Instant Oatmeal Packets
This is an open ended recipe - make as many packets as you would like!

Ingredients:
old-fashioned oats
quick cooking oats
salt

Put 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats at a time in a blender or mini food processor and blend on high until broken apart and somewhat powdery. Set aside in a small bowl, and repeat procedure if you are making a bigger batch.

In each pint size freezer bag put:
1/4 cup quick cooking oats
2 Tbsp powdered oats
1 Tbsp dry milk, soy or rice milk powder or coconut cream powder
1/8 tsp kosher salt (if desired)

FBC method:
Add 3/4 cup near boiling water. Stir, seal tightly and put in a cozy for 5 minutes.

One pot method:
Bring 3/4 cup water to a boil, take off the heat and add in the dry ingredients. Stir well, cover tightly and let sit for a couple minutes.

Variations:

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal:
1 Tbsp sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 2 Tbsp diced dried apples.

Sweetened Oatmeal:
1 Tbsp sugar.

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Oatmeal:
1 Tbsp brown sugar and 1/4 tsp cinnamon.

Raisins and Brown Sugar Oatmeal:
1 Tbsp packed brown sugar and 1 Tbsp raisins.

Hippy Oatmeal :
2 Tbsp wheat germ and 1 Tbsp diced toasted pecans.

Peaches and Cream Oatmeal:
1 Tbsp full fat dry milk and 2 Tbsp diced dried peaches.

Confetti Oatmeal:
1 tsp decorative cake/cookie sprinkles.

S'More Oatmeal:
6 miniature marshmallows and 1 Tbsp chocolate chips.

Cookies and Cream Oatmeal:
1 crushed chocolate stuffed cookie and 1 Tbsp full fat dry milk.

PS: All can be done in an insulated mug as well.

Good recipies. This is called porridge on this side of the pond and is still a popular breakfast, at least in Scotland.

For a luxury version, substitute some condensed sweetened milk for the sugar and dried milk!

I love Walmart brand Maple and Brown Sugar oatmeal, and eat it cold.

You know it! We eat stove top oatmeal many days. It is very heart healthy and the oats are super cheap - I buy massive quantities at Costco, pennies per lb.I cook ours in light vanilla soy milk with cinnamon and brown sugar or maple syrup. Yum!

Took me many years to love oats, but I do now :-)

We make instant porridge for the trail all the time. Sometimes I bump it up nutritionally with some quinoa flakes, salba, oat bran, or wheat germ. Add some powdered Nido or powdered almond milk, nuts, and freeze-dried fruit and you are good to go. Honey, agave, or maple sugar are all wonderful sweeteners.

And I am half Scottish... I can totally hear my Mom saying that this isn't porridge. She eats Scottish oatmeal which is a fine grind and not a rolled oat. A teeny bit of salt is added when cooking and it is served with milk and not sweetener. I often wonder if her omission of sugar has anything to do with being a young girl during the Depression and WWII. I could never eat it without a little sugar.

Edited by Laurie_Ann on 02/24/2011 17:22:19 MST.

Instead of adding sugar plus a flavor, I just add a spoonful of dark molasses.

A Scot can't go far without porridge of steel-cut oats.

--B.G.--

Powdered almond milk, found in Asian grocery stores, is usually not dairy free so YMMV if using it to avoid dairy. It is usually sweetened as well.

I don't understand the concept of instant oats. Regular "old fashioned" oats cook up perfectly well by FBC and the texture is so much nicer. It does work better if you dissolve the salt in the water instead of mixing it with the oats - prevents bland oatmeal punctuated by hits of brine. We add flax seed meal and dried or freeze dried fruit to ours.

Edited by WillWeb on 02/25/2011 07:11:46 MST.

Yeah, I prefer Old Fashioned to Instant

I'm not into putting hot water in plastic bags

I boil water, add oats and stir with burner still on, put on lid, turn off burner, let sit 5 minutes.

I put oatmeal, powdered milk, sugar, and salt into thin plastic bags from produce section of grocery store, tie loose knot with plastic.

Not into raisins and other stuff in my oatmeal.

Those packets of instant oats - just gives me the feeling it's floor sweepings or something.

Rinse out pot with a bit of water. Maybe add a little more water and use my fingers at a couple places and rinse. Then use pot to make coffee.

Even if there's a tiny bit of food residue left, it doesn't matter, because the next time I use it I'll boil water which disinfects.

Ah but why would you buy a commercially dried product when you can dehydrate almond milk beautifully?

This is from my second book... but basically all a vegan or non-lacto vegetarian has to do is buy favorite non-dairy brand of unsweetened pure almond milk or sweetened vanilla almond milk or make their own from ground almonds. Dry the milk on a lined dehydrator tray at 135°F until it is thoroughly dry and then grind it into a powder. If you don't have liners with a lip then you can simply fashion one by curling up the edges of parchment paper so that the liquid doesn't run off.

It comes back beautifully in hot or cold water, is great in oatmeal, terrific in trail smoothies, and absolutely decadent in hot chocolate or coffee.

The brand I use for dehydrating does contain minute traces of soy but there are brands that don't have soy if that is something one is avoiding. It is also lactose and casein free, Kosher, and vegan.

You would be surprised how many people have never had oatmeal outside of commercially made packets of instant.

