It is a health fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Whether you are on a weight loss diet or just trying to keep yourself healthy, eating a good breakfast is one key to achieving your health goal. One of the most common breakfast meals is the oatmeal. Many keep a pouch or a box of oatmeal in the fridge, as this is an economical meal compared to other breakfast food like cereals. It is healthy, delicious, and always easy to prepare. Although instant oatmeal is available, you can also make fantastic Quaker oatmeal with these simple steps.
Make sure you have all the needed ingredients and cooking utensils
To make fantastic Quaker oatmeal, you need fresh or dried fruits, quick-cooking oatmeal, water, a saucepan and a ladle.
Put the fruits that you prepared into the pan
Chop the fruits and put them in a pan. Put enough water in it and put the pan on medium heat. One big piece of fruit is already enough; however, you may cook a variety of fruits according to your liking. If you wish to add dried fruits like prunes and raisins, that is also possible. Cook the fruits for five to ten minutes.
Add spices
Spices are great addition to your oatmeal; so if you are adding some, you can choose from nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon. Spices are optional though so don’t worry if you have none of these.
Boil enough water
While the fruits are cooking, put a kettle on boil and measure how much oatmeal you are cooking. If you are only cooking for yourself, just measure one-third to one-half cups of oatmeal. Otherwise, you can add more if other members of the family would like to eat oatmeal for breakfast.
Put in the oatmeal
As soon as the fruits are cooked, take the pan off the heat to add the oatmeal. Mix the oatmeal into the fruits briskly. And then put sufficient hot water from the kettle to soften the oatmeal until the whole mixture becomes a chunky liquid.
Simmer the oatmeal mixture
In the instruction label, it is written that the oatmeal gets cook after 5 minutes of being submerged in hot water. However, leaving it to simmer for 20 to 30 more minutes will make it creamier and tastier. So, put the saucepan under low simmer, stir the oatmeal briefly, and cover it. After 30 minutes, each rolled oats will mix into a great pottage. Just before serving it, stir the oatmeal for 5 minutes.
Add sweetener
Like the spices, putting sweetener is optional. To add taste to your oatmeal, you can put salt and sugar. However, if there are already lots of fruits in your oatmeal, it will already taste sweet so adding sugar may not be a good idea.
Finally, serve the cooked oatmeal
If you are serving the oatmeal to other eaters, you can serve it in bowls and with separate containers for sugar. You can also serve milk and cream in different containers. Finally, top your oatmeal with nuts, berries, sliced banana or prunes.
Serving hearty breakfast meal is one good way of starting your day right. So when buying your groceries always remember to buy your favorite ingredients for fantastic Quaker oatmeal. Just so you don’t get over used to eating oatmeal, you can alternate this with other breakfast meal like toast, fruits and other cereal products.