Steamed porridge recipe

I am being quite the domestic goddess this morning! The breadmaker is whirring away

Steamed porridge with jam 

creating a different version of wholemeal bread to this previously blogged one. There's a saucepan of soup simmering on the hob. And I've eaten a surprisingly good bowl of porridge for breakfast - I say surprising, not because it tasted of anything other than porridge, but because I experimented by cooking it in the steamer.

We have taken the microwave oven out of Bailey because, despite having learned how to microwave pasta and rice, this wasn't particularly successful or convenient and we didn't use it for much else while travelling. At 11kg, removing it frees up weight and space for other hopefully more useful gadgets - which is where our compact Russell Hobbs Steamer comes in.

Another recent post was this steamed saffron turkey and I saw porridge in the same excellent little book, Steaming! by Annette Yates. One of Dave's regular breakfasts is Quaker Oatsos but they're not sold in Spain so he had to do without last winter and I've been vaguely hoping to stumble across an equally easy alternative. Annette's recipe is for two portions so I just made up half for me today.

Ingredients:
25g porridge oats
150ml dairy or plantbased milk
1tsp sugar
1tbsp jam

Place the oats, milk and sugar into the bowl you plan to eat from and place the bowl, uncovered, into the steamer.
Steam for 15 - 20 minutes, stirring half way through.
When porridge has thickened, Remove bowl from steamer, stir again and then stir in jam (or syrup etc) if liked.

Annette said to steam for 15 minutes and perhaps this would be fine with the plastic bowl that does rice in the steamer. However as I used a cold ceramic bowl and milk from the fridge, mine took 20 minutes. The porridge doesn't dry out so doesn't stick to the bowl like it would to a saucepan and the steamer baskets just need a quick rinse. Easy!

By the by, the jam pictured is homemade (not by me!) Strawberry and Lavender which is delicious and came from the Renee White Community Garden in Eastbourne.

P.S. (edited 28/4/15) In trying to use up storecupboard pots getting close to their use-by dates I discovered that adding a sprinkle of Waitrose orange and lemon peel to the porridge at the beginning of steaming or saucepan cooking gives a delicious citrusy flavour to my breakfast. And I haven't needed to add any sugar with it!