Cinnamon and Spice Oatmeal for One

[livingdeb]

I finally found my favorite recipe for oatmeal for one:

1/3 cup oats
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar
sprinkle of nutmeg
water

Put small pan of water on stove. Measure out dry ingredients into bowl and mix. By then the water should be boiling or almost boiling. Pour just enough into the bowl to moisten everything and stir. Pour a thin layer of milk on top and stir. Now it is delicious and just the right temperature.

The oats do not have to be quick-cooking or instant or whatever. I don't know if steel-cut oats work or not. If I leave out the salt, it doesn't taste right. The sugar can be any kind of sugar. I'll try gradually reducing the salt and sugar until I find the minimum that I still like, but I'm afraid it won't be by much. The nutmeg is optional, and you may use ginger or cloves or some combination instead.

Enjoy!

Comments

[sallini.livejournal.com]

Lately I have become a fan of cooking the hell out of the oats, rather than a moisten-the-oats pseudo-cooking approach. I like the creamy texture that results (without using any milk). I eat mine with brown sugar and raisins (or occasionally dried blueberries or another fruit). I cannot tell the difference when I use salt and not, so I skip it. Clearly you're not using enough sugar if you can detect the difference ;) Good for you.

Wild oats

[fraeuleinchen.livejournal.com]

Steel-cut oats would definitely not work in your recipe; they are unrolled oats, and like rice, must be cooked for about 45 minutes, ratio of water:oats is 4:1.

I love eating oats like you've described. It's so funny that in our culture we are first made aware of oats as just mush. When I made oatmeal for my German boyfriend, back in my sophomore year of college, in his first months in the U.S., he asked, disappointed with the gummy paste before him, "Where are the flakes?" (In German 'oatmeal' translates to 'oat flakes' (Haferflocken).) I suppose flakes and meal are quite different. In any case, it seems Europe* is much more tolerant of texture. Witness: muesli! It's just rolled oats with fruit and nuts added in. Of course, they also sell a junk food-ish version, with chocolate sprinkles :-)

* Is this usage exemplary of synecdoche?