A Pantry Full of Oats

Sometimes you simply wake up with a craving. Sometimes the power of suggestion gets to you. Sometimes you’re just trying to cobble together simple delights out of available pieces. I think it was all three for me today with an oatmeal cookie jones lurking in my pantry.

I saw a package of the blasted things in the mega-grocery the other day and that planted the seed of the idea. They looked great but I know the industro-bakeries aren’t going to satisfy my real butter addiction nor my chemical additive averse taste buds. My own internal baking Zen and sugar indulgence rules usually stop me from such impulse buys because I figure if I want them badly enough they’re far too easy to bake myself. Better ingredients, cheaper, fresher, less plastic, etc. etc. By the time I get home and start thinking about softening butter, the urge has passed… usually.

When I needed to completely empty my pantry so the maintenance guy could install a new water valve without accidentally soaking my food inventories, I took the opportunity to organize and update. It’s quite the liberating experience around my house. Rotating tins based on expiry dates, finding a jar of something weird and interesting I had forgotten about, or just getting all the coconut milk in one place. I highly recommend the process of completely emptying every last shelf out onto the counters occasionally. Lo and behold, this time the purge revealed three open packages of rolled oats, each partially full from past cookie madness. It seems I run out and buy a new bag every time I get the craving without properly exploring the deep archives of the baking stockpile.

Why am I not eating them for breakfast porridge you ask? The truth is that I’ve become a complete oat snob on that front. Steel cut oatmeal is a huge flavour and texture upgrade from rolled oats. Sure they’re a bit more tricky to cook but the results make for a hearty and filling breakfast with actual flavour instead of pale mush. I may not be a candidate for the Golden Spurtle Porridge Cooking Championships quite yet but you won’t find rolled oats in my morning bowl any longer. When I want a less hearty porridge option I’ve been going with rice congee in the Chinese style but at least twice a week, it’s proper steel cut oats for me. With plenty of local maple syrup and blueberries stirred in of course. I even picked a sum total of eleven berries off my very own test bushes out at the farm this week. Time to plant more I think.

I use my fancy-schmancy Japanese rice cooker for the task which employs some clever microprocessor gizmo to cook them perfectly. Not that you can’t cook them on the stove top or even in the oven as some do, it’s just that I already had the gadget and not wanting it to become a uni-tasker have found it does a fine job on all sorts of things in addition to perfectly cooking rice at the touch of a button. It can handle porridge to pasta to paella although I readily admit the latter is still better in a traditional Spanish pan over a charcoal fire. Intrepid rice cooker pioneers are even out there baking, braising, and steaming in these gadgets. When you consider that the vast majority of homes in Asia have rice cookers but potentially lack other (often superfluous) appliances common in the west, it’s no surprise that necessity and invention have gotten together to use them well beyond simple rice preparation.

There is however one big advantage to using the machine for my morning porridge in that it has a timer stapled into the thing. That means not only do I wake up to oats warm and ready for my bowl but I can soak them for several hours while I sleep beforehand, a critical step when you talk to Scottish and Irish grandmothers about the process. I’ll give you all my porridge secrets in a later post if you ask nicely.

The minor archaeological dig of my pantry also uncovered some dried cherries I had vac-packed a good while ago. If you’re not into the vac-pack craze yet, let me tell you it’s a great thing for anyone with a kitchen, a garden, or a penchant for shopping in bulk. Curiously it’s less about the machine you buy and more about the bags & jars you use. Thicker (3 mil or better) plastic bags from the high end machines cost perhaps a dime more each but keep your food fresh much longer, frozen or dry. Tests have shown that thinner bags fail miserably, especially in the freezer where ice crystals form to make microscopic holes and compromise the seals. I go the extra mile and use a canister gizmo that will vacuum seal dry goods into ordinary mason jars with ease.* That’s where I had the cherries and even after a year, they’re perfectly fresh and pliable which means it’s cookie time up here. Here’s the proper cookie recipe post for your enjoyment and experimentation.

* You might notice I mix and match brands of sealers, bags, and accessories mainly because of what’s available up here in Canada. Check the specs for your machine and/or accessory but I’ve had no problems and the air doesn’t care what it gets sucked out of in the end. I have a LEM sealer, use Weston bags, and a Foodsaver canister as a vacuum chamber for mason jars. Handy, eh?