Monday, November 19, 2012

Busy morning oatmeal

Now that it's colder in the mornings (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that is), cooked breakfasts in general - and oatmeal in particular - make more sense than a steady diet of cold cereal. However, few of us have time to be standing over a stove to keep the oatmeal from boiling over. So allow me to share three ways to fit oatmeal into your jam-packed morning:
  1. Rice cooker oatmeal - if you have a rice cooker, you're sitting on a wonderfully underused gadget. Get that bad boy out and dust it off. Put in 4 cups of water, 2 cups of oats, and a handful of raisins. Push "cook". In about 20 minutes, you'll have perfect oats that cleans up great and serves about four. If you don't have a rice cooker, get one - it's totally worth the space it takes up.
  2. Crock Pot Oatmeal - Seriously, there are oodles of recipes out there for crock pot oats. Often, steel cut oats are used. They do stand up to being in the crock pot a bit better than normal oats, but if you can't find steel cut, don't let that stop you. Shave a couple hours off the cooking time and give one of these recipes a try.
  3. Make your own instant oatmeal - Dump half a cup of oats into your food processor or blender and pulse a few times. You want it chopped up a bit, not turned to dust. Stick that in a plastic snack or sandwich bag along with some dried fruit. Then, in the morning, empty the bag into a microwave-able bowl with a cup of water or milk and stick it in the microwave. Kids can make their own oatmeal! Easy.
Any good oatmeal recipes floating around out there? Do share!
     

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