In our quest to eliminate all processed food from our diet, cold cereal was one holdout.  If we stopped buying cold cereal, what in the world would we eat for breakfast?  I make our own bagels but we don’t like to eat bagels for breakfast every day.

I don’t love normal oatmeal.  It gets too gluey for me.  I like steel cut oatmeal but that takes about a half hour to cook and who has time in the morning to do that?

Eventually, I invented this method for making steel cut oats.  It is easy, delicious, and after the initial work, very quick in the morning.  In order to make this worth your while, you want to make a lot of oatmeal at once.  This much oatmeal will probably be enough for 15 or so breakfasts.

“Oatmeal Cookies”
adapted from Alton Brown’s recipe

5 T butter or coconut oil
5 C steel cut oats

In a very large pan (such as a soup pot), melt the butter/oil and add the oats.  Mix well and stir on high heat until the oatmeal is starting to toast and smells nutty and delicious.

15 C water
salt, to taste (you’ll need a lot – probably at least 1-2 teaspoons)

Add the water and bring to a boil.  Cook, uncovered, for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it’s not sticking on the bottom.

3 and 3/4 C milk
raisins, as many as you want

Stir in and cook an additional 10 minutes.

vanilla (lots)
brown sugar (just enough to make it barely sweet)
cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom (or other favorite spices) (use plenty)

Take off the heat and add vanilla, brown sugar, and spices.  I like to use liberal amounts of vanilla, spices, and salt because then it takes a minimal amount of sugar to make it taste delicious.

At this point, you will have a gigantic pot of really delicious oatmeal.  I usually stop right at this point and eat a bowlful of it because it’s at its most delicious best right now.

Then, wait, stir, wait, stir, wait, stir until the oatmeal is completely cooled. (This usually takes a few hours.)

Once it’s cool, it will be fairly solid.  This is when you make your “oatmeal cookies”.

Onto cookie sheets, dish out one-cup lumps of oatmeal.  Put the cookie sheets in the freezer, freeze until solid, and then transfer to ziploc bags. They come off the cookie sheets fairly easily if you just let them sit for a minute or two.

When you’re ready to eat, put one in a bowl, microwave on defrost for a minute or two until hot, add milk if you so desire (as I always do), and voila!

Steel cut oats for breakfast without getting up before sunrise!

They are easy, delicious, and good for you too!  (And now we don’t have to buy cold cereal!)