Fancy Homemade Oatmeal Flavors

This is rather a paltry introduction, but good food is one of those things that Jeff and I are pretty enthusiastic about. We like to cook, though often it gets pretty routine. Sometimes we are able to come up with really delicious new combinations, so I might as well share those here, too.

I’d gotten home late from the theatre one night this weekend, and suckered him into making crepes. (I make a mean pancake, but I can’t flip crepes to save my life.) Usually we eat them with a syrupy cooked fruit mixture and whipped cream, but this time we discovered that our frozen fruit was VERY frozen. Lots of extra ice all around the strawberries especially, but even the blackberries were pretty coated. Which meant there was much more liquid left when we were done than usual.

Now, if you’ve had the packaged instant oatmeals, you know they come in all kinds of flavors. And I thought to myself, here is a way of making a more authentic “strawberries and cream” oatmeal. So I stuck the pan of liquid in the fridge to save for the next morning.

Well, I got it back out and cooked the oatmeal directly in extra strawberry water, then scooped some leftover whipped cream on top and mixed it in. Let me tell you, the fruit flavor was intense! The whipped cream made it almost too rich, too – I was hungry enough that I wanted a second bowl, but had to make Jeff help me finish it.

I think “peaches and cream” should be doable, too – you can probably even start with a can of diced peaches, set half to two thirds of the actual fruit aside and use the rest of the fruit and its liquid as above (possibly with some watering down).