Cooking and Eating Oatmeal

Having very high cholesterol (mostly due to liver disease), I was advised by the dietician to “eat oatmeal” which I do already.

I love oatmeal. Cheap, healthy, and you can do so much with it.

Of course, I now no longer eat it with butter and maple syrup on it.

I had run out of oatmeal, which is impressive since I buy it in 50 pound bags (the problem with that being — you get so used to it being there that you don’t realize you’re out until you’re out). There in the oatmeal aisle, while trying to find just plain oats, a lady asked me which brand I thought was best because her doctor told her to start eating oatmeal.

She was holding a box of flavored oatmeal packets, which to me are the silliest, unhealthiest, most expensive way to eat an otherwise frugal and healthy food. I mean, even my oatmeal with the maple syrup and butter is probably still better for you. So, we’re going to talk about how to cook oatmeal. At home. And add flavor.

I took this picture of the back nutritional information. Note, this has more “sugars” in it than my 90% chocolate bar that I’m so fond of.

a bar of 90% dark chocolate

from the box of oatmeal.

This was “coconut mocha” flavor, but oddly there is no coconut in it. Scary thought.

I explained to the nice lady at the grocery store how easy it was to make your own oatmeal. After all, all they are doing for you is measuring the oats for you (and adding a bunch of junk we probably don’t need in our bodies).

Most recipes say 1/2 cup of oats to 1 cup of water. I like mine thick and chewy so I make it 1 cup of oats to 1 cup of water. You might need to experiment with that measurement to get it just the way you like it. Cook for about a minute.

Ta-dah!

Most of the time, I just add cinnamon and a half a spoon of coconut oil to my oatmeal. Every now and then, though, I like to get fancy

Mocha Coconut Oatmeal

Okay, so if you want the taste of chocolate and coconut in there, here’s an easy and fairly healthy way to do this. There is some prep work, but usually I toast my coconut and chop the chocolate ahead of time, and store these in the fridge for easy use. If you put the coconut in a jar labeled “nutritional yeast” children tend to leave it alone .

chop up 1 square of 90% dark chocolate from Lindt ( buy these when the go on sale and there’s a coupon). This is my secret weapon for those days when I just need some chocolate.

by the way, one “serving” according to package is 4 squares…this is only 1 square…and only about 62 calories, with less than a gram of sugar. pretty cool, huh?
add 1 T of coconut oil

add about 2-3 T of coconut. I like my coconut toasted, which is easy to do. You can make extra and store it for later.

Just add enough UNSWEETENED coconut to cover the bottom of a pan. Heat over low heat, stirring often. Remove from eat when it smells good and starts to turn golden brown. Store toasted coconut in the fridge. (the sugary coated coconut in the baking aisle will burn if you try this)