Grain cereal with pineapple and maple syrup

I can't believe I'm making a blog entry for this. But, I've also been known to not believe in Santa Claus despite convincing evidence that he does, in fact, exist; so... I will press on.

I put this interesting combination of flavours together today for breakfast. It's probably not original, but since I didn't get it from a book, I'll put the recipe here... just in case:

• prepare a hot grainy cereal. One of those ones you have to cook for a little while and, preferably, soak the night before. I used 1/4 cup (dry) of Bob's Red Mill 10-grain (available at Loblaws/Superstore, and probably A&P). You can probably use quick oats if you're into that kind of thing, but it doesn't save you much time in this context and won't taste as good. The Red Mill stuff takes about 10 minutes to prepare.


• while the cereal is cooking, cut a couple of thick slices of pineapple off a fresh pineapple, remove the core and skin, and cut into dice-sized pieces


• when the cereal's done, put it in a bowl and add the pineapple on top


• drizzle with medium maple syrup

Pineapple and maple syrup together: excellent. And the hot cereal adds texture and an underlying, dare I say, hearty base to it, and the heat from the cereal brings out an extra dimension in the pineapple.

I'll state again because I think it's important to health, generally speaking: use the real ingredients! You could use quick oats, canned pineapple, and Aunt Jemima syrup, and you'd never know how bad it tasted if you never tried the "real" way. But I don't consider those things healthy. Forget the nutrition labels: how do the ingredients get processed by your body? How has the pre-processing affected its readiness to be processed by your body? How do the processed ingredients interact? Are the nutrients in a state that's readily absorbed by your body? That's what's important, and the label doesn't say.

So: basic, ground cereal. Fresh pineapple. Real maple syrup (preferably the Mennonite stuff from St. Jacobs. I haven't found any better in this area, although I know I'm pushing it by getting this specific). You get complex flavours from the raw, ground grains. You get extra acidity and another layer of taste from the fresh vs. canned pineapple Lovely.

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