Survival Sunday 10

I was really hungry the other day, guys. I don't crave breakfast often - I'm a coffee and chill kind of person. I don't usually crave any kind of oatmeal, either, since I basically grew up on the Quaker Instant Apple Cinnamon in the 90s.

I really wanted some oatmeal the other day.

Unfortunately, I don't think we had any actual oatmeal in the house, so I went with steel-cut oats instead.

It's not unfortunate, guys. They were tasty.

If you guys want to make this, it's pretty easy - your only cooking ingredients are salt, water, and steel-cut oats! The rest of what I added was to give it some flavor.

I started to use the recipe on the back of the bag to make what I'm going to call porridge but probably isn't, but I'm a little behind on breakfast cookery, so gimme a break. The recipe was 1/4 tsp salt, 3 cups water, and 1 cup oats. Then I read the last sentence. 4 bowls. 4 bowls?! I'm a tubbins, but I'm not that gluttonous!

Or so I thought...

Now, being a bigger person, I quickly realized that 3/4 cup water, 1/4 cup oats and 1/16 tsp salt were not going to fill the void in my gut.

I basically halved the recipe. 1.5 cups water, 0.5 cups oats, 1/8 tsp salt. I eyeballed the salt.

I'd started to boil the water before I realized I hadn't actually photographed anything.
Oops.

This measuring cup had quarter measurements and I'm pretty sure it had ml measurements too!

And salt. Just plain old salt.

Once the water was at a nice boil, I grabbed a sturdy spoon and poured my oats into the water. I probably didn't need to immediately stir, and that's probably wrong somehow, but I did it anyway.

After a little stirring, I plopped the cover on and went to go work on Friday's blog.

That lid? Doubles as a frying pan. Sometimes I use it for hotdogs.

Crank that heat as low as it goes!

That flame? Barely lit. That's perfect.

If you're wondering where the cat was, she was in the basement availing herself of the basket full of fuzzy winter blankets because she's a nutcase.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so focused on my blog and the cat, though, because anyone who's made oatmeal or porridge will tell you that no matter how low the heat is, your food will find a way to boil over.

And so it did. Loudly. While I was trying to find photos from Commando in the next room.

Thankfully, paying more attention to the pot prevented further boil-over, but I think maybe it needed to be covered for far longer than it was.

Tasty, but very al dente. Maybe if I'd left it longer with more water? I don't know.

I did end up adding more water after a while because it was not filling out like I'm used to seeing with Oatmeal. Then again, I've never made this before - maybe steel-cut oats never puff out? Regardless, I was getting some serious smoothness going, so I decided to bite the bullet and chuck the goop into a bowl.

This stuff is not very flavorful on its own, but it takes little effort to improve it!

I had dragged out the light brown sugar and cinnamon, and the half-and-half creamer was close at hand from my coffee, so I decided to dress up my admittedly bland breakfast!

I have no pictures of this porridge after I mixed it all together, but I promise, it was good.

You could use maple syrup, fruit jellies or preserves or jams, fresh fruit, milk, cream, cinnamon & sugar, or any combination of those. That right there is two servings of porridge.

I have a few tips for anyone else trying this for the first time: don't freak out if your porridge develops a few patches of gunk that look kind of like phlegm. It's nasty-looking, but I'm pretty sure it's normal. Next time I make this, I'll leave the goop in. Also, pay attention to the pot the whole time. If it sounds like it's about to boil over, open the lid and mix it up.

As for our spice of the week, I'm taking a bit of a different tack here:

This isn't the brand I used. Pretty sure mine was Domino? Dunno.

Brown sugar comes in various varieties, each with its benefits. Light brown sugar, like I used in my porridge, has a richer, sweeter flavor than granulated or powdered sugar, but milder than Dark brown sugar. Dark brown sugar tastes closer to molasses. Any brown sugar is going to be much moister than white sugars, which is why they clump up. There's a few products out there to prevent clumping in your brown sugar. We used to have a little terracotta mouse, but apparently that's just not a thing anymore. Can't find evidence of them anywhere.

Anywho, brown sugar is tasty and sweet, and it's much richer than more refined sugars, so we tend to use less of the darker sugars than the lighter ones in baking.

Hm... I should see if my mom will show me how to make her brown sugar chocolate chip cookies someday...


That'll do it for me this week, folks!

Go out there and Enjoy Something!
FC