Sounds about right. In the show, he has a big ol’ Crockpot
half-full of oatmeal, so it would probably feed >= four people.
Small crockpot + timer + oats = Breakfasty goodness!
Speaking of Porridge, anybody ever hear from him/her? Sorry for the aside, just wondering.
MarkB
I lean towards the more granola types of cereal. I also love steel-cut oats. Pair that with a slice of multi-grain bread topped with peanut butter, banana slices, and a drizzle of honey, then you got a great morning start.
No, I meant that porridge is the ONLY hot cereal in the UK, this girlie Coco Wheats and such are not to be endured.
I wondered that myself.
Maybe I’ll try steel milled oats to see the difference.
I’m the only one in our house who likes porridge. So I have to make it just for me (and the occasional unsuspecting visitor, ha ha!).
I use a chinese teacup as a measure. It holds 400ml.
In a small saucepan I put one chinese cup of rolled oats. I use Jordans, but generic rolled oats are fine. If I’ve been in Scotland or near a Wholefood shop, then pinhead oatmeal is GREAT! But normally I have none.
To this I add two and one half measures of water - i.e. 1000 ml.
Add a pinch of salt & bring it to the boil. While I’m doing this I feed the toaster. Two or three different kinds of homemade bread, and maybe a pikelet or a pancake. Or a crumpet. By this time the porridge has boiled, so it goes down onto the lowest heat. And the toaster is set (on four - lightly burn). Fill up the glass with orange juice, find the butter and jam, and the toast pops up. Turn off the heat under the porridge. Butter the toast. Add jam to taste. Pour the porridge into a bowl and add milk.
Rovery!
And if it takes longer than five minutes, something has gone seriously wrong.
But when I wor a lad, I sometimes had Weetabix with hot milk. In emergencies (like when we had run out of porridge).
When discussing breakfast cereals and porridge comes up, ask not what’s in it but ask what’s not in it. No wheat for a start. You could be eating wheat cereal for breakfast, a butty for lunch and pasta for tea. Too much wheat there. No added sugar, no spray-on vitamins and no salt. Proprietary cereals contain all these things except for pure wholewheat cereals such as shredded wheat (I’d rather tuck into a portion of coconut matting). Porridge contains oats and whatever liquid you’ve added. I prefer half skimmed, half water. No salt despite what hard-bitten Scots may tell you. If you use pinhead oatmeal you’ll have to remember to soak it for hours first. Easiest thing is just to buy a box of organic oats that you like the taste and texture of. Mornflakes are good and cheap, though the texture is rather fine. For a coarser texture I like Morrisons’ organic oats. Whatever, all you have to do is to use twice as much liquid volume as oat volume, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir like crazy unless you are partial to burnt pans and odd-tasting porridge. Add a bit of honey or sugar if you like, to taste. Not ideal but very tasty and you won’t be getting anywhere near as much sugar as with Sugar Puffs. Oats lower your cholesterol level (if you worry about such things) and enough fibre to keep your bowels going like a well-oiled machine.
For my money there’s nothing like Coco Puffs. All the chocolate and none of that healthy stuff. When I want a healthy breakfast I go for shreaded wheat, mostly the ones with the coating of sugar on the top. When I was small, back in the 50’s, my mother would never buy any sugary cereal like Corn Puffs or Frosted Flakes. We had Cheerios or Corn Flakes. So we added our own sugar - so much that when the cereal was done there was plenty of sugar to scrape off the bottom of the bowl. That may be part of the reason I have so many fillings in my teeth. That and the fact that I missed flouridation of the water by a few years.
I found Flanahan’s microwaveable oat porridge in a local Irish import store. I believe it tastes better than your standard Quaker rolled oats but I’m not a conoiseur.
Mike
Warning/disclaimer: oatmeal made by the Quaker oat company has no present or historic connection to the Religious Society of Friends (commonly called Quakers).
That said, I remember reading somewhere years ago that oats and rice were the most widely-available foods in the world.
