Good for you and tasty too!

Of course, now that warmer days (and thus, warmer mornings) are here, oatmeal may or may not be on your menu. However, in our house, oatmeal knows no season. My husband and my daughter can eat it all year round. I, have never been a huge oatmeal fan. I can recall, as a child, having more brown sugar than oatmeal in my bowl. But, no matter how much I added, it was never sweet enough. I dreaded cold, snowy mornings because I knew my mom would have a pot of oatmeal on the stove. She believed we should start those winter days with a breakfast that "sticks to your ribs." Well, it can't stick to my ribs if I can't bring myself to swallow it. I'm so not an oatmeal fan.

My husband prefers the little packets of oatmeal that are heavy on the sugar and light on the oatmeal. For health reasons, I have been trying to switch him over to the steel-cut oats. Until now, he's been a bit resistant. The man likes his over-processed, over-sugared, over-powdered oatmeal.

But, I have a recipe for oatmeal that is tasty enough to make a convert out of my husband and me! The beauty of this recipe is that the sugar and spices are added while it is cooking, not after you spoon it into your bowl. I think this makes it sweeter because the flavors get soaked into every little oat. So there's less sugar cancelling out all those benefits of the steel-cut oats.

Sweetly Spiced Steel-Cut Oatmeal:

1 cup steel cut oats

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 cup milk

Add oats, brown sugar, vanilla, and spices to 3 cups boiling water. Stir well and reduce heat to simmer. Cook 15 minutes.

Stir in milk. Cook 15 minutes more or until liquid has been absorbed by the oats and the mixture is creamy.

Top with fruit and nuts, if desired.

I hope if you try this oatmeal, you will agree that it's a tasty update to the plain-jane oatmeal of yesterday. Now, the weather channel is telling us that a big snowstorm is on the way. I better get in the kitchen and make another batch of oatmeal to fill us up and warm us up, just in case the weatherman is right!

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