Low carb, sugar free steel cut oat champorado

For a year, my weekday breakfasts have consisted of non-fat cottage cheese and blue berries. Not very exciting at all especially considering I look at myself as a foodie. I have definitely grown to accept my healthy breakfast and sometimes I even imagine it being a bowl full of sisig. But who cares, just as long as it gets me closer to my high school body. Do I crave anything else for breakfast? Of course I do, but I won't risk increased blood sugar and pre-diabetes to satisfy my appetite. Filipino food is my passion, and yes, sometimes the dishes call for ingredients that are not that great for diabetics or people trying to go for a low carb high protein diet. But that shouldn't stop you from adapting the recipes to suit your needs or stay within your dietary guidelines.

Steel Cut Oat Champorado

One of my favorite breakfasts growing up was champorado. Champorado is a sweet chocolate rice porridge in Philippine cuisine. It is traditionally made by boiling sticky rice with cocoa powder, giving it a distinctly brown color and usually with milk and sugar to make it taste sweeter. In our household, we don't really eat white rice. I know, send in the Pinoy police! Restaurants give me crazy looks every time we skip the rice. Anyway, I still wanted to enjoy champorado, but come up with a simple alternative that was sugar free, low carb and had some protein value. The solution was actually an accident. My wife was baking gluten free, sugar-free, vegan chocolate chip cookies. So I stole some of the chips and threw them into my pot of steel cut oats! Bam...I'm a friggen genius. Ok maybe not but pretty close right?

Steel-cut oats are inherently full of nutritional value and are high in B-vitamins, calcium, protein and fiber while low in salt and unsaturated fat. Don't use regular instant or rolled oats because they have been processed and aren't as nutty and chewy than steel cut.

Ingredients:

1 cup of steel cut oats
1/2 cup of sugar free dark chocolate chips - use whatever chocolate you like...sugar conscious foodies should stick with the sugar free chocolate.
tsp of salt
3 cups of water

Directions

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil then add 1 tsp of salt. Mix in your oats and reduce to a simmer. Continually stir your oats for about 20-25 minutes. Turn your heat off and mix in your chocolate until you get a uniform consistency. Now your ready to serve. You can add condensed milk or non-fat milk to your champorado and even garnish with some dried fish depending on your sodium restrictions.
I know, I know, this isn't traditional champorado, but who cares! You'll be able to enjoy my healthier version and your body and your diet will thank me later.