Now at home...I do this for 3 servings:
3 cups light vanilla soy milk (or low-fat dairy milk)
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oat
1/4 cup raisins or cranberries (sometimes left out)
1/4 brown sugar, packed
4 ounce tub stage 2 baby applesauce or 1 single serving tub applesauce (unsweetened)
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Bring everything to a boil, lower to medium-low and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. I let it sit for a couple minutes to cool a bit and then serve.

If I leave out the raisins I top it with banana diced up.

If you add the oats in at the start they break down and get creamy, versus adding them in when the liquid boils. I prefer mine cooked in a milk over water, way more flavor and a lot creamier as well!

This recipe was featured in Washington Trails Magazine in the January/February 2011 issue - Kirk and I have a column we write, Trail Eats, for them.

Carrot Cake In A Bowl
• 1⁄2 c old fashioned oats
• 2 T diced dried carrots
• 3 T brown sugar
• 2 T raisins
• 2 T dry milk
• 1⁄4 t ground cinnamon
• 1 ds salt
• 2 T shredded coconut
At home:

Whirl the oats in a blender until about 1/3 of the original size. Put them in a quart freezer bag. Process the carrots in the same manner, adding them to the bag along with the other dry ingredients.

In camp:

Bring 1 1/4 cups water to a boil in your pot. Add in the dry ingredients; stirring well and let come back to a boil. Take off the stove, cover tightly and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir well and top with coconut.

Notes:
For a less strong carrot taste only use 1 Tablespoon.

This is from MY book #2 (release date TBD) Proportions are for a weekend warrior type. Double or triple amounts as needed.

Photo is mass production for thrus last year. I think I tripled the recipe for each packet.



Carrot Cake Oatmeal
Serves 1

1 packet plain instant oatmeal
1 1/2 tablespoons dried carrots
1 tablespoon raisins
1 tablespoon powdered milk
1 teaspoon brown sugar (or more, to taste)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

At home: combine all of the dry ingredients in a zip locking plastic bag.

In camp: Add 2/3 cup boiling water to oatmeal (or more if you like a thinner cereal.)

Edited by dicentra on 02/25/2011 10:21:20 MST.

This is the season I love. This is when the creative recipe geniouses get on a roll and try these trail recipes out on us. Keep up the good work.

--B.G.--

Not at all meaning to dispute the great ideas here, but FWIW ...

With the packet you can just open it up, pour in some cold water, stir a bit, and just eat it directly. The best ones for this are the "X and cream" flavors (where X = peaches, strawberries, blueberries or whatever). Lots of sugar in those, and likely various artificial ingredients, and it feels to me like the packets contain less oatmeal than they used to (?), but it's still a quick and easy way to "eat oatmeal" without cooking.

And not just for breakfast, one or more such packets make a nice trail-side snack.

Brian....the main reason I gave up the packets was the sodium content and then the ingredients :-(

"Lots of sugar in those, and likely various artificial ingredients, and it feels to me like the packets contain less oatmeal than they used to"

I concluded that my stomach merely takes more than it used to.

--B.G.--

Laurie, you're a genius. I've never thought of dehydrating and grinding my rice and almond milk, but that's brilliant. Vegan hot cocoa on the trail , here I come!

For on-the-trail creaminess, I've always used coconut cream, the kind that comes in a block and can be grated onto whatever you are cooking to add a little coconuttiness: http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Do-Organic-Creamed-Coconut/dp/B00113ZZ5U Amazon is way expensive; I can buy it for less than than a third of the big A's list price at my locally-owned health food store :)

As for rolled oats vs quick oats... the epicure in me, of course, says that when it comes to oats, the thicker the better. But if it's convenience you're after, nothing beats quick oats. Buying those little packets, though, is a total waste of money IMHO. Way too much packaging for too little food. I take regular rolled oats, grind them to a reasonably fine texture, and throw some in combination of hemp protein, sunflower seeds, dried fruits and nuts, and granulated maple sugar or honey powder. I throw it all in a big sturdy freezer bag. At breakfast time, I mix up as much as I want with some water, then let it sit and soak while I take down camp, pack, etc. I've tried doing this with rolled oats, but the water takes considerably longer to absorb, and oftentimes feels like just eating raw oats (not that that's always a bad thing).

I eat a similar breakfast at home, using yogurt in place of the water and letting it soak overnight to make kickass muesli.

I have also used the overnight soak method while backpacking by bringing a small Lock n Lock airtight container: http://www.amazon.com/6PC-LUNCH-SET-LOCK-N-LOCK/dp/B00167VB04/ref=pd_sbs_k_4 These things aren't the most lightweight storage option, but they are the most leakproof I have found. I've mixed up some mean soak-while-you-hike tabouleh salads and the like in these.

Edited by lapedestrienne on 02/26/2011 10:05:41 MST.

Kate,
You can get vegan rice milk powder. No need to dry it!

And yeah, those bars of coconut are good. I have found with Amazon that if they are the one delivering it (fulfilling) the prices are usually good, but with 3rd party sellers it is often better to shop regionally instead for better prices!

Yeah, I've used those "Better than Milk" type powders. I was more thinking about the surplus rice/almond milk I always have when I bother to make a batch at home. It doesn't freeze terribly well (curdles when thawed) and I can never get through it all before it starts to sour. I've even attempted some weird kefir experiments with it that aren't worth repeating... But sticking it in a dehydrator! Now there's an idea :)