I’ve heard quite a number of people rave that their favourite way of preparing oats is to soak them overnight and eat them cold in the morning. I’ve been brushing off these reports as absolute lunacy, convinced that porridge needs to be steaming hot and freshly prepared. I suppose that a lot of bowls of oatmeal has made me a bit of a stuck-in-the-mud traditionalist. But a snow storm in May is what it took to convert this skeptic. If a May morning, usually sun-shiney, green-ing, spring-y warm, can be stunningly beautiful when it’s blanketed in snow, with birds filling the crisp air with song, then perhaps porridge can also handle a temperature flip-flop and still come out singing!
So I gave it a try. 1/2 cup rolled oats mixed with 1/2 cup natural yogurt and 1/2 cup milk. Stirred together in a bowl, covered, and tossed in the fridge overnight. In the morning, a dwallop of fruit jam swirled in, and a spoon. Simple, or what! Preparing this in a small mason jar would make an especially convenient take-along breakfast for busy mornings, or just extra pretty to look at…whatever suits your priorities.
I was expecting gloopiness, but found that the oats softened nicely, while still retaining a nice chewy texture. One can easily imagine you are eating a bowl of yogurt for breakfast, except that your stomach is far more contentedly full. Another pleasant surprise was that the nutty flavour of the oats really comes through. Eating raw oat groats right out of the grain bin or off the field has always been a treat, and I have certainly been impressed by how much more flavour Naked Oats have over a conventional hulled oat, but I have never really seen this shine through in cooked versions. What an exciting discovery for a wintery May day, and an enthusiastic thank-you goes out to so many of you who finally succeeded in converting this once-sceptic!
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