Hola, chickadees!
I have been eating steel cut oats for breakfast almost every day for about six months now and I want to share some of my nummification techniques for making the oats tasty and interesting.
I get my organic oats in bulk at the health food store and cook them overnight in a little crock pot – 1 cup of oats to 4 cups of water, stir and let them cook on low.
1. They’re great by themselves with a bit of (for me sugar-free) maple syrup on top.
2. Stir in a handful of dried goji berries during the last hour of cooking for an extra antioxidant punch.
Add a teaspoon of a really good brand of ground ginger with the berries for a warming punch. It’s wonderful! Frontier is my favorite brand.
3. Squirt the top with a teaspoon of those omega-3 oils your doc told you to start eating more of in the form of Barlean’s flax seed oil. (Don’t cook with it; it’s not meant to be used at high temps. Use it in salad oils and as a topper like this, and don’t be stingy — it loses its nutrients pretty quickly after you open the bottle).
4. Toast a big handful of slivered almonds in the toaster oven just until they start to smell good. Drop the almonds into a little plastic container, drop in a half teaspoon or so of brown sugar (Splenda makes a great one if you can’t eat sugar), and a generous handful of dried coconut flakes. Shake those all up and sprinkle them on top of your oatmeal.
5. Mix in frozen blueberries during the last hour of cooking, with a pinch of cardamom. Mmmmm.
6. If your dog is anything like mine, he will go mad for this oatmeal. Be sure to share. Max likes his cold so I always give him the bottom of the pot.
Okay, you gotta stop calling it nummy brekkie! LOL
[But it IS Nummie Brekkie! I swear! – PB]
Rev. Gidget’s Never-Get-Sick-Of-It Protein-Packed Oaties:
1. Stir together 1/2 c oats, 1 c soy/vanilla milk (no sugar), 2 oz part-skim ricotta cheese, tsp Splenda.
2. Add fruit-du-jour – bananas, berries, or microwave some apple chunks & cinnamon, or my personal fave, frozen mango chunks from Trader Joe’s.
3. Divide in half. Eat first half before the gym, or just early on, when you wake up ravenous (or ravishing, depending). Eat the second half later in the morning. It’s excellent chilled, too. Dividing also helps make the gap between breakfast and lunch feel less like the grand canyon. [Awesome! But this is a cold cereal, right? Or do you cook them? – PB]
Oops – yep, cook them! I guess it never occurred to me to prepare oatmeal without cooking it, so I forgot to say that.
So, how do you reconcile the serving size? That’s my problem with the steel cut oats. With the regular oatmeal, I can measure out 1/3 of a cup, cook it in the microwave, and be eating it out of the same container a minute and a half later.
With the steel cut oats, I am told that 1/4 cup is one serving. I’ve tried cooking one serving and it isn’t easy. It is hard to keep enough water in the pot. I don’t like the idea of cooking four portions saving some for the next few days either. I do like the taste and texture but the work of it just doesn’t balance off and I eat too much.
Sorry, still unconvinced. (And no, I don’t have a crock pot, although someone offered me a small one and I am still waiting to see it. But I can’t see using electricity all night for the sake of steel cut oats in the morning.) [It always makes me laugh when people write, “Sorry, still unconvinced,” as if I was trying to convince you personally and the whole thing is without value because YOU don’t like it. It’s snotty and dismissive. Then don’t do it. Cook oatmeal one portion at a time. I’ll keep cooking mine several servings at a time in a tiny crockpot and measuring out 1/3 or so of a cup — or not — of the cooked stuff. Not that hard. As for the great waste of energy, a tiny crockpot on low all night once ever five or six days hardly seems a bell-ringer. Questions and productive comments or contributions always welcome. “Eeww, you’re wrong” stuff doesn’t encourage me to want to offer you free advice and support. – PB]
Just a note — I’m not at home so I can’t check, but I’m pretty sure the Splenda Brown Sugar is not completely sugarfree—
A mini crock pot (the hors d’oeuvre kind) will cook smaller portions of steel cut oatmeal fairly well. Just in about 5-6 hrs instead of overnight.
