Stewed Dried Fruit on Porridge

I'm a real fruit bat and love a sweet treat most days. So what better way to start your day than with a big, warming bowl of oat porridge, topped with sweet, soft dried fruit!?

This is a breakfast I learnt from my mom, she used to make this for us as kids and it was always such a treat. So of course I have started making this for myself and my kids as lets face it, Weetbix gets old and its also nice to have something warm cooking away on the stove first thing in the morning. 

What I do is make a big batch of the stewed fruit on a Sunday ready for the rest of the week, and all I need to do is make a pot of porridge in the morning and top it with the fruit and some of the syrup it makes. Since the fruit has been cooling in the fridge it actually helps to cool the porridge down a bit so the littlies can eat it sooner!

In South Africa we used to buy bags of mixed dried fruit that had pears, apricots, prunes and apples in them, however I have yet to find a mixed bag of fruit like that here in NZ. So what I do is buy individual bags and just add them into the pot. Makes for a bigger batch anyway! This batch I only used prunes and dried apricots but I do sometimes throw in some apples. You could add any other dried fruit you might fancy, but be aware of the ones that have added sugar in them. Like the papaya, pineapples and mangoes you can often find in the pick 'n mix bins. They almost always have added sugar...

Recipe for Stewed Dried Fruit:

• 200g dried apricots
• 200g prunes
• 3 cups of boiling water

Add the above into a small pot with a tight fitting lid. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a low simmer, simmer for 45min to 1 hour, checking to make sure there is enough water in the pot. You can add more to create more sauce as want the fruit to create a lovely sauce that you can also add ontop of your porridge. The fruit should be very soft once done, soft enough to pull apart easily with a fork (not that you eat porridge with a fork, just sayin)

Keep sealed in the fridge, lasts about 1 week.