Oatmeal (and a book recommendation)

Squamish is making "eau terreuse" (muddy water).

Sirocco is making “eau terreuse” (muddy water).

Mistral showered under the drain spout.

I’m currently reading Balanced & Barefoot by Angela Hanscom (usually while out at the playground with the kids) and while it’s an excellent book, it’s a frustrating experience because her critique of current play and parenting trends rings a little too true (maybe I should stop reading it at the playground). I don’t have coherent thoughts to share yet, but hopefully I will be able to write them out soon. So for now, read it! It’s good! But read it with coffee, in your yard, away from people who might give you dirty looks for reading a book while your kids explore.

Mistral showered under the drain spout.

Sirocco is making “eau terreuse” (muddy water).

Now, important things in life: oats. (Books and play are important too, but those things don’t happen if there’s no breakfast!) For your entertainment and edification (and to see if I could ever hope to make it as a food blogger!) I took elaborate process pictures of our morning oatmeal routine. Excited yet?

In all seriousness though, oatmeal is great. I had always been more of a sugary cereal kind of girl growing up, and then I moved out and had very little money. Enter: oatmeal. Back then I just scooped out some oats from a big bag into a bowl, poured an approximate amount of water straight from the tap and microwaved it until edible. With molasses and a splash of milk it was enough to get me through my mornings of mostly boring lectures on Education in Ontario. After that, I gave up real breakfasts in favour of a wake up routine of espresso, chocolate and dried mango (with a side of literature), followed by a smoothie mid-morning. Somehow I doubt that particular paradigm would work with the small humans… This does though.

SUPER TASTY OATMEAL FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!!

Toast your oats on medium heat in some kind of delicious fat. Pictured is coconut oil, but butter or bacon fat work nicely too. I make 1 cup of oats for our family (2 adults, 2 children 3.5yo and 18mo) but I think that will need to increase soon, as the small ones seem to be eating more every day.
Pour over twice as much water as you had oats (by volume). So here we used 2 cups of water (in my favourite measuring cup that we got from Kyle’s grandma’s kitchen things). Let this simmer away with occasional attention while fending off toddlers loudly requesting bananas.
While the oats simmer (and if you can distract the screaming toddler with a wooden spoon and a bowl so she forgets about the bananas) prep your add-ins. THIS ladies and gents, is where things get real. I am fond of desserts, and like to make fruity, spicy and even chocolaty (I mean, it’s in the name…) breakfasts. Today we’re chopping some nice dried coconut chunks, some maple syrup and (not pictured) some raw cacao nibs.
Once your oats are looking almost cooked (or a bit earlier if you’re using dried fruit and want it to plump up) throw in those add ins, including the sweetener of choice if you’d rather avoid the 3 year old in your life adding his own preferred dosage of maple syrup… Not that I’m speaking from experience here. Look at that lovely pool of maple goodness! This is the point in the game where you actually give the toddler that banana and tell her to go put it on the table with some spoons, she can carry spoons! And wrangle any helpful older child(ren) into putting yogurt and fruit compote and bowls on the table.
And now! Into the bowl it all goes! The basic idea is Oats + Yogurt + Fruit. Today we’re lucky and we pulled out the last of the roasted strawberries from last spring, more often than not it’s applesauce (which is tasty but not quite as photogenic) or just chopped fruit of some sort.

So there you go. Oatmeal. SUPER SIMPLE. But also complicated. BUT! Delicious. Other than the “Banana Split” version pictured here, house favourites include: