Making the perfect oatmeal is much more about how you cook it versus what you put in it or on it. I seen lots of recipes for this stick to your ribs breakfast, but they are mostly about what to add to it instead of how to cook it. Just for the record, when we make oatmeal we usually add a dash of salt, cinnamon, raisins, maybe some vanilla, either chopped walnuts or chopped roasted almonds, a little honey for sweetness and then whatever seasonal fruit we can get, usually strawberries.
Now, here's the big cooking secret for that perfect oatmeal. Most directions on any package or box of either steel cut or rolled oats tells you to bring the water to a boil and then add the oats. Unfortunately, that's the wrong way to do it because it produces an oatmeal that is flaky. In other words, the individual oats never blend together and they are separate little flakes sitting right there in your bowl. The secret is to put the water in your pan and then immediately add your oats before you even turn on the stove. Bam! Perfect oatmeal.
We buy rolled oats in large 7 gallon buckets and if you are using rolled oats as we are, you can even let them sit in the water for about 5 minutes before you start to heat it up. That way your oats are absorbing the water and start to get soggy, then when the water heats up you get creamy delicious oatmeal instead of the flaky kind.
There, now it's no big secret how you can get the perfect oatmeal. The kind you cook on your stove will be a lot healthier than the instant packaged kind that is full of sugar, preservatives and other natural flavorings which are really disguised and hidden MSG. Make it real and enjoy!
