I actually don’t even like oatmeal, but it’s a very easy “real food” meal that both of my daughters happen to LOVE. They love it so much that my 1st grader takes oatmeal to school as her snack every single day and my preschooler sometimes takes it as part of her lunch (in a Thermos to keep it warm). Apparently a lot of people use water to make their oatmeal, but our secret is milk. I feel the same way about hot chocolate, too. Forget the water…use milk! At the start of our budget pledge last year I tried making oatmeal with water as a cost saving measure and my 6-year-old would have nothing to do with it. I didn’t even tell her anything was different I just served it like I normally do, and she knew immediately that something was wrong. And she wouldn’t eat it either. So after more than a year of playing around and tweaking our oatmeal recipe just the way my kids like it I thought I would share.
Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup milk any variety will do but we use whole milk at our house
- 1/2 cup oats rolled (I get ours out of the bulk bins at Earth Fare)
- 1 dash cinnamon
- drizzle honey
- pure vanilla extract
- raisins (good with nuts on top, too)
Instructions
- In a small pot over high heat warm up the milk.
- As soon as the milk starts to bubble drop in the oats, stir once, and turn the heat down to low.
- Let the oats simmer for 2 – 3 minutes. You can stir it a couple times if you’d like.
- Once the oats have soaked up most of the milk add the vanilla, honey, cinnamon, raisins, and mix everything together. Take off the heat and serve or store for later in a Thermos.Tip: My daughters like their oatmeal a little “soupy” so I usually try to catch it before all of the milk has been absorbed by the oats. You could also add a little extra cold milk at the end, which will help cool it down for little ones as well.
