Just the word “oatmeal” can evoke strong memories. It takes me back to a childhood bowl of apple-cinnamon instant oats. Warming and soothing, it fortified me enough to go out into the cold to school.
But oats can be so much more if you just explore and experiment a little bit. In this book, I will show you that you can make a meal out of oats any time of the day or night. You’ll be amazed by oat recipes that go way beyond adding hot water to a brown packet of instant oats.
Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with instant oats. I even have a recipe for making your own here. I just want to open your mind to all the surprising opportunities that are waiting inside the oats in your pantry. Think outside the carton, and make your own plain or flavored nondairy milk from oats for a thick, rich and cheap alternative. You can make it in minutes with rolled oats or within a half-hour with steel-cut oats. There are warm breakfast oatmeals for the winter and oat smoothies and overnight refrigerator oatmeal that are healthy but really taste like dessert. Make sure to try my favorite Petit Portion Banana Pudding Overnight Oats here!
Make your own pantry staples for last-minute meals and treats like soy-free, gluten-free and oil-free nondairy chez powder, golden gravy mix and even an instant hot chocolate. You’re almost saving money as you read this introduction! There are oatmeal sausage crumbles that are no more processed than their steel-cut oat base. Soups made creamy with puréed oats, hearty stews and a tasty Indian dal and oat roti, are included so you can travel around the world with your oats in hand. With recipes ranging from Oat-chata to Oats-bury Steaks, I am positive you’ll find something your whole family will love.
Oats fit in well to most special diets with one caution: If you have celiac disease or another condition that requires you to eat gluten-free, always buy oats that are clearly marked “gluten-free.”
While oats are naturally gluten-free, they are often cross-contaminated with other grains that do contain gluten during harvesting, transportation or storage. Some mills, such as Bob’s Red Mill, have a separate packaging division to ensure that there is no cross-contamination.
I have noted on recipes where you can use substitutions to make a recipe gluten-free. I do my best to point out which ingredients you need to check for gluten, but please don’t limit yourself to only checking the ones noted, because brands constantly change their ingredient lists. What is gluten-free at this time may not be in a few months. That’s why it’s best to buy products that are clearly labeled “gluten-free.”
Soy curls are a great substitute for seitan and are not only gluten-free but are minimally processed as well. They are basically cooked soybeans that are squashed and dried, producing a great product that has a texture similar to seitan when reconstituted.
While plain tempeh is naturally gluten-free, you have to watch out for mixed grain or flavored varieties that could add gluten to the mix. If you have a food allergy, you can never read labels too much!
Most of the recipes are naturally soy-free. Obviously, if you are soy-free, you won’t be choosing soy milk to use as your nondairy milk of choice. Tofu, soy curls and tempeh are used sparingly in this book but are also out-of-bounds if you want to stay soy-free for health or allergy reasons.
Use seitan or chickpeas in place of tofu, soy curls or tempeh to adapt recipes to your dietary needs.
In The Engine 2 Diet, Joel Fuhrman, MD, John McDougall, MD and Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, all encourage a plant-based diet with no oil added. My recipes are already low in fat and most can be made without oil with a few simple modifications.
Please note that the words “oil-free” and “oil-free options” throughout the book refer to items with no added oil. There may still be whole food ingredients that contain fat, like nuts, tofu or avocados.
A few changes in traditional cooking make it simple to live this lifestyle. For instance, it’s easy to sauté in water or broth instead of using oil, and using nonstick sauté pans is great for toasting spices with no oil. You can also cover traditional baking pans with parchment paper if you don’t have nonstick ones. For any of the sweet recipes that call for olive oil or coconut oil, applesauce, pumpkin or date purée can be used instead. The end result will not be exactly the same, but it will still taste good!
For more ideas on no-oil-added modifications, I highly recommend Susan Voisin’s site, Fatfree Vegan Kitchen (www.fatfreevegan.com).
Sweeteners are always a hot topic, and with new sweeteners popping up all the time, it can be confusing. This is one of the reasons why I allow using the sweetener of your choice in so many recipes. Just make sure to taste as you go along and add a little at a time. This way, depending on what you are using, you’ll stop before it gets too sweet or bitter. Depending on the recipe, you may also have to add more liquid if you are using a dry sweetener, or a little less if you are using a liquid sweetener.