PS I don’t mind re-heated steel cut oats, since they are so much tastier and retain their texture (add a couple TB more water & microwave)…but to reheat the processed stuff…no can do. [Me, too — in fact, I love how chewy they get. – PB]
Am a total fan of Truvia as an all natural sweetner. I will try some of these nummy sounding add-ins. [I really like Truvia, too! – PB]
Am eating porridge as we speak! I have little sachets that come with raisins and bits of dried apple. I cook them in the microwave at work every morning as I settle into the day… [So tell me about these sachets – do you make them yourself or buy them? – PB]
I just wanted to thank you for your resounding endorsement of Steel Cut Oats. They ARE so delicious! I prefer mine with a poached egg and some fresh ground black pepper… but I know that can seem a bit odd to the non-savory breakfast eater.
Also, perhaps your surly commenter will find this link helpful in making steel cut oats for one…? http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/282699
Yet another use for the crystallized ginger you may have after Yule! Dice a few flakes of the ginger, and throw them in with chunks of apple or orange…mmm…
I do eat uncooked rolled oats, but I always cook my steel-cuts. With raw rolled ones, I stir in thick unsweetened yogurt, some dried cranberries or other fruit, and some toasted nuts. Awesome!
Like Appalachian Vicar, I go savoury with the steel-cuts.
I mix in frozen fruit (no sugar added) that I purchase at my local supermarket. They have blueberries & mixed berries but peaches are my favorite.
I started putting crystallized ginger into my steel cuts after you mentioned the ginger earlier – brilliant idea! I put some slices in the mini cuisinart thingy and chop it up and keep in a jar.
I use 2c water to 1/4c oats and can make it on the stove top in 20 mins.
P.S. I reheat on the stove top, takes the same time to heat as to make the coffee.
Another use for already cooked oats, if you don’t feel like reheating them: mix about 1/4c with some cottage or ricotta cheese (also about 1/4c), a few tablespoons of egg white, a tablespoon of almond milk, some ground flax seed, cinnamon & stevia to taste. Cook this mixture into a big pancake in a non-stick pan sprayed with Pam. Top with sugar free syrup or applesauce. Yum! I eat this for breakfast just about every morning along with steamed spinach.
You can make it with raw old fashioned oats too but if you do, blend the ingredients up in a little food processor. (This is actually how I usually make it, since crock pot oats don’t last long in my house!
[Wow! That sounds delish! Thanks for a very creative and cool idea! – PB]
Ginger! What a great idea. I hadn’t thought of that. I do the oats in the crockpot thing: my mother taught me that trick some years ago and I thought it was just brilliant. ’cause who has the time and energy to do all that cooking when one is walking around bleary-eyed in the morning? I’ve been using toasted almonds as well (I toast them whole though, get them in bulk at the food co-op) and a bit of yogurt and some fruit.
I’ve also started making my own granola (so I put in hardly any sweetener — just five T of agave syrup for a whole bowl, which is basically a whole cookie sheet of spread-out granola) with rolled oats and almonds and various seeds ‘n things (no raisins because I have been on low-glycemic regimen for nearly a year, but of course dried fruit is delicious in granola) and that is another great way to get oats in one’s diet, and in the warmer months I find it more appealing than hot oatmeal.
And Caroline Divine just wrote the mother of all run-on sentences there and is oh so sorry.
Oh I luuuuurve me some steel cut oats. My secret is that I cook them with milk, not water. This ups the protein, and the result is creamy, chewy deliciousness. And if there’s some left over, I stir in a spoonful of honey or maple syrup and refrigerate. It sets up beautifully in the fridge and then I have something very much like tapioca pudding for dessert later.
I like savory breakfasts much more than sweet; I’m gonna try the egg & pepper or pancake version this weekend!
My go-to breakfast, since I’ve had good success with a low-carb diet, is this one-serving mini frittata:
Whisk up one egg in a microwave-safe bowl. Mix in 1 tablespoon of salsa and about 1/3 cup of frozen green veggies. Cook on high for 3 minutes, covered. Yummy! Takes about 1 minute to prep, and I’ve tried all sorts of vegetables I might never have eaten otherwise, like kale and collard greens. Spinach is my favorite, though.
In our home, after I eat out of that bowl, then the very elderly dog gets her morning treat of a scoop of canned pumpkin puree to help her digestion. When she’s done, a scoop of wet cat food goes in for the kitties. And when THEY are done, the hubby cleans the single dish.