My friend Mel asked for an oatmeal tutorial.  My first thought was “I can’t do an oatmeal tutorial, that’s Kath’s thing.” But then I realized that I have my own method, and I’ve been making them this way (with a few tweaks) since college, so here’s my how to.  For a complete tutorial on Kath’s method, check out her Tribute to Oatmeal. She even has a video!

First the ingredients:

-Old Fashioned Oats (not quick cooking)
-Banana
-Milk (I use Rice Milk because of my lactose intolerance)
-Water
-Salt
-Vanilla
-Cinnamon
-Nutmeg

Instructions:

Before we get to the actual instructions you’ll want to figure out how much you want.  The basic ratio is the same as with rice-1 part oats to 2 parts liquid. If I’m really hungry I do 1/2 cup of oats or if I’m not as hungry or I’m going to put a ton of toppings on I do 1/3 cup oats.  Today I did a double batch of a 1/3 cup serving.

1) Mash your banana up until it’s glistening. I use 1/2 a banana per serving.

2) Add your oats, liquid (to cut calories do 1/2 milk and 1/2 water-so today since I did 2/3 cups oats, I did 1/3 cup milk, and 1/3 cup water-when I was preggers I did all milk, no water), and spices. For the spices I just eyeball it-a dash of salt, about 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, about 1/4 tsp of nutmeg, and a splash of vanilla.

3) Cook on medium to medium/low heat, stirring occasionally. If you cook them at too high a heat they stick and burn-boo!

4) After about 10 minutes, they get to this consistency:

(I should have taken a better close up) When they’re almost at a consistency that you like, turn off the stove and let them sit for a minute or so-this helps them not to stick to the pan and makes clean up easier.  If you have Teflon you probably can just cook them to where you want them and don’t have to worry about this step.  We can’t have Teflon or any nonstick surfaces in out house because it’s potentially lethal to birds.

5) Dump into a bowl and top with whatever.  Today I just put some pumpkin butter and almond butter on a spoon.  Kath made a very important discovery to oat eating that if you put your nut butter on a spoon and eat the oats off of that you get a bite of the butter with every bite.  If you mix it in, the flavor gets lost. Other toppings that I love: coconut, granola, berries, maple syrup-be creative!

6) In my house, you can’t forget the bird!  She knows what oatmeal making looks/sounds like and she BEGS for hers.  She get’s a serving (notice the dab of almond butter for her):

She eats it greedily:

I hope you enjoy!  I now make a big batch on Sundays and just reheat it at work.  It’s not quite as good as freshly made but it’s still better than instant!