Lavender/Chia seeds overnight pudding

Chia seeds have been in my things-to-try-list for a while but only recently I  actually went out and bought them. I didn’t really know much about them aside from the fact that you can make overnight puddings and that sounded pretty exciting!

I wanted to make a completely vegan one using rice milk which ended up being a slimy mess. If you had put chia seeds+rice milk and frog eggs in front of me I couldn’t have told the difference. The taste was actually pretty good (rice milk IS yummy!) but the texture was a real let down. One of my little people ate quite a lot probably just because I told him it was superfood. I think he would eat anything labeled as “super” or “mega” – if he can do it super fast then it’s even better!

The non-vegan attempt instead worked out fine texture-wise, even if it still needs some getting used to but it gets kind of addictive. Flavour-wise, well, my parents went to France a couple of months ago and got me some cooking lavender.  As soon as I opened the parcel my parents sent me it started screaming “pick me! pick me!” for my next creation.  Chia seeds and lavender sounded too random not to experiment with it and I’d say IT WORKS! 🙂

Ingredients (for 4 servings):

500 ml milk

2 tbsp lavender (suitable for cooking)

50 gr chia seeds

a handful of oats

4 tbsp maple syrup + extra for serving

Pour the milk into a heavy base saucepan and bring it to the boil. Remove from the heat and add the lavender. Let the lavender infuse until the milk has cooled completely. Strain the milk, add the chia seeds, oats and the maple syrup and transfer the mixture into a big glass jar.

Put the jar in the fridge and let it sit overnight.

Divide up the pudding into 4 little jars and serve with some extra maple syrup to taste.