Since at least last December, my day has started with oatmeal.
Sometimes it's at 6 or 7 AM. If it's later than 7 when I get on my feet, I'll go out and greet the sky and start chores before breakfast.
Sometimes my day starts at 2 or 3 AM, when I can't get back to sleep due to some sort of discomfort and finally throw in the towel and embrace the morning.
Even at 2 AM, the oatmeal is a cheering start.
Of course there's been some experimentation over the past 8 months or so. At first I owned only one bowl, my favorite handmade ceramic bowl, that was the right size for creating a bowl of porridge instead of a microwave volcano. Eventually an etsy/eBay search for a second bowl began. I was struggling to justify spending thirty dollars plus shipping for another ceramic bowl when I had the great good luck to discover a clear glass bowl that is just the right size and which I genuinely like. At a local dollar store. For $1.25. I now own eight of them. Yes, friends, I am a wealthy woman, shamelessly reveling in an abundance of bowls.
After some playing around with cooking times and added ingredients, the foundation has been: oatmeal, water, and 1/6 cup of cashew pieces. The usual additions are either milk or butter, and brown sugar. When I've got diced ginger left over after making water kefir, I add that and leave out the milk or butter. When I had a jar of Chyawanprash herbal jam from India, I added a little spoonful of that and nothing else.
When I have fresh fruit, I use less sugar:
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| Had to pretty much go swimming to reach these blueberries. It was worth it! |
You know that phrase people use..."I was today years old when I learned [insert simple/obvious fact here]" ?
Well I was this many oatmeal packets old when I learned that it's much better to add the sugar after cooking, not before.
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| Each packet held 2 pounds of rolled oats. |
Initially I added the sugar before cooking, so it would be distributed throughout all the oats as the water was absorbed. Rational, right? Or did everybody but me know that porridge actually tastes sweeter when the sugar is on the oats, not in the oats? Which makes sense. Now.
Do you have a favorite morning ritual, food or otherwise?
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I laughed out loud about the bowls! Recently we have been given about 6 big ol' containers of quick oats. Now, usually we eat eggs---boiled, scrambled, fried, omelets, poached-- but now we have added oatmeal every other day. Always add the sugar last brown sugar because that is what we both grew up with.
ReplyDeleteBrown sugar for me, too - although if I still had a local source for maple syrup I'd be treating myself to that now and then :)
DeleteWe eat oatmeal at least four times a week. RC makes it in our rice cooker (adding a combination of dried cranberries, raisins, coconut and either sunflower or pumpkin seeds) and then refrigerates it ready to portion out as needed....reheated in microwave with the addition of a little bit of almond milk and some frozen blueberries. No sugar is added - we rely on all the 'additions' for sweetness. That way he's not making oatmeal every day.
ReplyDeleteThat's sort of what I expected to have to do - cook a big batch in a pot on the stove and refrigerate it - but this brand cooks in just a couple of minutes even though it's not "quick oats" - some kind of oaty magic!
DeleteWow, those blueberries are gorgeous! Ours have recently ended and I definitely miss them on my morning granola (my summer oatmeal :) The cashews sound really yummy.
ReplyDeleteI love that you collect oatmeal bowls. Nothing wrong with favorite bowls!
There are still many green berries on my old highbush, but they are not ripening well in all the rain...I'm picking maybe a dozen berries every other day. Not enough for baking but I'm very happy to have them in my oatmeal!
DeleteOh, those blueberries! Stove top steel cut oats is my Sunday ritual. Week days it's home made granola over yogurt, banana and berries. And tea. One must start the day with tea. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI used to buy Irish oats and cook them on the stove, but now I'm hooked on these Bob's Red Mill organic whole oats - they microwave in a very few minutes, and it just makes a healthy (and lazy) breakfast so easy :)
DeleteBelatedly - oatmeal here at least every other day. I too used to make steel-cut oats, but now microwave rolled oats for 2 minutes in our one anti-volcano glass bowl - so easy and so good. Chia seeds, walnuts and raisins plus milk is my standby.
ReplyDeleteChris from Boise
I've never tried adding chia seeds - thanks for the idea!
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