apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

It is unfortunately chilly in Ireland at the moment. It is somehow humid but with a chilly wind that blows right through you..so it is perfect early autumn weather for a bowl of oatmeal. I love the comfort of a bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and honey/maple syrup, dried fruit and nuts. It is my breakfast of choice for most of the year alternating with fruit salad and yoghurt or omelettes, toast and relish for sunday mornings.

Monday morning I had oatmeal with slow dried figs and apples, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and maple syrup. Washed down with some apple juice...perfect!

I eat oatmeal every morning for my 1st breakfast. I like to eat Irish oatmeal, a.k.a. steel-cut or pinhead oatmeal. The creamy and chewy texture makes it the perfect breakfast! And I put anything...I mean anything in my oatmeal, from dried fruits, nuts, scoops of jelly, boiled eggs, to peanut butter (or any nutty butter).

I had some leftover grits I made over the weekend this morning. To complement the savory cheddar grits, I also had some yogurt with fresh fruits and homemade granola! Love breakfast!

It's 8 a.m. now in Phoenix, and it's 86 degrees. It's supposed to hit 104 today. But I had a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with chopped dates and honey. I cook a big batch over the weekend (the basic recipe from the King Arthur's baking cookbook) and just nuke a bowl every morning throughout the week, tossing in whatever fruit and whatnot that's around. Morning's where I don't have time to have a proper breakfast started bumming me out, and the oatmeal solution has worked well. Even if I don't have time to eat at home, I can bring a container to work and heat it up there.

Yum, the peaches and pepitas look so good on that! One of my favorite oatmeal toppings is sauteed apples... anytime I make an apple compote or crumble, I save some extra to add to breakfast. Chunky applesauce works in a pinch!

I'm actually eating that very thing (minus seeds and pepper) right now. It isn't cold yet, but I eat oatmeal all summer, too. Cheap, easy, good for you, and delicious.

I had oatmeal with dates and currents for breakfast this morning. Since I cannot have milk products at all I use Almond milk as a substitute. I have even managed to get my kids into eating oatmeal for breakfast, they can make it themselves in the microwave even.

are you sure it's pepper? flax makes more sense to me...

Flickr page says its oatmeal with peaches, salted pinenuts and pignoles, black pepper & honey.

I like my steel cut oatmeal with banana sliced and thrown in during the cooking process so that it melts. top with toasted walnuts, ground flax, and granola.

My boyfriend and I make steel-cut oatmeal during the night, in the crock pot. You can get loose steel cut oatmeal cheap from fairway or other stores. We add:

Milk, water, salt, raw brown sugar, cinnamon, walnuts, 1 apple, and a tiny bit of dried apricots and raisins. In the morning we cut banana on it.

I like to top my oatmeal with those sugar & spice pecans from Trader Joe's.

Lately, I have been trying that vanilla salt on it and that's tasty, too.