Cooking first thing in the morning feels special. For me, it's a way to kick off the day doing a few minutes of something I love. I stand at the stove for just a few minutes stirring and gathering my thoughts. Then I gulp down coffee and race to work.
I've been looking for a take-to-work lunch recipe that would give me that few minutes of cooking without overwhelming my morning. I needed something that did not require special ingredients or wide-awake attention.
I found what I wanted on the McCann's Irish Oatmeal website. The site suggests a quick soak method for boiling the steel-cut oats before you go to bed and then letting them soak. Over night, the oats absorb the water and turn tender and creamy.
This old-fashioned method is excellent. Wake up the next morning and bring the oats back to the boil for about seven minutes and the oats are tender and ready to roll. I was temped to pull a stool up to the kitchen counter, call in sick, and then eat my oatmeal right there.
Instead, I packed up my oatmeal and got on the subway. I bought an apple and some almonds from a sidewalk fruit vendor. At lunch time, I used the office microwave to warm up my breakfast-for-lunch, poured some milk and sugar on top, and stirred in my almonds.
Unique and calming lunch idea, but I still need to perfect it. Next time I'm going to try to bring brown sugar from home instead of relying on work's little sugar packs. I haven't decided on a lunch box or Thermos yet, but I bet if I had a Thermos, my oatmeal would stay hot and I wouldn't need to re-heat it. The microwave gave the oatmeal hot spots and made it a bit gummy around the edges.
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Hey Chris,
That's a great tip. I will modify it a bit. After letting the steel oats soak over night, I will reheat them in the morning and add quick-oats, raisins, cinnamon, etc. for a great breakfast. Also, have you tried cooking your oats in apple cider? Sometime you can do a blend of apple cider and water.
Check out Alton Brown's slow cooker oatmeal recipe for ideas--he uses figs and cranberries, and it it great. I brought a vat into a work breakfast potluck once and it was a big hit.
How funny - I brought oatmeal (steel-cut, too!) to work yesterday. Forgot to eat it for breakfast so I ate it for lunch.
I usually add a healthy tablespoon of fruit preserves to my oatmeal.
As much as I love AB (I geeked out at an Iron Chef set and got to meet him!) his overnight oatmeal recipe is way too sweet... the dry figs disintegrated and their gritty seeds were everywhere! Yuck! next time I will try cutting back the dry fruit to 1/4 of what he says, and leaving the figs intact.
What is with the Southerner's sweet tooth?
This is slightly off-topic, but I've been having instant oatmeal lately (I know, the horror, but it is organic and un-sweetened) with walnuts, frozen raspberries and some brown sugar on top. Sometimes if I'm feeling crazy I add a little bit of cream. It's amazingly good and I don't get hungry or tired in the morning. The key, I think, is the frozen raspberries. The hot/cold contrast is really nice.
the mccann's oatmeal actually keeps beautifully in the fridge once it's cooked. i often make a big batch on a sunday and then just reheat a bowlful in the morning. you do have to add more liquid to reheat--it is worth undercooking for about five minutes and storing it with the unabsorbed cooking liquid, which helps--but after a couple minutes in the microwave they come out creamy and perfect.
the only caveat is that if you make it with dried fruit, the fruit becomes almost jammy after a few days. which i don't mind, actually, but you might prefer to hold off until you reheat your portion.
Here's a link to the overnight crock pot oatmeal recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_17138,00.html
I use the same brand of oats too.
some of the ways that I use oats for lunch/dinner are :
a) Mixing cooked Oats in Lentil(Tur/Mung dal) soup.
b) mixing cooked oats in tomato soup
c) oats cooked in tomato soup, cumin , garlic and basil stuffed in a baked squash.