Still A Dreamer

Are you an oatmeal fan? I actually love almost any good hot cereal, but McCann’s Irish Oatmeal is my favorite. It’s warm, nourishing and while delicious with the simplest of accompaniments – a touch of brown sugar and a small dab of butter – there are so many ways you can dress it up to make it even more yummy. Plus McCann’s is non-GMO, an extra bonus.

I found an excellent idea in a past issue of Prevention magazine which suggests you crumble a gingersnap, (or two or three), into the bowl of oatmeal, and toss with some chopped pecans. Yum! They also suggest having the liquid be 1/2 cup apple juice and 1/4 cup water, but I haven’t tried that yet. In the bowl pictured, I threw in a bunch of organic raisins to a mix of half  2% milk and half water, and when just shy of boiling, added the McCann’s Oatmeal, (which is what Prevention also used), and when done, crumbled in the gingersnaps. In the bowl, you can see some raisins and the gingersnaps which get deliciously soft and chewy.

Other tasty combos are raisins with walnuts and a dash of cinnamon, dried cranberries with some chopped pecans, or chopped apples with a tad of brown sugar and cinnamon. Oatmeal is such an inviting food and good oatmeal doesn’t lose its flavor with additions stirred in. Plus it’s heart healthy! Here’s something else I read along the way – oatmeal will stick to your ribs longer the more whole the grain. So eating instant oatmeal will leave you hungry soon after because the oats are chopped extremely fine to speed up cooking, but they are also digested much more quickly. I use McCann’s Quick-Cooking, steel cut oatmeal for more heft, but the regular steel cut, while still longer to cook, will stave off hunger the longest.

I also found, in looking for gingersnaps for a cheesecake crust, that they are practically a specialty nowadays and may take a little hunting to find. The mainstream cookie manufacturers don’t seem to make them anymore, so look carefully.

Have any hot oatmeal suggestions you’d like to share? Let us know!