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This post brought to you by breakfast
Ever since I was a kid, I've disliked the thick, sticky texture of boiled oatmeal. As I sit here narfing my bowl of oatmeal made just the way *I* like it, I got to wondering if there are a lot of people out there, like me, who thought they hated oatmeal and later realized that they only hated it the way the instructions on the box say to make it.
This is how I make oatmeal:
1. Boil a couple cups of water in a small saucepan
2. Add regular rolled oats (for me, two large handfuls is about right for a me-sized bowl); stir briefly
3. Let the water return to a boil - it will start to foam - and then immediately turn it off
4. Let oats sit for a minute or two to absorb water (I usually leave them alone for the time it takes me to get out my bowl and milk and honey and other stuff like nuts and so forth)
5. Drain. Sweeten. Eat.
They're fully cooked, and it produces a light flaky oatmeal that's more akin to granola in texture. The key thing for me is that if you boil oatmeal *at all*, it starts to thicken up and turn into something that's more gluey than I like. And all the instructions on cooking oatmeal everywhere say you're supposed to boil it, which was what my parents always did. But you don't have to boil oats to eat them. Granola is just toasted oats, after all.
I'm not sure how minute oats behave because I don't like them, so I don't buy them. Occasionally I'll aim for the same effect with "instant" oats in those single-serving packets by microwaving them in not much milk and then adding the rest of the milk after taking them out, but the results are kind of meh.
This is how I make oatmeal:
1. Boil a couple cups of water in a small saucepan
2. Add regular rolled oats (for me, two large handfuls is about right for a me-sized bowl); stir briefly
3. Let the water return to a boil - it will start to foam - and then immediately turn it off
4. Let oats sit for a minute or two to absorb water (I usually leave them alone for the time it takes me to get out my bowl and milk and honey and other stuff like nuts and so forth)
5. Drain. Sweeten. Eat.
They're fully cooked, and it produces a light flaky oatmeal that's more akin to granola in texture. The key thing for me is that if you boil oatmeal *at all*, it starts to thicken up and turn into something that's more gluey than I like. And all the instructions on cooking oatmeal everywhere say you're supposed to boil it, which was what my parents always did. But you don't have to boil oats to eat them. Granola is just toasted oats, after all.
I'm not sure how minute oats behave because I don't like them, so I don't buy them. Occasionally I'll aim for the same effect with "instant" oats in those single-serving packets by microwaving them in not much milk and then adding the rest of the milk after taking them out, but the results are kind of meh.
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Your method sounds worth a shot....(I tend to just make my own oats-based granola since I'm not big on cooking in the morning).
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I don't cook much in the mornings either. My usual breakfast is a bowl of granola, or a toasted bagel. I've been trying to eat more oatmeal lately because granola's usually oversweetened, and I'm too lazy to make my own ...
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I totally am there with you on granola - the store kind is often way too sweet. I discovered making my own was easy, and it could be done in large batches, and I can make it less sweet. Win-win.
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I need to start making my own granola again. The homemade stuff is a lot better than anything you can get at the store - fresher, less sweet, and you can put in whatever extra ingredients you want!
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What I have fallen back in love with is PB and J. It was crazy; after we moved, I kept having all these cravings for peanut butter an jelly sandwiches with soup. But I think you hit the nail on the head as to what changed. I stopped eating PBJ when I was a kid, when my mom would make it and really slather on the jelly. That jelly would then bleed through the bread, which was just disgusting. It reached the point where I couldn't stand to even think about PBJ.
Then the cravings hit and I started making them with less jelly on large slices of bread (rather than those flimsy, tiny Wonder Bread slices) and they were perfect.
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I like cream of wheat! Haven't had it in years, though.
It's weird to me that nearly all "traditional" breakfast foods in the U.S. are either sweet or greasy, neither of which is what I want in the morning (which is why, more often than not, I just toast myself a bagel). I was delighted when we were in England to discover that you can buy meat pies for breakfast! They're great! I wish you could get them here, though I guess I could make my own, couldn't I ...
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It is weird that most breakfast foods are so greasy. I'd never thought about it before, but it's true.
