mmm…. today for breakfast i had a bowlful of steel-cut oats and a slice of whole wheat and flaxseed bread that i’d baked yesterday. it felt just a little bit fancy even though it’s very elemental food. there’s nothing better than a bowl of warm oatmeal to warm up a chilly morning.
the first time i ate steel cut oats was at my cousin’s restaurant and i was blown away! no more mushy glop! but then i learned that they take 30 minutes to cook and i sort of sighed and resigned myself back to the one-minute-in-the-microwave packets. but the last time we went for groceries, i decided to go ahead and get them and try them out. so, yesterday morning, i made a large batch and they were delicious! nutty, wholesome, warm in my tummy… and the batch is plenty of oatmeal for breakfast every morning this week and–it heats up in about a minute in the microwave. :)
the bread is a lovely, dark, heavy recipe that i got from our pastor. i made two loaves–one in a bread pan and the other a free-form round loaf. i’m still tweaking the baking time and temp for my oven, so the round loaf turned out kind of yuk–the outside was done before the inside–but the one in the bread pan i left in a little longer but with the oven turned off and…it turned out ok! it’s a little crumby, but the flavor is nice. very nice with a little butter or jam.
the most amazing part is that i had time to make any of this at all this weekend. now if i could just find a gnome to wash my dishes….
