Popular Porridges
Author Archives: Lauren Smith
Cardamom Vanilla Zucchini Oatmeal
This may look and sound like a simple recipe, and preparation-wise, it is. However, taste-wise . . . it is anything but.
For anyone who loves cardamom, this recipe offers something incredibly satisfying: warm porridge with unadulterated cardamom flavor. Considering the power of cardamom, this recipe, despite the neutrality of vanilla and zucchini, is anything but boring.
When I was making it, I originally conceived it as a simple base. To some extent, it is: you really can put a variety of toppings on this. For example, in these pictures I topped it with dried cranberries, walnut pieces, and chocolate nut butter. ? Although this welcomes many different toppings, it still holds up beautifully on its own.
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Everything You Need to Know to Make Homemade Granola Like a Pro
On this oat-centric blog, you may have noticed a massive absence: WHERE’S THE GRANOLA?!
Yes, in a blog of all things oats, the granola recipes are conspicuously absent. The thing is, I don’t like granola that much. Well, no, that’s not entirely true, either. It’s not that simple.
I never cared much for commercial (store-bought) granola. I never enjoyed granola and yogurt parfaits in restaurants or coffee shops. I found the granola flavorless, stale, and sad. (more…)
Jalapeno Popper Savory Oatmeal [Guest Post]
This recipe is the final of three savory recipes that won the Savory Oatmeal Contest. In case you missed them, here are Sarah’s Curried Pumpkin Basil Oatmeal and Lyndsey’s BBQ Sweet Potato Oatmeal.
My name is Joz Lee. Short story: When I got married, I did not know how to cook. My husband was a good cook and I learned from him. Then we traveled to different states and countries; wherever we traveled, I was involved in learning and participating in the FOOD. Then I had a chance to take a nutrition course and got certified. After that I fell in love with food. I find a new recipe and I follow it to a ‘T,’ and then I improvise, change, and often don’t measure out the ingredients! It almost always comes out perfectly.
Cheesecake Baked Oatmeal
I gave up on this recipe ages ago. As I mentioned in my Berry Cream Cheese Baked Oatmeal, I have been trying to master a cheesecake oatmeal since 2013! Now that I like the taste of Tofutti, and I’ve discovered the trick of adding zucchini, I figured it was time to try it again.
I think one thing hindering my progress was that my mom makes amazing cheesecake. Even though I haven’t had it since my vegetarian days, I still recall the creamy, tangy, sweet, rich flavor of those perfect cakes. Mommy, I miss your cheesecake!!! (more…)
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POSTED IN: baked oatmeal, berries, cherries, cream cheese, dessert lovers, toppings, veggies, zucchini
POSTED IN: baked oatmeal, berries, cherries, cream cheese, dessert lovers, toppings, veggies, zucchini
Applesauce Ancient Grains Oatmeal with Almond Butter and Cherry Jam
After falling in love with Purely Elizabeth’s 6-Grain Ancient Grain Cereal, I decided to work with it again, this time with two special ingredients. 1) almond butter, which costs an arm and a leg, and 2) cherry jam, which my friend bought me from Italy. 🙂
The title says applesauce, but you could also use stewed apples, grated apples, or diced apples–whatever floats your yacht. (more…)
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Baked Oatmeal
I have many seasonal recipes on “The List” that go unpublished every year. These ideas stay permanently unchecked on The List, waiting for its designated “food season” to make its big debut, but never seeing the light.*
*Because I’m lazy.
Such was the case with last year’s Peppermint Brownie Baked Oatmeal. I always wanted to make this during the holiday season, but it took multiple years to actually get it done.*
*Because I’m lazy.
Spiced Persimmon Oatmeal
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m really into persimmon lately. This hard-to-find fruit has edged its way into a few recipes lately, such as this Chai Spiced Pumpkin Oatmeal and Mango Persimmon Oatmeal. In addition, I eat a massive spinach and kale salad nearly every day, and it almost always includes diced persimmon.
The other inspiration for this post was frequent commenter Christine, who requested that I need to do more “5 ingredients or less” recipes. I concur! These recipes can sometimes be limiting, but I find they make great “bases” that people can take and run with, topping with whatever they want. (more…)
10 Tips to Come Up with Your Own Oatmeal Recipes
Many people comment, “I cannot believe all the things you can do with oatmeal!” or “And I thought I was being inventive by putting peanut butter on my oatmeal!”
The thing is, we can all be oatmeal artists (as cliché as it sounds). I became more innovative the more I played around with oatmeal. I may have an absurd amount of recipes here, but we all have our own personal tastes, so it’s worth taking the risk and trying your own artistry, even if that means just tweaking my recipes (or another blogger’s).
