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Banoffee Oat Sundae

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How could you wake up feeling grumpy when you’ve planned this delicious breakfast?

Ingredients: 
1 cup oats
2 bananas (1 mashed, 1 sliced)
8 dates
a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla essence, if available
Peanut butter and flaked almonds to serve

Directions: 
1. Soak the oats in enough water (or use all-plant milk if you prefer) to just cover them. Add 1/2 of the mashed banana and stir. 
2. Place the dates in a blender with salt, vanilla essence, and enough hot water to blend to a smooth consistency. If you don’t have a blender, chopped dates will work perfectly well! 
3. Layer the oats, sliced bananas, date caramel, and mashed banana into a glass, alternating. Top with a few dots of peanut butter, and sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Oat and Banana Bread

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This is not your typical banana bread. Not a dense, very sweet, strongly flavoured loaf with which you’ll be familiar as a way to repurpose overripe bananas, this Banana Oat Loaf is subtly flavoured, sweet, and with the texture of a regular bread loaf. It’s perfect for nut butter, suitable-for-vegans chocolate spread, or jam/jelly. You may replace the oil with extra banana or apple sauce, but the bread will have a slightly shorter shelf life.

Ingredients: 
300g white bread flour
100g wholemeal bread flour
100g oats
2 tbsp tapioca starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp suitable-for-vegans sugar
2 tsp yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
2 ripe bananas, mashed
200ml water

Directions: 
1. Add the flours, oats, and starch to a large bowl. Put the salt, cinnamon, and sugar in one side of the bowl and the yeast in the other. 
2. Add the oil, bananas, and 125ml water, and mix well to combine. If the dough is dry, add the rest of the water a little at a time until the dough comes together and the sides of the bowl are clean. 
3. Tip the dough onto an oiled surface and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth. Transfer back to the bowl and prove, covered with a tea towel, until doubled in size (about an hour). 
4. Preheat the oven to 200C. Place the dough in a non-stick loaf tin, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the dough sounds hollow when tapped on the base. Cool completely on a wire rack before serving.

Simple Overnight Oats

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Rushing in the morning with no time to prepare breakfast? Try these very simple overnight oats; you can even make them up in a small lunchbox to eat on the bus or train.

Ingredients

50g oatmeal
150g plain soy yogurt snack
150g berries (fresh, frozen, canned) of choice
1-2 tbsp nut butter (optional) 

Optional toppings: 

Suitable-for-vegans granola
Suitable-for-vegans chocolate chips
Suitable-for-vegans sprinkles
Suitable-for-vegans cookie crumbs
Toasted or ground seeds

Directions

1. Mix the oatmeal with the soy yogurt. 
2. Meanwhile, heat the berries briefly (1 minute or so) to soften. 
3. Layer the berries and oats into a sundae glass. Top with peanut butter or one of the other optional toppings, if desired.

Baked Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

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It’s sure to be a good morning with this Baked Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal, served here with a generous dollop of coconut whip to give you that dessert-for-breakfast flavour and to start your day on a sweet note. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats
2 tbsp suitable-for-vegans brown sugar
2 tbsp ground flaxseeds
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Pinch salt
2 tbsp chopped pecans, optional; extra for serving
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cups soy milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Mix all ingredients together. Add to a shallow baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed and the centre is set.

Overnight Oats Bowl: Budget Recipe

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This Overnight Oats Bowl cost €0.54 per serving at the time of posting, is very easy to put together, and is almost guaranteed to fill you up until lunchtime.

Serves 2.

Ingredients:
90g rolled oats
Large pinch cinnamon
100ml soy milk (or other all-plant milk)
100ml water
1/4 cup dried fruit
1 apple, chopped
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup frozen raspberries
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tbsp flaxseeds, ground

Directions:
1. Mix the oats with the cinnamon. Stir through the soy milk and water, and leave to soak overnight or for at least 15 minutes.
2. Divide between two bowls and serve topped with the rest of the ingredients.

Sweet Spinach, Pea, and Basil Smoothie Bowl

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A deliciously healthy smoothie bowl made with ingredients that you can find in your local supermarket. Don’t worry; this doesn’t taste like vegetable soup: the flavours of the fruits are dominant.

Ingredients:

For juicing

1/4 cucumber
1 slice pineapple
1 apple
1 kiwi fruit

For blending

2 frozen bananas
Large handful spinach
Large handful frozen peas
Handful oats
15-20 basil leaves

For decorating (suggestion)

Fresh, dried, or frozen fruit
Nuts and seeds
Coconut flakes
Suitable for vegan muesli or granola

Directions:
1. Juice the pineapple, cucumber, apple, and kiwi.
2. Add to the blender with the bananas, spinach, oats, peas and basil. If the mixture is too thin, add more oats or frozen peas. If too thick to blend, add a little more liquid (all-plant milk would be suitable).
3. Pour into a bowl (or two, depending on desired serving size), and serve decorated according to taste.