My favorite combination to use is mostly stevia with a little agave nectar. I find that stevia sweetens but lacks that round mouth feel of processed sugar. A touch of agave nectar seems to fix that for me. There are a ton of different brands of stevia, and some are quite bitter. I used NuStevia brand for these recipes but Monika, one of my testers, loves Pyure. The trick to using stevia is to add it in increments of ⅛ of a teaspoon, tasting until it is where you want it to be. It may seem like overkill, but once a batter is bitter, there is no going back. The more you use a particular brand of stevia, the easier it will be to judge the amount you need to use.
I have provided nutritional information for most of the recipes as a guideline. If you make one of the options or, for instance, use plain nondairy milk in place of unsweetened, it will change the nutritional information. Also the nutritional information provided for homemade oat milks, creamers and other recipes that require straining out the oats will vary according to how thoroughly the oats are strained out. This depends on the strength of your blender.
There will also be discrepancies because of brands, diet choices and the use of alternative options. Please use the nutritional information as a guideline and not as an absolute. When you make oat milk and other drinks, one thing to note is the huge range of pulp you may have left over. I usually have ½ to 1 cup (120 to 240 g), while a few of my testers had almost none. This has to do with a number of factors, but blending for a long time in a high-speed blender results in less pulp to strain out. That may seem good, but it also increases the calories. In anticipation of this, I have determined the nutritional information for the beverages using all of the pulp so you are already looking at the highest counts. To get an exact count, you’d have to get a food scientist to test each batch you make.
If you have a medical condition where you need to keep track of specifics for your health, please use your normal food-tracking program, and use the brands or substitutions that you require.
Please note that all the oats people eat have the hull or inedible outer layer removed. All of the various oats listed below that are used whole have about the same nutritional profile, so whether you’re using long-cooking groats or instant oats, you can feel good about whatever fits your life the best.
Oat groats are what you get after the hull is removed and before any other kind of processing happens. These take the longest of all the oats to cook. They have a nutty taste and a texture much like barley or farro. My favorite cooking method is to use a slow cooker since they take a long time to cook on the stove. However, if you want to cook them on the stove or in the oven, you can speed up the cooking process by soaking them overnight first. Oat groats can be hard to find in a traditional grocery store, but you should be able to find them at your local co-op, health food store or order them online.
(Also known as Irish or Pinhead Oats)
STOVE-TOP COOKING TIME: 20 to 25 minutes
These are whole oat groats that have been cut into two or three tiny pieces each with a sharp steel blade. These cook faster than oat groats but take about twice the time of rolled oats.
Steel-cut oats mimic other whole grains such as Arborio rice or millet. Their chewy texture lends itself to making a great pilaf or risotto. They also make a great breakfast in the slow cooker because they take longer to cook than rolled oats. This means they can cook all night while you are asleep! Never use rolled oats in place of steel-cut oats in the slow cooker without making major cooking time and liquid changes or you will wake up to mush instead of the oatmeal you were expecting.
(Sometimes referred to as Scottish Oats, Quick-Cooking Steel-Cut Oats or Instant Irish Oats)
STOVE-TOP COOKING TIME: 10 minutes
These oats are stone-ground, which breaks them into pieces that vary in size. The larger pieces are almost the size of a small steel-cut oat piece, but the smallest is ground fairly fine like grits or coarse flour. Because it’s crushed into a meal, this is what the British call oatmeal. They call rolled oats, which Americans call oatmeal, porridge. In Scottish oats, those large chewy bits blend in with the creamier small pieces to create something unique.
It is a bit confusing to have stone-ground oats labeled “steel-cut” or “Irish oats”, but with the rising popularity of steel-cut oats, it’s good marketing to make whole oats easier for busy people to use. Just know that while you do get some of the chewiness that somewhat mimics steel-cut oats from the larger oat bits, if the oats are ground, then they are not really steel-cut. This means they will cook faster than steel-cut oats.
These can be hard to find, but you can order them online at Bob’s Red Mill.
To make rolled oats, whole oat groats are steamed, smashed flat by heavy rollers and then lightly toasted. While thick rolled oats exist, all of the recipes that call for rolled oats in this book will work just fine with regular rolled oats, which are usually cheaper.
Rolled oats cook the fastest. Processing rolled oats into even smaller pieces creates instant oatmeal. Rolled oats are super easy to find and are often on sale, so make sure to always have some in your pantry!
