I was never crazy about hot oatmeal, but love it now per the way I make it. My husband loves it now too. He used to be a cold cereal eater -- those boxes are standing around, while I buy huge boxes of oatmeal and my blood work has never been better.
I cut a small banana, a fresh apple into thin small slices, dried cranberries, or whatever fruit is in the house and add it to my "Old Fashioned" Quaker Oats in a saucepan. I cover it with about 50/50 water and Blue Diamond Almond Milk as we need the calcium (twice the calcium in cow's milk). You can make it with all water or all milk of any kind too. The dried cranberries will become soft.
I let it sit for awhile together, covered in liquid, and will then cook it slowly. Sometimes I stop as tend to burn meals when I blog. Here is what it looks like so far. You can see the oatmeal underneath and banana, apple, and dried cranberries. Sometimes I only use banana, other times only apple or dried cranberries, but am doing all today and it will be delicious!
Here, I am covering it with 50/50 Almond Milk (the one with 30 calories in a glass) and water, or one can use any combination, just cover it -- does not matter if a little more liquid as it will get cooked into the oatmeal shortly.
Now I will cook it and come back to finish the blog!
It smells heavenly when the banana cooks in the oatmeal, the fresh apple is soft and the cranberries plump-up -- can you see?
Oatmeal finished -- soft enough for me but it could be cooked longer -- the apple is very soft and the the banana gives it the most heavenly aroma. Sometimes I put ground flax seed on top -- as it is very reasonable at COSTCO. The only way my husband will eat ground flax is on top of his oatmeal. I sneak it in lots of things when he is not looking! We lean to vegetarian so have to get plant sources for our Omega-3. Do not buy un-ground flax seed as humans can not digest the tiny seeds. If you come up with a recipe, please post, or you can sign up with your email to get the blog each time I update. If you prefer Kindle format, it is available at http://amzn.to/1zFZ4kr for 99 cents per month (Amazon set the price).
It holds up well in the refrigerator if you can not eat it all and my husband will microwave it when he is in the mood --- "Oatmeal is not just for breakfast anymore, as it is a great snack."
And as my great-niece would sing to the tune of 3 blind mice:
"Hot Oatmeal, hot oatmeal, yummy, yummy, in my tummy, hot oatmeal."
