Food note....

[brooksmoses]

This morning, we were out of milk, so I made my semi-customary oatmeal with just water instead of the usual half-water-half-milk mixture. I was expecting a little difference, not a lot.

*fx: Brooks looks at his bowl of bland glop*

This is totally not what I was expecting. Even with reasonable additions of salt and extra sugar, it's nothing like my usual oatmeal. How do people eat this stuff?

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Cinnamon and butter?

[brooksmoses]

Yeah, I realized after posting this that it might well be that the milkfat does something significant there, and butter might help. I'm almost tempted to try it, just to see.

Cinnamon, sadly, won't help -- but only because there was already a good helping of it in both variants. I like lots of cinnamon in my oatmeal. :)

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

What kind of oatmeal is it? I never use milk in my oatmeal, but it's always steel-cut oats. I tried eating the flat kind once and it was like wallpaper paste. (At least, what I imagine wallpaper paste might taste like, never having tried it.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I did as a kid, believe it or not. (I did a lot of stupider things as a kid, too.) It was indeed quite bland.

[brooksmoses]

Hmm. That could well be it, partly, too -- these are some that I rescued from someone because she was going on a wheat-free diet (and apparently most oatmeal is not processed in wheat-free plants), and I have no idea what sort they are, or for that matter whether or not they've gone stale.

Yeah, it does taste like about what I'd imagine wallpaper-paste to taste like.

Perhaps the surprise is more that, cooked in milk, they actually taste at all good!

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

What you have is probably rolled oats ('the flat kind'), because that just seems to be commonest in the States -- especially as far as buying 'oatmeal' rather than 'oats' goes, but also just in general. They are the things you encounter on top of oat bread, in granola and horse feed muesli, etc. The steel-cut oats to which kcatalyst refers are roundish, visually more like undersized wheatberries than rolled oats, and in oatmeal are vastly superior to rolled oats, even oatmeal made with water. I generally find oatmeal made with water to be vile, but the texture of steel-cut oats is good.

[karenthology.livejournal.com]

I always use skim milk. I can't use water. I'm with you on this!

Load it up with cinnamon. Mmm.

[(Anonymous)]

Of course what I don't understand is how you eat it at all. Blech.

Oatmeal is much better raw.

suzi

[echristo.livejournal.com]

I make mine with water - honestly following most of the directions on the quaker oatmeal box. Make sure that you make it with the lid off to make sure that the water evaporates and gets it to the consistency that you like. After I'm more of a milk and sugar kind of guy, but butter and brown sugar would probably be pretty tasty.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I also make mine with water. I use the microwave method, which means i don't have a pan to wash afterwards. I can just eat it out of the bowl I cooked it in. NB If you do try this, make sure it's a large bowl or the porridge (oatmeal) will gloop all over your microwave oven!

I like it quite thick and then add honey and milk.

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

I tried that the other day myself with my cream of wheat. It was..horrible. I'm too used to half and half to not mix anymore. The only oatmeal I can do with only milk is the stuff that's super sweet and flavoured and only if I eat it at work.

[cobalt-00.livejournal.com]

I don't know - I've always used straight water, rolled oats, and a stove. And I follow the words of that commercial: "Real oatmeal should be thick enough to STAND ON/stop a bullet/etc".
Of course, I then add brown sugar and a whack of peanut butter. Good stick to your ribs kind of food (if you ever get it off the spoon). Amazing what you learn at camp.
(It's Rachel, by the way. Hi!)