A Nourishing Purim Breakfast: Poppy and Prune Oatmeal

What do you eat for breakfast on Purim? Do you dig into the hamantaschen early? Or do you go for something super healthy to balance out all the sugar that you’ll likely consume later in the day? Today I have a recipe that offers the perfect balance: a delicious, nourishing Purim breakfast oatmeal, inspired by two classic hamantaschen fillings that also happen to be the namesakes of this blog: poppy and prune.

I came up with the idea for this breakfast when, faced with a container of leftover poppy seed filling after baking my yeast hamantaschen a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try it as an oatmeal topping. I figured I’ve had success putting all kinds of unlikely toppings on my oatmeal (I’m looking at you, cookie butter); why not my beloved mohn?

And indeed, dolloping a few spoons full of the good stuff on my morning oats turned out to be a revelation. The nutty, earthy flavor of the poppy seeds transformed my standard-issue winter breakfast from something worthy to be tolerated in the name of nutrition into a decadent treat I genuinely looked forward to eating. Paired with some toasted walnuts, it was absolute perfection.

But plain oatmeal and leftover hamantaschen filling don’t exactly make for a blog-worthy recipe. So I thought about how I could fancy these up. Naturally, prune butter, or lekvar—the filling used for prune sweets of all stripes, including, most pertinently here, hamantaschen—came to mind. I mean, my blog is called Poppy and Prune, after all.

So I decided to cook some ground poppy seeds and brown sugar into the oatmeal, and then top it with some homemade lekvar. And I’m glad I did. The sweet-tart flavor of the lekvar complements the poppy seeds wonderfully, and there’s an underlying depth and earthiness that I think the two really bring out in each other. Assuming you’re not a poppy seed hater, I absolutely recommend you give this one a try—for Purim, or any time.

Fun fact: just one teaspoon of poppy seeds has 40 miligrams of calcium, or 4% of the recommended daily allowance!

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Poppy and Prune Oatmeal

For the oatmeal:

1/3 cup poppy seeds

2 cups Scottish oats, such as Bob’s Red Mill

6.5 cups of water

¼ cup brown sugar, dark or light

In a nut grinder, coffee grinder, or food processor, grind the poppy seeds. Alternately, seal them in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin, or use a mortar and pestle.

Bring the water to a boil. Add oatmeal slowly, stirring to avoid clumping. Add ground poppy seeds and sugar. Mix with a wooden spoon and reduce heat to medium-low. Let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve warm, or refrigerate for up to four days and microwave individual servings as needed.

For the prune butter (lekvar):

1 ½ cups pitted prunes

2/3 cup water

1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1/3 cup brown sugar, light or dark

Combine all ingredients but sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer partially covered, 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in the sugar, and let simmer for an additional 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool. Puree with an immersion blender, or pour prune butter into a blender, if desired. Refrigerate for up to two weeks.

To assemble:

Top oatmeal with a generous dollop of prune butter. Sprinkle with toasted walnuts, or other toppings of your choice, if desired. Serve warm.