmeg
- 1 pinch ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon almond butter
- 1 banana, mashed
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (add more if you prefer it a little runny)
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin seeds
- 1 handful of goji berries or fresh berries
Directions:
Add walnuts, pecans, flax seed and spices to a food processor and pulse it down to a course grain, making sure to stop before it’s totally ground into a powder. Set aside.
Whisk together eggs and almond milk (Doug uses a Blender Bottle) until the consistency thickens a little bit into a loose custard. Thoroughly blend together the mashed banana and almond butter and add it to the custard, mixing well.
Stir in the nut mixture. Microwave or gently warm on the stove until the “no-atmeal” reaches your desired consistency; this should only take a few minutes. In both cases, stir the mixture frequently as it cooks.
Sprinkle pumpkin seeds and berries on top. Add more almond milk if you want. Lick the bowl clean!
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Posted By: Worker Bee
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Oh my gosh this is exactly what I would have liked this morning! Totally doing this tomorrow. I think I’ll skip the banana, add applesauce, and sub coconut milk for almond milk. THANK YOU!!!
So cool. I’ve been enjoying a similar morning meal on occasion:
Handful of Walnuts, Pecans, and Almonds. A few berries, sprinkle on some shredded coconut and then pour on some coconut milk. It’s kind of like eating cold cereal, it’s quick and easy too. I’m definitely going to try this recipe because I used to love a nice bowl of steel cut oats on a cold winter morning!
I have similar (but simpler) recipe as well. I do this when I feel like oatmeal and cereal.
I mush 2 bananas,
mix in some protein powder
walnuts, flax, coconut shred and frozen blueberries
When you microwave for 1.5 min, the blueberries thaw, but stay cool, where everything else warms. It’s delightful.
OMG I’m making this
Thanks for the great recipe! I’ve also been making something similar, but simpler. I like that this has eggs in it, though I’ll nix the banana.
Doug, this is a WIN.
WOW. Is all I have to say.
Ok not really, so when is this collective Primal cookbook on its way to the publisher?!
I love the granola from Elana’s Pantry! I have made it with a number of dried fruits and eat it dry as a snack or with milk (whatever type) for “cereal”.
Woah, that sounds pretty frackin’ good. I suspect it would be a treat for most folks due to the insanely high calorie count?
I’m a newbie here and I think people eat raw eggs on PB but I haven’t gotten to that quite yet. Are the eggs in this just barely cooked?
no, they’re cooked. well, they’re cooked when i make it.
from what i understand, you can eat raw pasteurized eggs, but not raw unpasteurized. MDA community correct me if i’m wrong please.
Pasteurizing is easy, and it allows the body to absorb more of the protein and nutrients in the eggs. Raw unpasteurized carry minimal risk of salmonella from what I’ve read. I pasteurize the eggs if I use them in shakes. For a recipe like this, you’re lightly cooking the eggs, so it should be fine.
Looks good, but also it’s quite high in PUFAs and sugar.
A single banana will have more carbs and sugars than a packet of instant oatmeal.
dude, if you are worried about the carbs and sugars in a single banana then you might need to take a step back, take a big breath, and relax. Bananas, yes they are relatively high in carbs, are a great source of energy and micronutrients, and good for the digestive system.
well some of us keep our carbs under 125 grams per day and at 25 grams a banana eats up an awful lot of the budget
Will try this or a version of it for the kids who get a little tired of eggs every morning.
According to fitday, here is the breakdown for the recipe as listed, using a medium banana:
744 calories
57 g fat
41 g carbs
24 g protein
That’s a bigger breakfast than I can handle. I need to think how I can modify it.
it really depends on how much of everything you add. i used this on days when i know there is going to be a significant gap b/t meals. eat to live, don’t live to eat and you should be fine. please let me know how you modified it. nothing is beyond improvement. thanks for the comment
Really? I eat a breakfast often twice that size.
Eat half of the recipe….
Primal eating is for rich folk o_O
agreed. I’m a broke college student and there is no way i can afford this kind of eating. oh well.
I’m still cleaning out my new roomate’s pantry from all his old roomates. eating anything and everything he’s got left over so i dont need to buy anything.
hopefully someday i can eat primal.
Is that why my food bill went down 10-14x when I went primal?
mine went down, too. processed foods and boxed cereals, cartons of juice…that stuff’s all spendy.
but it’s also true that a person buying rice, beans, pasta and ramen bulk would be feeding themselves much more cheaply than I was at the time I switched. this diet is much more spendy than my college diet but cheaper than my suburban middle class diet was. so i guess it depends on what you’re changing from.
I was coming off whole foods. Mainly tons of oats, rice, beans, fruits. Primal still way cheaper if you know how to shop.
The Ramen days were when I was really paying through the teeth. Those foods didn’t fill me up. This also doesn’t count the pile of money I was spending on meds/supps to be able to function while eating them.
agreed! my bill went from over $200 – $160 depending on who i’m feeding.
over consumption affects our bank accounts as well as our stomachs.
buy what you need to survive for a week and won’t spend as much. i think people tend to go the g.s. hungry and/or buy more than what they need. if you eat one apple a day, don’t buy 10.
Or Jamie, maybe the no-oatmeal could be good on days when you are fasting and having only 1 or 2 meals.
I like your idea to use apple sauce.
No offense, but what a high carb, high sugar disaster. I’ll stick to zero carb, where I don’t have to have breakfast and can go 15-16 hours without food by eating just meat. I’ll stay lean and strong on that.
Mosh, at least you are sane.
Most people here do just fine eating more than just meat, Katelyn. Not everyone over at ZIOH is in perfect health, so it may work for you, but not everyone.
none taken. peace to each belief.
