Spelt Berries

As my husband was helping me start packing up my apartment yesterday, he ran across a couple bags of spelt berries that I had received from the CSA.  I hadn't thought about them for a while and John was complaining that I didn't have enough carby things in my apartment.  I suppose that I should explain that I finally came to the conclusion that bread, pasta and rice are dangerous to people who have had gastric surgery.  All of these foods expand in your stomach after you eat them, so it is easy to overeat them.  Not to mention the fact that if you fill your stomach with carbohydrates, you may have difficulty eating enough protein in your day.  So, I just have not been buying things..

I took some time online to get some ideas for spelt berries.  I have only used wheat berries in the past in a dish called Kutya, a wheat dish served on Christmas eve in Ukrainian households.  So, I really was not sure what we could do with them.  There were a lot of suggestions for making breakfast with yogurt and fruit.  So, here is what I made for my husband:

Spelt Berry Breakfast

• 1 cup Fage 0% Greek Yogurt
• 1/2 cup cooked spelt berries*
• 1/2 cup blackberries* 
• honey* (optional)

Layer yogurt, spelt berries and blackberries in a bowl.  If desired, sweeten with honey.

Note: to cook the spelt berries, I rinsed 2 cups berries and placed them in the bowl of my rice cooker.  I added 4 1/2 cups water and cooked, on sprouted setting, until cooked.  My rice cooker has fuzzy logic, so when the spelt berries were cooked, it switched to warm until I was ready to use them.

*CSA ingredients