These are made using the same process as regular rolled oats, except they are either rolled thinner, steamed longer or both. Instant oats are also ground to create a super-fast cooking oat. There’s nothing wrong with using these quick cooking oats. No matter how you fit oats into your diet, you’ll reap the benefits.
Be sure to look at the recipe to get started making your own instant oats at a fraction of the cost of buying it pre-made at the store!
This is finely ground oats. You can buy it pre-ground or just whirl some up in your blender as you need it for a fresh and cheaper alternative. Whenever oat flour is called for, you can use homemade.
Eating oats daily can lower bad cholesterol, help control high blood pressure and maintain your blood glucose level, all while making you feel fuller for longer. That’s not too bad for one of the cheapest foods on your grocer’s shelf!
The soluble fiber in oats works on your cholesterol while the insoluble fiber keeps your digestive track running smoothly. It’s a pretty amazing food. Oats have manganese, phosphorus, zinc, selenium and iron, all of which help support your immune system, bones, connective tissues and red blood cell production. This makes them especially good to eat when you’re sick.
If you’ve ever had poison ivy or chickenpox, you have probably soaked in an oatmeal bath made with colloidal oats. Colloidal may sound fancy and expensive, and if you buy the special bath soaks you’d certainly think it would cost a fortune to make. You can make your own for pennies by using a coffee or spice grinder, however. When oats are ground extremely fine, they become water-soluble and dissolve away in your bath. Check out the Soothing Lavendar Oat Bath Soak recipe here!
Since this is a book all about oats, I thought I’d give you a primer of basic cooking methods to experiment with. I use each of these methods in the included recipes.
This method is great for oat groats and steel-cut oats. I love waking up to a ready-to-eat breakfast, so I use this method almost every day in the winter. In a 1½ to 2-quart slow cooker, add ½ cup (80 g) of steel-cut oats and 2 cups (475 g) of liquid, then cook on low for 7 to 9 hours.
Slow cooking breaks down the oats more than any other cooking method, so don’t expect the oatmeal to be chewy when cooked this way. For this reason, I rarely cook savory steel-cut oats in the slow cooker.
With the exception of instant, all of the oat varieties can be cooked on the stove. It freezes well, too, so you can cook a week or two in advance on a weekend prep day. The ratios to make 2 to 3 servings are below. You can always double or triple to make a larger batch.
For each of the options below, bring the oats and liquid to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer for the amount of time listed.
OAT GROATS: 1½ cups (355 ml) liquid to ½ cup (80 g) oats. Cook for 60 minutes.
STEEL-CUT OATS: 1½ cups (355 ml) liquid to ½ cup (80 g) oats. Cook for 20 minutes.
STONE-GROUND OATS: 1½ cups (355 ml) liquid to ½ cup (80 g) oats. Cook for 10 minutes.
ROLLED OATS: 1 cup (235 ml) liquid to ½ cup (80 g) oats. Cook for 10 minutes.
QUICK OATS: 1 cup (235 ml) liquid to ½ cup (80 g) oats. Cook for 5 minutes.
As with stove-top cooking, all of the oat varieties—except for instant—can be cooked in the oven. Here’s the ratio to make 6 to 8 servings. You can always double or triple to make a larger batch. This method freezes well, too.
Bake at 350°F (177°C).
STEEL-CUT OATS: 4 cups (945 ml) liquid to 1½ cup (240 g) oats. Cook for 50 to 60 minutes.
ROLLED OATS: 2½ cups (590 ml) liquid to 2 cups (320 g) oats. Cook for 30 to 45 minutes.
I have to admit that I’m not in love with microwaves, but our new house has one built into the cabinets, so I do have one in the house now. If you are making your oats at work, you may have no other choice. The measurements below make 1 serving.
SCOTTISH: ¾ cup (175 ml) liquid to ¼ cup (40 g) oats. Cook on high heat for 3 minutes.
ROLLED: 1 cup (235 ml) liquid to ¼ cup (40 g) oats. Cook on high heat for 3 minutes.
QUICK OATS: 1 cup (235 ml) liquid to ½ (80 g) cup oats. Cook on high heat for 2 minutes.
Be aware that for instant oats, you just need to add hot water and let it sit for 3 minutes. This means you can heat the water any way you please!