With warmer weather coming up I make oatmeal a little more often.
It's not really a favorite at our house, and I haven't figured out how to cook exactly what we'll eat, so I always have leftovers. I have usually just tossed the leftovers out if we have dogs or cats to share with, but - well, we don't have dogs or cats any more and I don't want to encourage other dogs or coyotes to come around, so no more tossing it out. (If cats come around - which we welcome - we want them to eat any mice that might be lurking about.)
It's not really a favorite at our house, and I haven't figured out how to cook exactly what we'll eat, so I always have leftovers. I have usually just tossed the leftovers out if we have dogs or cats to share with, but - well, we don't have dogs or cats any more and I don't want to encourage other dogs or coyotes to come around, so no more tossing it out. (If cats come around - which we welcome - we want them to eat any mice that might be lurking about.)
It seems such a waste to throw it out, so I searched for recipes to use leftover oatmeal and found a few. Here are our findings and opinions of each:
These tasted fine, but seemed a little gluey for our liking. I don't suppose we will make these again, but we know someone out there likes them.
Some of us really liked these, others not so much. They were nice and soft. I thought they needed some nuts and even Craisins or other dried fruit in them, though I'm not really a fan of raisins.
Muffins here
These were crumbly but the flavor was okay. We thought we'd probably make them again if we had leftover oatmeal we needed to use ..., until we made the next recipe.
Chocolate Cake here
This was very moist (I love moist) and is a heavy cake rather than a light fluffy cake. Of course the chocolate chips made it delightful. One of our taste testers suggested that this cake reminded them of Costco's chocolate muffins.
The recipe calls for 1/3 cup applesauce, which I didn't have at the time, so I opened a can of pears and mashed them to use instead. It turned out great and was eaten very quickly. We did not frost it because it didn't seem to need any other sweetness or flavor to distract from what it was on it's own. This wins my vote - it's a great recipe for leftover oatmeal! We will use it again!
The recipe calls for 1/3 cup applesauce, which I didn't have at the time, so I opened a can of pears and mashed them to use instead. It turned out great and was eaten very quickly. We did not frost it because it didn't seem to need any other sweetness or flavor to distract from what it was on it's own. This wins my vote - it's a great recipe for leftover oatmeal! We will use it again!
Bread here
We didn't make this - don't have the bread flour and just don't want to make this recipe - but I may try to add leftover oatmeal to my own bread recipe ... someday. We'll see.
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Now, how about some flavored oatmeal cereal recipes?
Check out this site for a few ideas
or HERE for pumpkin oatmeal
And I also like to use apple juice instead of water and add chopped fresh apples and a couple shakes of cinnamon when you are cooking it. Add a bit of cream to your bowl of oatmeal and enjoy (I like cream with any oatmeal). Maybe someday I'll try some chopped nuts sprinkled on top.