Oat and Bean Burgers

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Once you have a good vegetable burger recipe, you can adjust the flavour profile to your taste. Try changing the herbs and spices in this recipe to create your own flavours: add basil, oregano, sundried tomatoes and even chopped mushrooms for an Italian burger; choose garam masala and curry powder; you can even try fajita spices and serve with salsa. Have fun, experiment, and play around with flavours on top of the base recipe to make this your own. This recipe makes 8 patties.

Ingredients

Base Ingredients
2 x 400g (gross weight) cans cooked beans (I used one can of kidney and one can of cannellini)
1 red onion, quartered
1 red pepper, deseeded and quartered
1 cup oats

Flavourings
1 tbsp suitable-for-vegans Dijon mustard
2 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp soy sauce
pinch chilli flakes
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 200C, and line a baking tray with parchment or a silicone sheet. Pulse the beans, onions, and red pepper in a food processor until fine and combined. If you don’t have a food processor, finely dice the onions and pepper, and mash the beans. Combine.
2. Add the oats, and pulse to combine further (or mix by hand). Transfer to a large bowl.
3. Add the flavourings suggested above, or experiment and create your own. Try to have about 2-4 tbsp wet ingredients among the flavourings so that the burgers are not dry.
4. Combine all ingredients well, preferably using your hands. Squeeze a handful of the ingredients together: they should hold without crumbling. If your hand is very, very sticky, add some more oats; if the mixture feels too dry, add a little suitable-for-vegans ketchup, mustard, or tomato purée.
5. Shape the mixture into 8 patties, flatten out, and place on the baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes, flip, and bake 10 minutes more. Serve in a suitable-for-vegans bun with preferred salad vegetables and sauce of your choice (I have used creamy potato dressing on mine).

Easy Oaty-Coconut Cookies

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A very simple cookie that’s perfect for those new to cooking. Not much can go wrong with these (apart from the inherent wrongness of the fact that you have to allow them to cool before tucking in!). Makes 26 cookies.

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dessicated coconut
1/3 cup brown suitable-for-vegans sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegan vegetable fat spread
3 tbsp golden syrup (if you want your biscuit chewier, use less)
2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C (fan 160C).
2. Sift the flours into a mixing bowl, and add the oats, coconut, sugar and salt. Mix to combine.
3. Melt the margarine in a saucepan over a low heat. Turn off the heat, and add golden syrup, water and bicarbonate of soda.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix well.
5. Roll the mixture into walnut-sized balls, flatten between the palms of your hands, and place on a lined baking tray (I needed two), leaving some space in between each as the biscuits will spread slightly as they cook.
6. Bake for 15 minutes (if, like me, you had to use two trays, give them 8 minutes on their respective shelves and then swap them over).
7. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes or until completely cool.

Five-Minute Oat Flatbread

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Simple, quick, tasty, and extremely inexpensive: what more could you ask for in a flatbread? This uses aquafaba (liquid drained from a can of chickpeas), which is a superb binder in cakes, and a lovely coating to help your spices stick to oil-free oven fries.

Ingredients

100g oats (blended to a flour if you have a blender; left whole if not)
1/4 cup aquafaba
1 tsp each garlic powder and smoked paprika

Directions

1. Mix the oats, spices, and aquafaba.
2. Add extra water if needed to make a sticky dough that you can form into a ball with a fork (the consistency doesn’t really matter here; you can make these very loose like pancakes, or very firm like patties).
3. Preheat a nonstick pan over a medium heat, divide the mix into two, and place in the pan. If you’ve got a firmer mix, you may need to flatten it out with the back of a spatula.
4. Fry for 2-3 minutes each side until the dough is set and lightly golden.

Raspberry-Apple Overnight Oats

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Overnight oats make for a healthy and quick breakfast on busy mornings. This recipe serves 1.

Ingredients

1/2 cup rolled oats (not quick cook) + 1 tbsp (optional; keep separate)
1/2 cup plant milk (e.g. unsweetened soya)
1 apple
1/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tbsp chopped nuts of choice (e.g. pecans or almonds)
Maple syrup, if desired

Method

1. Soak 1/2 cup oats in the plant milk overnight (or for at least 20 minutes).
2. Toast 1 tbsp oats in a sauté pan over a low heat until golden.
3. Just before you’re ready to assemble and eat the dish, dice the unpeeled, but washed, apple. Mix half of the apple into the oat mix.
4. You can create layers of oats, raspberries (reserving a few for topping), apples, repeating until all of the oat mixture is used up. Alternatively, you can place all ingredients into a bowl and mix. Top with the toasted oats, raspberries and nuts. If desired, pour some maple syrup over the top.