Remember Me When This You Chew

Hey,
I'll be offline for a few days after I have my surgery tomorrow, oops, no, it's now today, in about, ---shiver--- eight hours, I ought to be walking into the operating room... Hopefully, I'll be back by the weekend with a big scar on my abdomen and a few ruminations on body image since I think I'll be pretty obsessed with mine for awhile. Why not share the joy????

BTW, Cinthia (possibly the only person who actually reads this regularly) asked for my oatmeal recipe and I'm excessively glad to oblige, because, well, you already knew I was unbalanced --- suffice it to say that I've made sure the freezer is full of food while I recuperate. If Fuzz and I can eat all of it, I'll be surprised.

Clear liquids, then if I'm lucky, soft food and jello for the next few days????? Euuuuuu.... I don't want to think about it, so I'll give you the background on how I came up with the oatmeal.

I’ve volunteered for years at a local soup kitchen. Don't tell me you're surprised that I would volunteer working with food. Almost 10 years ago, one of my jobs was to drive the inmates who were close to their parole date on supervised passes to work at the kitchen. Rich was one of them and one of our better cooks. His family was Lebanese, and the first thing he would do when we got to the kitchen was brew some deadly thick espresso and start making breakfast for the staff. Most days it was oatmeal, adding whatever was on hand, ending up with a fragrant mixture of rolled oats cooked in milk and water, with spices, nuts and fruit. I don’t remember if the cardamom, essential to this recipe, was his idea or mine, but I’ve always loved it in Indian sweets like Gajar-ka-Halvah, which has little to do with ground almonds, rather it’s shredded carrots cooked down in milk until nearly all the moisture has evaporated, leaving a naturally sweet spicy mass that can then be chilled and cut in squares. I use Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for halvah, but admittedly add much more raisins and toasted almonds than she does, plus some toasted coconut. I digress, back to the oatmeal...


When last winter I discovered how delicious (ie non gluey) steel cut oats were, I came up with this hybrid recipe. We eat it almost every day, because it has it all: chewy whole grains in the steel cut oats (think of brown rice kernels cut in half but with that great oatmeal scent), protein and healthy fat in the almonds, sweetness and tang from the raisins and dried cranberries, and the intoxicating aroma of cardamom (it really makes the dish) and other spices often used in Indian and Mid Eastern sweets. Steel cut oats and cardamom are easiest found (and usually cheaper in bulk) in health food stores, but the former is creeping into most large groceries. This recipe makes enough for 3 days of breakfasts for two. The molasses helps me cut back on the brown sugar I'm tempted to heap on top!

Mag’s-Nificent Oatmeal

4 ½ cups water
9 oz wt. (1 ½ cups) steel cut oats
½ tsp kosher (coarse) salt (less if you are using regular salt)
4 oz wt. (3/4 cup) each raisins and dried cranberries (or whatever dried fruit you like - my friend Marie didn’t have any dried cranberries so she added some fresh ones she had on hand, chopped apples would probably be great too)
½ tsp ground cardamom
big pinch each cinnamon & cloves
1 Tb. molasses or brown sugar (optional)
5 ½ oz slivered almonds (1 1/4 cups)


1. Bring water to boil in medium heavy bottomed pot. Add rest of ingredients, return to boil, then reduce heat to just above low. Cook uncovered, stirring 3 or 4 times, for 15 minutes. If oatmeal is really sticking, reduce heat or add a little more water. After 15 minutes, turn off heat, cover pot, and let stand for at least 10 minutes.

Serve immediately with milk/soy milk and your favorite sweet topping (optional, but who are we kidding, anyway?) or let cool completely and refrigerate until desired.

2. When cold, the oatmeal is firm enough to cut into wedges with a firm spatula. If reheating in bowls in microwave, one serving takes about 3 minutes on high, 2 servings about 4 minutes.