I, too, wouldn’t want such a high-sugar/carb breakfast every day, but it would certainly make a lovely occasional treat. My partner, however, “can’t function” without a hefty boost of carbohydrate for breakfast, and lives for his cereal and milk. I’ve creted the next best thing, so that at least grains and refined sugars are eliminated from his morning ingestion:
http://girlgoneprimal.blogspot.com/2009/07/recipes-whats-girl-gone-primal-to-do.html
I use whatever nuts and seeds are on special – everything works once it’s toasted – and I suspect the same would be true for this No-atmeal recipe…
I’ve had a small bowl as a treat once or twice, topped with cream rather than milk, and some defrosted blueberries. It’s a dessert for me, and absolutely occasional while I work on leaning out!
first of all, awesome blog.
second, i didn’t intend for this to be eaten every day. once a week at most, if you’re using a banana.
15 hours without eating anything and then just eating meat? Yeah, that sounds balanced…
It’s a point of view with the notemeal – And, to add a bit of science to the opinions here; a meal like this every 4 to 5 days helps reset your leptin receptors and will actually accelerate fat loss.
Lo carb eaters do very well eating something medium glycemic index wise once/twice a week. There’s nothing in this that is going to hurt you eating in that frequency. Give the idea a try.
Looks yummy, even if sadly too high carb for me.
For those of you who are immunocompromised (or would rather not risk salmonella poisoning), you could substitute plain pasteurized egg whites in the carton (NOT liquid whole eggs — full of nasty additives). I make my own mayo with them as well.
Susan
i used free range eggs from a local farmer and they are cooked well enough when i make it.
i totally agree about using “All Whites” instead of whole eggs from the grocery store.
Sure, if you like running out of biotin. Egg white is avidin city (look it up) and this recipe doesn’t cook the egg white enough to inactivate it all.
I am choking on my words as I write this but for crying out loud, the recipe is full of seeds anyway–use flaxseed as a binder if you just can’t do the egg.
Or leave the egg out and don’t worry about binders. Mark has a much simpler version of this recipe in one of his cookbooks (the quick recipes one) and there’s not a single egg in the entire recipe. And it works. I just made it this morning.
A friend of mine sent me the link to this recipe and it looks fantastic! Would you happen to know the nutritional info? Thanks so much!
Super! Thanks for the idea!
Thank you! Oatmeal is something I’ve really been missing. Even when I did eat it regularly, I added almond meal and flaxseed to feel better about it. But THIS…wow. Tomorrow morning, for sure.
I make something simular to oatmeal regularly for breakfast but its a bit simpler yet simular. Just grab
- Half can of Libby’s canned pumpkin
- Flaxseed milled
- Frozen Berries
- 1 Egg + some Egg whites
- Dash of Coconut Milk
Mix it all up in a hot saucer heating it through lightly (add coconut milk first) once heated add some berries and pecans plus cinnamon. Delicious!
dude that sounds freakishly good. getting pumpkin when i go to the store today.
Yeay! I have about 15 pie pumpkins from my garden and I wasn’t sure what to do with them all now that I shant be making pies and breads. This sounds perfect!!
The tragedy is that this looks like a really nice breakfast, yet I am far too lazy to make it and far to content with eating the same thing over and over again (scrambled eggs and fruit with coconut cream)…
I don’t see how that’s a tragedy.
My breakfasts are usually poached eggs with cheese and a glass of milk. Weekends are either smoked salmon wrapped around cream cheese (yummy, but expensive) or big omelets made with egg yolks and whole eggs in a 1:1 ratio.
That’s right, people. I throw out the whites and keep the yolks. And I eat dairy, gasp!
A very smart approach to eating eggs. If you just cannot eat a whole egg, the white is junk compared to the yolk. Get your protein somewhere else that won’t eat up your biotin reserves. (Do we have biotin reserves? Probably. We seem to store quite a few of our vitamins for later use.)
For sure! Look delicious, but I’m also perfectly content with my cheaper, 30 second preparation, lower-carb coconut flakes. They never seem to get old.
i agree dude. that’s not a tragedy. you do what works for you and anyone who tells you different can go…well use your imagination.
scrambled eggs and fruit with coconut cream are far better choices than the IHOP endless stack of pancakes…mmm pancakes!
I’m pretty content with 4 hard boiled eggs, spinach, and almonds for brekky.
Although this looks good for a weekend.
Thanks.
I tried this this morning…I heated it up on the stove and honestly, it tasted like eating raw pancake batter with nuts mixed in. So then I tried to actually make pancakes out of it, and when that didn’t work, I just made a spinach and cheese omelet. lol
There are lots of ” granola” recipes on raw food sites for those who miss it. They tend to use nuts and seeds. They can be time consuming to make but if you make enough you’ll have it for a long time. I like to eat “graw”nola as a snack sometimes. Got a few recipes I can share in the forums.
Sorry! But the idea of making primal “oatmeal” is like being a vegetarian and eating tofu hot dogs in order to “fit in”. It just doesn’t work for me.
I’m sorry it doesn’t work for you. It’s really hard going against conventional wisdom, yet trying to “fit in” w/ conventional wisdom. My creativity has doomed me to never really being a “Krog.”
Damn.
“Sorry! But the idea of making primal “oatmeal” is like being a vegetarian and eating tofu hot dogs in order to “fit in”. It just doesn’t work for me.”
Its got nothing to do with fitting in and I wouldn’t compare it to eating tofu hot dogs.
Some of the comments have been really rude. If it doesn’t suit you, that’s fine.
Blech. Oatmeal, or any variation, should be outlawed.