Do you like oats? I love em. I love them for breakfast, I love them for lunch and dinner. I love them in bread or as flour. I love them in ice cream and in cobblers. I just love them period. I always have. When I think of oatmeal I think of sludgy sticky stuff that is thick and is loaded with brown or white sugar. GROSS. Or, I think of the little packets, which are eh. The only type of oatmeal I liked growing up was my parents'. It's called avena in spanish, and it is a combo of oats and cream of wheat and it is more like a soup. It has delicious evaporated milk and regular milk and butter and lumps and lumps of brown sugar and it sings to my soul. It's creamy and dreamy and I love eating it(or drinking it) hot with a nice hot buttered toast. Since getting married, I've never been able to make it like them. I never will be able to---I have come to terms with that. Sometimes in life, you gotta just make up your own recipes, you know? So, here I am giving you my family's delicious soaked oats recipe, hoping it will work out for you, and honestly, I have a lot of faith you'll make it even better than we do!
My parents' avena is to die for, but also literally. That is the one thing that I grew to dislike it for---the lumps and lumps of golden brown sugar that I have a love hate relationship with. Not to mention, the oats aren't soaked which is something I first heard about doing through my older sister (pretty much anything I do in my life, my older sisters do first---because I'm a wussy). Did you know that by eating oats that aren't soaked you are putting a huge burden on your digestive system and getting the minimal amount of nutrients from those oats? When you don't soak your grains (in this case oats), the phytic acid in those grains is not released. Phytic acid is an anti nutrient which means it blocks your body from absorbing all of the nutrients it can from the very grain the phytic acid came from! INTENSE. and so rude of that phytic acid! By soaking grains with an acid base (milk kefir, whey, apple cider vinegar) you get rid of the phytic acid and release the minerals, so when you eat it your body is able to digest it and absorb all those great minerals so much easier. For ages grains have been soaked, and for some reason that tradition got lost---like many other traditions that are worth their keeping. Change is not always progressive....just saying.
Here's the recipe!
Delicious Soaked Breakfast Oats
1 c oats
2 c water(1 c during soak, 1 c during cooking)
2 tbs liquid whey or milk kefir or apple cider vinegar(we have tried each one, and they all taste great)
1/2 tsp salt
Before going to bed stick all of the ingredients in a bowl (except 1 cup of the water which will be used in the morning to cook them) and let them sit overnight with a dish towel covering the bowl. If you like, you can also add in some chia seeds with it. In the morning, simply dump the now swollen oats into a pan and add another 1-2 cups of water and let them cook. You can add more or less water depending on how you like them. Once they are completely cooked you can add a good lump of butter to the pan (2 Tbs?) and equally good lump of honey(preferably raw unfiltered, but store is also good) and mix it all up. Dish up however much you like, stick some berries (we just use some from a large frozen bag) in with it, let them thaw, and then add some milk if you want! That is how I like it---soupy. We also like adding some pecans or walnuts to it. My Man likes to put plain kefir in his instead of milk. I haven't tried it like that, but he says they are his all time favorite that way. So maybe it's worth a try! Add more honey and butter if you need it. Enjoy!