So if you need help developing your inner artist, here are some tips for getting started: (more…)
Savory BBQ Sweet Potato Oatmeal
This recipe is the second of three savory recipes that won the Savory Oatmeal Contest. In case you missed it, here is Sarah’s Curried Pumpkin Basil Oatmeal.
Hello, everyone! I am so excited that I was invited to share this delicious fall recipe with you. My name is Lyndsey, and I am sixteen years old. My hobbies include musical theatre, running, watching Grey’s Anatomy, and cooking up tasty recipes. I have a passion for nutrition and fitness, and aspire to become an endocrinologist in the future. For more background on me, and my obsession with all things oatmeal, you can read my post from when I was the Oatmeal Enthusiast in April 2014.
I love the fall. Digging out my boots from the back of my closet and seeing the pumpkin spice recipes gradually appear on my Pinterest feed fills me with an immense amount of glee. My favorite fall flavor would have to be the stereotypical pumpkin, which is closely followed by apple spice. However, when I am craving something a bit fancier than pumpkin, a tasty sweet potato is the perfect substitution.
For my entire life, I have never, EVER enjoyed ketchup. I much prefer the slightly sweet and spicy taste of barbecue sauce, which pairs great with homemade baked sweet potato fries 🙂 The other day, I was brainstorming a new savory oatmeal recipe. I knew I wanted to use up a sweet potato I had on hand, and I was having a major craving for barbecue sauce. So this recipe was born! It contains a creamy sweet potato and barbecue sauce base, and is topped with some more barbecue and some green onions. For some spice, an optional pinch of cayenne pepper is delicious! (more…)
Oatmeal Enthusiasts: Meet Charlotte A.!
Most of my Enthusiasts are found through the #oatmealartist tag on Instagram or the Oatmeal Artist Facebook page. However, Charlotte was a friend of mine before TOA. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, she even helped me name it! After posting several oatmeal recipes on my first blog, I told her that I thought I had “found my calling.” She agreed. I then threw out a million possibilities for new blog names, and she helped me narrow them down. So yeah, we go back. Anyway, recently Charlotte’s been telling me about all the oatmeal she has been eating, and I immediately began begging her to be my Enthusiast. 🙂
Hello! My name is Charlotte, and I love oatmeal. I first met Lauren online about 10 years ago because we were both massive fans of Sasha Cohen, and over the next 10 years we discovered many other common interests, the biggest of which is that we both have careers involved in education, and both absolutely love food – oatmeal in particular. I remember the earliest days of Lauren’s blogging, before she created The Oatmeal Artist, and I remember the early days of The Oatmeal Artist as well. Watching it become a huge success has been a lot of fun, and I am so incredibly proud of her!
I can’t remember the first time I tried one of her recipes, but I know it was when she was still writing that earlier blog, and I remember being amazed by her ingenuity. As she transitioned over to The Oatmeal Artist, I began trying her ever-increasing variety of recipes on and off throughout the years. I started telling all my college friends to look up The Oatmeal Artist and try her recipes whenever they were lamenting their inability to make decent breakfast food. I remember that many of them would laugh, and then come back a few days later to tell me how utterly amazed they were that you could do so many things with oatmeal!
For the last two school years, I had an incredibly stressful job that left me feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and angry all the time. I gained 20 lbs while I worked there. At the end of June, I left, and in August started a new job doing what I love most – teaching choir to middle schoolers. I’m much happier now, and when I started the job on August 3rd I also started a new diet and exercise plan to get rid of all the excess weight (and hopefully go even further!). Whenever I start over again on my on-and-off health crusade I always go back to oatmeal, because it works. A bowl of oatmeal in the morning is not only healthy and filling, but incredibly delicious. I never feel like I’m missing out when I eat oatmeal, and I’ve always felt that that has to be the key to make life changes that actually stick.
Lauren’s always been very supportive of my attempts to be a better me, and I’m endlessly grateful for that. Below are the bowls I made during this week. You’ll notice that I’m not very innovative, or fancy. They all look very similar. I mostly just really like nut butters and berries. When I taught in China for a year, the only American food I could consistently find was peanut butter, so I always had a jar on the counter for bouts of homesickness. I never really realize how much I loved peanut butter until it became my American touchstone.
Monday – Triple-Almond Oatmeal
I eat this a lot. It’s simple and it works. Almond milk, almond butter, and slivered almonds with some maple syrup (my sweet tooth is much larger than Lauren’s and I’ve never been able to totally skip sweeteners the way she can), salt, vanilla, and lots of cinnamon! I absolutely adore cinnamon and add much larger quantities of it than is normally listed in recipes on TOA. Also, you’ll notice a cup of tea in all of these, somewhere in the background. Earl Grey is my favorite thing forever. (more…)
