Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The Glories of Oatmeal: First Installment

Finally, the post I know you've all been waiting for: the best way to fix regular oatmeal.

First off, the best way is to eat it the way you feel like eating it, which may be not at all. Which is fine. But do give my methods a try, if you haven't already.

OK. I never cook my oatmeal in a pot. I always cook it in a bowl. When I am at home, I flavor it with salt and brown sugar; when I am at school, I use the over-flavored instant oatmeal to do the job, and fill in the rest with the good stuff. Of course you remember from my Food Snob blog that "the good stuff" is organic, non-instant rolled oats.

The best way to fix oatmeal as oatmeal is to boil water, then pour it over the oatmeal and let it sit for a couple of minutes. I wish that I could give you exact measurements, but I have been doing this by eye for so long that I'm afraid that if I guessed, I would lead all of you astray. I will say that I put in a "handful" of oatmeal (sometimes literally), then pour in enough water that the water line falls between half and a whole centimeter (between a quarter and a half inch, for imperial-ites) above the oatmeal line. As it were.

If I cook it in the microwave, I do add the water before boiling it, and then cook it for one or two minutes (depending on the microwave-- the one I usually use at school is pretty efficient, so one minute works just fine these days).

If I really want to get fancy, I can add cream and/or fruit. My prepackaged flavoring mixes at school add just that, but at home, I'm usually too lazy.

That's it for now. You are just going to have to sit on your hands until I can get around to telling you about dry-fried and wet-fried oatmeal (plus, in the latter case, a side note about fried mush); granola; and oatmeal pancakes.

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