Thanks Annette Raffan, who writes a cool vegan blog called My Dandelion Mind who has allowed me to publish a couple of her posts.

Overnight porridge is amazing and you should totally try it if you haven’t done so yet. It’s so easy to do – just shove everything in a bowl and put in the fridge overnight. I much prefer it to traditional hot porridge. You can pretty much have anything you want in or on it. My favourite things to have on it are fruit, nuts and seeds and awesome chocolate cashew cream. I got the recipe originally from Terry Hope Romero‘s book ‘Salad Samurai.’ It’s a gorgeous book but this is the only thing I have made from it so far.

I have changed the recipe slightly, more to reflect my own tastes and you can further mix and match things to get awesome raw porridge and sauce to enjoy. This is for one person and is a fairly hearty portion to keep you going til lunch.

The chocolate cashew sauce is best made in a larger batch. It’s not difficult but you don’t want to be making it every night. It keeps a few days in the fridge. It’s so good with many things.

Cashew Cream

Ingredients

• 130g cashews
• a squeeze of maple syrup
• 1 tbsp soft brown sugar or other sweetener (increase if using unsweetened milk)
• 3/4-1 cup sweetened almond milk (I find sweetened almond milk works best, but you could use coconut milk, soya, rice etc. or real milk for those so inclined)
• 30g cocoa powder – don’t overdo this as it can make it bitter

Method

1. Stick everything in a blender and blend until almost smooth.
2. Different cocoa powders absorb different amounts of milk. Adjust for thickness with extra milk. You want to aim for a thick cream.
3. Taste and adjust to your sweetness. Different milks can vary quite a lot so generally you need to tailor to your brand and taste.
4. Scroll down to the end for a top tip!

Overnight Oats with Chia Seeds

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup oats
• scant 1 cup milk (again I find sweetened almond milk works best, but you could use soya, rice etc. or real milk for those so inclined)
• a squidge of maple syrup or other sweetener (use sugar if you don’t have this)
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• various frozen fruit
• 1/2 tsp cinammon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Method

1. Put everything in a bowl, mix and place in the fridge overnight – so easy and so quick. Once you’ve made it a few times, it’ll take a minute
2. In the morning, get your porridge out the fridge and give it a stir.
3. Add some fruit, nuts and seeds on top – whatever you have available to hand. Add a big dollop of chocolate cashew sauce.
4. Eat and enjoy!

Top Tip: Waste Not Want Not

Now I don’t know about you but I hate wastage.

Once you’ve blended all your chocolate cream and scooped and scraped as much as you can out the blender, yet still there’s loads in there, add 1/2 cup of your chosen milk, whizz it up for a few minutes and voila – a clean blender and your own delicious chocolate milkshake!

Cheers!