Never had the pleasure of 30-minute oats… and here I thought “Old-Fashioned” was closer to less processed. Well, it sorta is…
The Weekender makes the oatmeal stovetop, adds blueberries (raisins if outta bb), chopped walnuts, a bit o’ salt, then once cooked, douses it with real maple syrup and half-n-half. Would use cream if we kept it around…
What really complements it and wrecks the overall health is a slice or two of apple-smoked bacon…
Cuppa jo and away we go.
Bacon need not be regarded as unhealthy. If grilled it is low in fat. It is a rich source of Vitamin B12 as well as other vital nutrients. The thing to do is to avoid mass-produced pap that has not been properly cured but injected with brine. When you fry this inferior stuff you see this horrible milky liquid coming out. Buy traditional dry-cured bacon made from outdoor-reared pigs. If the person selling it to you (or the pack) can’t tell you if it’s dry-cured, it isn’t. Personally I prefer bacon fried with all its fat left on, and I regard streaky bacon to be superior to back bacon for flavour. I’m the first to admit that this is less healthy than trimming and grilling, but how often do you have such a treat!
Unless you happen to be the pig involved, then it is lethal.
I think your bacon is different from our bacon in the fat department.
British and Irish bacon
American bacon (Judging from the amount of lean, this is the good stuff. The budget brands only have little tiny streaks of lean.)
But it’s still tasty.
What is this breakfast cereal you speak of? Does it have fried eggs in it?
Actually, dearest, I only give the brand recommendations so you can see what it’s supposed to look like and, if you live in an oatmeal-deprived area, be able to eat something.
I buy mine in bulk from the natural foods store here for around .69 a pound for organic, then I freeze it. It still comes from Bob’s Red Mill, it’s just in bins.
Oatmeal IS the god of all foods, including solid. Mine is a solid, after all.
I mean the regular Kroger kind of grocery stores, not the Whole Foods kind, which we don’t have. I’ve never even seen the Quaker steel cut. But the Bob’s site does list a co-op nearby, so maybe I’ll wander in there the nex time I run out. Thanks.
Nope, we have both those. The second photo is what I referred to as streaky bacon. The other stuff we call back bacon. People like it because of the large piece of lean, but it isn’t as tasty as streaky in my view. Bake 6 decent-sized organic spuds in oven in their jackets and allow to cool. Take 12oz streaky bacon. Smoked or unsmoked, take your pick (smoked is nice). Cut into one-inch bits and dry-fry till almost crispy. Strain off fat (use to fry eggs tomorrow). Grate 8oz of strong cheddar cheese. Slice top off each spud and scoop the insides into a mixing bowl. Add cheese, bacon and a good dose of coarsely-ground black pepper and mix. Stuff mixture back into jackets. Place on baking tray and bake at 170 degrees (celsius) for 25 minutes. Serve to self and loved one with baked beans. Your bond will be further cemented. Any good bacon (by which I mean dry-cured and from properly-raised outdoor pigs) is very nice just plainly cooked and eaten with broad beans and mashed potatoes. Heinz organic tomato ketchup goes with this brilliantly.
Well I’m probably going to keep on about bacon for a bit so start a veggie thread if you like.
Yours lustily,
Steve
If we didn’t eat pigs we wouldn’t breed pigs or even keep the species around. The pig was born to be eaten by us. Be thankful we let it live for a while. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! 
Take yer taydees ‘n’ boil ‘em up the night before, with or without skins as you choose. Cut into quarters. Refrigerate over night. Next morning, fry up 6-8 strips of side (streaky) bacon. Remove bacon from pan full o’ grease. Cut taydees into 1" cubes. Drop cubes into grease at high heat and fry 'em to death. Add a couple very thick slices of tomato to fry at the same time. Check refrigerator. Surely there must be something else in here we could fry. Hmm … couple slices of bread. Damn, no sausages left. I wonder how a couple of spoonfuls of oatmeal porridge would do …
djm