Well, okay, maybe its not all that weird since breakfast is meant to replenish then fortify the body through most of the day until lunch, and the more active you are the more calories you would probably need. My mom, for example, does a lot around and even outside the house, and she can handle heavy foods for breakfast such as eggs but doesn't really like cereal except at night. I think because many of us don't need those calories, we don't need or even like the heavy foods for breakfast.
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My guest father once cooked it for me anyway and I guess its an acquired taste. That slimy stuff isn't it for me.
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That can't be good :P
If I ever have porridge, I'd microwave it (cover the bowl with clingfilm) with milk. Then add more milk if it's too solid. Then I goop jam or syrup on it :) Your method sounds very washing up intensive :o
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The only extra dish is the pan used to cook it in; otherwise it's just a bowl and spoon!
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Another breakfast cereal I didn't care for was Grapenuts - waaaay to hard on the teeth first thing in the morning. But if you put your bowl of milk in the microwave for a minute or so, then dump in the Grapenuts, let them sit for a minute or two (until they achieve the desired al dente state), add dried fruit/cinnamon and voila! Grapenuts are edible!
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Me, too. :) They are such a difference, aren't they?
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But now?
Oatmeal is totally my morning breakfast (one might even say, an early morning ritual *g*) and I adore it. The way I make it, as you say. Which is like this (this is for two):
1. Chop up 1 apple, divided between two bowls.
2. Chop up 1 banana, divided between two bowls.
3. Measure out 3/4 cup whole milk and 3/4 water (comes to 1 1/2 cups liquid).
4. Put in cold pot. Turn heat on high.
5. Measure out 1/2 cup steel-cut oats (or Irish oats), have that and spoon on standby
6. Add dash of nutmeg and big sprinkle of cinnamon to liquid (or to taste, but as a warning, too much nutmeg and it does start to taste weird)
7. Watch liquid. Do not walk away for anything.
8. Liquid will SUDDENLY come to a MASSIVE boil -- add oats (this will momentarily calm the liquid down), and reduce heat to medium low. Stir.
9. Put timer on for 10 minutes (during next steps, stir occasionally and keep an eye out for boil-up dangers)
10. Make coffee
11. Add 2 spoonfuls of trail mix (Trader Joe's mix of almonds, walnuts, cashews, dried: blueberries, raspberries, cranberries) to each bowl of fruit.
12. Add dash of maple syrup to husband's bowl (because he's from the South and has the sweet tooth to prove it) DO NOT MIXUP BOWLS! (I'm not such a fan of sweet.)
13. By this point, 10 minutes are up. Turn off heat. Stir. Serve. Enjoy!
(If the oatmeal is soupy I might let it sit, but not for too long or it gets too thick for my taste. The oats are fine either way.)
It's weird, but most of the directions on steel-cut oats say you have to cook it for 30 minutes or so. The closest I've come to that is when I doubled the recipe to include my sister and brother-in-law. But even then I think it was only 20 minutes. Which leads me to conclude that a serving for one would take less than 10...
Also, I think the fruit chopping could probably be done while the oats are cooking. But it's early in the morning and the last thing I want to do is be rushed. I give myself a half hour to make breakfast and that's plenty of time.
I've also become quite a snob about the steel-cut. It's such a nutty flavor and the texture is nice and chewy. I grew up on rolled oats, but now I'm very much a steel-cut girl. But if I do try rolled oats again, I'm giving your technique a go.
Heh. Who knew there was so much to say about oatmeal? ;D
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Lots of people have mentioned the steel-cut oats; I haven't had them in a long time but I think I need to buy some the next time I'm at the store and give them a try.
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*looks innocent*
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We actually do have a blowtorch!
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Kidding aside, I have serious oatmeal trauma from childhood and everyone in my family knows it's just not a food we have in the morning. I did try to insert it into kid's diet. When oldest was a toddler I made some up, tried to get him to eat it, tried to show how 'good' it was by eating a spoonful...yeah, didn't work. The smell, the look, and if by some miracle I get past that, the taste is gag-inducing (no matter how much sweetener or tricks people try to mix in). *shudder*
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I buy short oats occasionally; they won't cook up the way you like but they will happily boil themselves into glue if you're not careful. Then again, my husband says my willingness to eat cold oatmeal proves my Scottish heritage. ;-)
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