Loaded Oatmeal

The ingredients for my oatmeal.

For National Oatmeal Month, I’m sharing my oatmeal recipe. I love oatmeal and have it nearly every day in some form. No instant oatmeal for me – I use the old-fashioned rolled oats for all my recipes. I make oatmeal muffins, oatmeal cookies, oatmeal for breakfast and even oatmeal in my smoothies.

Many people want to eat oatmeal, but often tell me that when they do, they feel hungry a couple of hours later. Because oatmeal is mostly carbohydrates, of course one would feel hungry within a couple of hours. But to make a complete breakfast and help oatmeal “stick” with you longer, I tell people to have protein and fruit with it. I do that with my oatmeal – adding nuts and fruit and other healthy “stuff.”

SHELLEY’S LOADED OATMEALI spend about a ½ hour or less to make this each weekend making my oatmeal for the week. If you are making the fruit and nut mix, it takes a bit longer, since I put the nuts in the food processor, but it lasts several weeks and I store it in the freezer in a Ziploc bag. Making the five bowls of oatmeal takes less than 10 minutes on the weekend, and just a few minutes when you want to eat it.

Fruit and Nut Mix: these are the ingredients I use, but make it to your preference with dried cherries, blueberries, or other dried fruit and almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, whatever!

• 2 cups dried cranberries
• 2 cups raisins
• 2 cups chopped pecans
• 2 cups chopped walnuts

Mix these together, either in a large bowl or zip top bag.

Pre-made oatmeal bowls:

• 1¼ cups of the fruit and nut mix
• 2½ cups old-fashioned oatmeal (uncooked)
• 2½ tablespoons flax seeds
• 2½ tablespoons Chia seeds
• 5 tablespoons wheat germ
• 2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2½ – 5 cups milk (any type – fat free, 1%, soymilk) – you will use this when you are ready to eat it

In 5 reusable bowls with lids (I use Ziploc), place in each bowl ½ cup uncooked oatmeal, ¼ cup of the fruit and nut mix, ½ tablespoon flax seeds, ½ tablespoon Chia seeds, 1 tablespoon wheat germ, and ½ tablespoon cinnamon to each bowl. Cover with the lids and store in your pantry or freezer.

When you are ready to eat, add ½ – 1 cup of your favorite milk; you will need to experiment with this – start with the 1 cup and scale back as needed. I use light vanilla soymilk.

For HOT oatmeal, add the desired amount of milk and place it in the microwave for 2-2½ minutes. Adjust this to your microwave; mine takes 2:15 minutes. Add more milk if necessary to your liking. I use 2/3 cup for cooking and add the last 1/3 after cooking.

For COLD oatmeal, add the milk and let it sit for 5-15 minutes (or overnight). This is my modified version of Muesli, how they eat it in Germany/Switzerland.

Nutrition Facts using 1 cup light vanilla soymilk: 430 calories, 18 g fat (2 g saturated), 58 g carbohydrate, 9 g fiber, 20 g (mostly naturally occurring) sugar, 14 g protein, and only 120 mg sodium.

While this may seem like a lot of calories, it isn’t really, especially if you are eating this for breakfast. It is a perfect blend of carbohydrates (52%), protein (13%) and healthy fat (35%), and very filling that you will feel satisfied for several hours. It also make a good pre-race/event fuel; I’ve used it for my 1/2 marathons and bike rides over 50 miles.

My co-worker saw me eating this one day and asked me what it was. After I described it to her, she said, “That’s not oatmeal!” I took that as a compliment.