Goatmeal

In my family, we often call foods by strange names. Bananas are called banjos due to Spiderman once misreading my poor handwriting on a shopping list. Potato waffles are called skiffles. Rice is called mice. There’s even field mice (brown) and lab mice (white). I can hear the vegan police knocking on my door because of an insensitive comment about animal testing and I’m sorry. There is nothing actually funny about animal testing. But mice is funny because it rhymes with rice.  Anyway, you get the idea. It all started when I was a wee nipper back at Cherokee Elementary school. I ordered a book called The Hungry Thing by Jan Slepian and Ann Seidler from Scholastic. It was the tale of this weird blobby creature who wore a sign that said “Feed me” and asked for food like Boop with a Smacker. It was fun trying to guess what the food actually was. For our readers at home: the answer was soup with a cracker. For years we called it that. I think my mum still does. So when I met the Amazing Spiderman we just kind of carried on the tradition. Hence the word Goatmeal for oatmeal. Let me assure the vegan police that no goats are harmed in the making of this food.

I like flavoured goatmeal. I used to like to buy the variety packs so you could choose different flavours. Instant goatmeal was a staple food for me at college. But when you read the labels of instant goatmeal there are often lots of hidden ingredients like way too much sugar and salt not to mention milk powder or whey. Whey is funny. A by product of the cheese industry, it is illegal to dump it in rivers because it can kill fish but perfectly acceptable to use at as a cheap filler in processed food. Go figure. This does not even take into account the packaging issues--all those individual bags lined with foil that can’t be recycled. So what’s a hungry Spidergrrl to do when she is craving some goatmeal-y goodness? Make her own of course!

 Instant Goatmeal a la Spidergrrl

You need some quick oats. Yeah, I can hear my step-dad now--Jamie I know steel cut oats taste better, but we’re going for quick and easy here.

Take out 1 cup of oats and whiz them in a blender until soft and powdery. This is your oat flour which will make it all creamy like porridge. Now I cheat on this bit. I buy something called Ready Brek that is basically whizzed up porridge oats that have been fortified with calcium and B 12 etc. I use this because it gives me a bit more nutrition. But the oat flour is cool too.

Get you a bunch of ziplock bags or containers or whatever you plan to store them in. Measure in your oats and sugar. The recipe I found online was:

¼ cup oats

2 TB oat flour

1 TB sugar

I personally like it half in half so I do:

3 TB oats

3 TB Ready Brek

1  TB sugar

My oats come with a scoop that is exactly 3 TB so it makes it easy. Now add your flavourings and label your bags and you’re ready to go!

Cinnamon Raisin

1 ½ TB raisins

¼-½ tsp cinnamon

Pinch allspice

Cranberry

1 TB dried cranberries

2 tsp desiccated (unsweetened) coconut

Tropical

1 TB dried mango

1 TB desiccated (unsweetened) coconut

Blueberry and Cream

1 TB dried blueberries

1 TB almond meal (ground almonds--look on the baking aisle)

Replace the TB sugar with 1 TB vanilla sugar

Chocolate Orange

1 TB orange infused raisins (I use Nak’d brand)

1 tsp dark chocolate chips

½ tsp cocoa powder

Then just add boiling water—more if you like it thinner, less if you like it thicker. That’s it! Instant goatmeal!

These are the flavours currently residing in my storage box. I make up 6 of each flavour, store in slide lock ziplocks and store in a large box. That way I’ve always got a choice of flavours. When I eat one I wipe out the bag and store it away until they’re all empty. Then I fill ‘em and start again. These are the flavours I like--what do you like? How do you eat your goatmeal?