Holiday gruel recipes

A woman enjoying a bowl of gruel

Regular readers of Flares will be familiar with the fact that I am a self appointed, high and mighty muckity-muck in the Green Party.

As a Green mentor, along with jetting off to Bali and such places for climate change conferences, one of my most important duties is assisting you peons in lowering your Planet killing carbon footprints.

Of course, one of the best things you can do as an eco-warrior is to eat sensibly, and that means chowing down on a tasty bowl of gruel for most of your meals.

Should you not be currently dining on gruel and want a recipe so's you can get on the path of sustainable food righteousness, below is a basic gruel recipe from the website Medieval Plus:  

Ingredients
1 tablespoon of oatmeal
2 tablespoons of cold water
1 pint of boiling water

Cooking Instructions
First put the oats, together with the cold water, into a saucepan and mix together until smooth. Then, over this, stirring all the time, pour one pint of boiling water. Now stirring frequently boil for 10 minutes. Serve. 

As mouthwatering as that sounds, you'll no doubt want to splurge a little and cook a more elaborate gruel meal for your festive holiday family dinner. A quick and easy way to add to your gruel's flavor, as long as you haven't invited Mayor Bloomberg to dine with you, is to add a bit of salt to the mix. Even more daring, you might add a pinch of sugar or some treacle. 

Another cooking adventure you can do is to substitute the oatmeal with barley, rice flour or crackers. Recipes for these types of gruels can be found at the Gruel Recipes page. Also, since it is the holidays, you shouldn't feel guilty if you really splurge and add some nutmeg, fruits, a small amount of meat or other ingredients to your gruel.

I hope these tips have been helpful, and bon appetit!