I was the guest chef for the SELMA fundraising breakfast this past Friday. SELMA breakfasts incorporate so many of the elements I care about when it comes to food. At the top of the list, a dedication to local sourcing of food. And I do mean local. A close second is creating food that tastes fabulous because of the high quality of ingredients, and the love put into the food by the many volunteers. And intertwined is the building of community, and an opportunity to meet new people and begin the day by making money for a worthy cause.

Here are a few highlights, as well as the recipes for the two specials I was responsible for. I'll publish this in two parts, with part two available this Friday.

The SELMA breakfasts raise money for building hoop houses and supporting local farming and gardening. Hoop houses create an environment to extend the Michigan growing season, making year round local food a far more enjoyable experience and having a positive environmental impact in a myriad of ways. For more on SELMA, and how they moved from controversial to legal, I’ll refer you to this article.

The guest chef experience begins by creating two “specials” to accompany the usual choices of waffles, bread pudding, and yogurt with fruit and granola. I have cooked for large numbers before but never a breakfast. It isn’t my favorite meal, so I appreciated the challenge. I began with two thoughts. Over the past two years I’ve created an oatmeal breakfast for myself that incorporates every positive nutritious yummy element I can think of. I wanted to share that with other people. The next, the joy of fresh ground corn. So something that would show off why good corn can be such a delightful foundation for a meal. People around me were talking about polenta. I had a wonderful recipe for layered polenta in my cookbook, and thought it could be adapted for breakfast.

Jeff McCabe and Lisa Gotlieb created SELMA breakfasts and host them every Friday with a bevy of enthusiastic and really talented volunteers. I appreciated Jeff’s knowledge of food sources I wasn’t aware of. He took my shopping list and found everything, using local as much as possible.

The Recipes

For the oatmeal with add-ons, high quality ingredients are essential. You can find organic options for all of the ingredients. We had whole oats, at home I buy 50 pound bags of steel cut oats from The People’s Food Co-op and work my way through that.

I figured about 2/3 cup oats per person, with about twice that for water. The ideal is to soak that overnight with a handful of raisins and another handful of raw almonds, but you can skip this step. It does decrease cooking time so if that is your obstacle to having real oatmeal in the morning, consider it a bonus.

Start the oats, water, almonds and raisins cooking over low heat in a heavy bottomed pan. Use about twice as much water as oats. If you use a plain aluminum or even stainless it will likely burn and be hard to clean. I have a small “All Clad” I use just for oatmeal. While that cooks - 10-20 minutes depending on if you pre-soaked - assemble the add-ons.

Fresh or frozen fruit. Blueberries are one of the best choices for their anti-oxidant value. Wild berries are also great, this is how I use most of the black raspberries I freeze each summer. I like to have 6 gallons or more of frozen berries, I made that goal easily with 50 pounds of blueberries, a couple gallons of raspberries, and a lot of strawberries as well. Use about 1/2 cup per person. Sliced apple, peaches, pears also work well. If the berries are fresh I add them to the finished cereal. If they are frozen, I stir them in at the last minute, if I’m using sliced apples or similar I add them a little earlier.

Raw milk yogurt. Yep, I’m one of those crazy people who have bypassed pasteurization to consume milk straight from the cow. I think it has been 7 years I’ve been part of one cow share or another. There are many reasons why, but the bottom line is I can consume milk again without getting sick. It is a deeply controversial issue, perhaps a topic for a future blog. It is great to have a choice. Raw milk yogurt, Seven Stars organic, Brown Cow, it is easy to find good organic yogurt in Ann Arbor.

Fresh ground flax seed. A tablespoon of the seed per person, and fresh ground preserves the most nutrients. I have a small cheap coffee grinder I use just for flax seed. This is a cheap and easy way to add flax to your diet, known for its anti-inflammatory properties, and it looks promising for helping with diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and more.

Local honey. Our local beekeepers need all the support they can get, as we depend on the bees for so many of our fruits and vegetables as well as beautiful flowering plants. Some people use local honey for allergies as well.

Cinnamon. Clearly not a local product (and neither are almonds or raisins) but another food being investigated for helping to stabilize blood sugar levels, and improve type II diabetes management.

Oatmeal is a wonderful food. The oats can help lower cholesterol. Oatmeal doesn’t cause a rapid rise in blood sugar, so that even with the addition of a little honey and fruit the breakfast will provide a solid beginning for a day of stable eating and fewer cravings. Oats are high in fiber and anti-oxidants, both important in heart health. There is so much more that can be said.

Almonds are high in monounsaturated fats - the good fats. High in magnesium, again with the anti oxidants, almonds appear to be able to play a significant role in preventing diabetes and heart disease. For more details.

Raisins are a great source of nutrients including absorbable iron. More anti-oxidants, potassium, fiber, and may even help to prevent dental disease. They provide a bit of sweetness, and most people enjoy the added texture in a cereal.

The combination is “amazing” was the most commonly used word I heard. A number of the people who had the oatmeal that morning said they had no idea oatmeal could be that great. Yes, it can be. And on a cold wet October morning, it was a popular choice.

We served this nourishing cereal with a slice of my sourdough whole wheat bread made with pumpkin seeds. What makes the bread unique is using freshly stone-ground whole wheat flour, and a sourdough starter fed exclusively rye flour.

The oatmeal was also served with home made apple sauce. My Foraging Friend picked the apples on his way to the Thursday night prep, on Eisenhower Blvd near Stone School. These ugly apples were quartered, cored, bad spots removed, cooked until soft in a bit of water, then run through a hand food mill. The chickens in residence got the remains, and we were left with an applesauce that was noticeably different. Nothing added, the word most commonly heard after tasting was “awesome”. Is it too much work to make your own applesauce from wild apples? In about two hours, two people made more than two gallons of applesauce. It freezes well, it can also be canned. Especially when the apples are free, I’d say it is a good deal.

We also included a sourdough bread made with pumpkin seeds. That recipe and polenta when my story continues this Friday.

To be continued ...

Linda Diane Feldt is a local holistic health practitioner, teacher, and author of "Spinach and Beyond: Loving Life and Dark Green Leafy Vegetables."