Quick Old-Fashioned Oatmeal and Other Breakfast Tricks

I love oatmeal for breakfast: not the quick-cooking kind, which I find bland and textureless, and certainly not "instant oatmeal" which has all the texture and appeal of wallpaper paste. No, it's the old-fashioned, slightly chewy, whole rolled oats that I love. So did my grandfather Milton, who was, for his time, a real health nut. (I think I get my crunchy-granola, whole-food tendencies from him.) I still remember Grandpa slaving over the steaming pot, stirring and stirring as he babied his creation to completion. Quite a production, right? Well, as a rule, my mornings are way too busy for all that, so I was delighted to come across this simple technique–more a tip than a recipe, really–in Sally Fallon's quirky and fascinating book, Nourishing Traditions. The big ‘secret’ here is that you soak the oats overnight before you cook them. Sounds idiotically simple, but in fact, it magically cuts the cooking time to an ultra-manageable few minutes, and delivers delicious, creamy oatmeal with plenty of texture. Enjoy with brown sugar, raisins, flax seed, or whatever you like to use in your oatmeal.

Quick Old-Fashioned Oats

Anne Milton, inspired by:

Sally Fallon

Nourishing Traditions

1 cup old-fashioned unprocessed rolled oats

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

2 cups filtered water

1 Tablespoon flax seed (optional)

1 Tablespoon sunflower seed (optional)

Milk, soy milk or hemp milk

Brown sugar, dates, raisins or other dried fruit, chopped apples, strawberries, etc. (optional)