Potential Kitchen Disasters with TJ: Oaty Oats
January 19th, 2010 | by TJ |So, Internet, as you can tell from some recent posts and Christmas gifts, I am attempting to learn to cook. Sometimes, it goes really well. I have learned to make an excellent chicken fried rice, for example. Sometimes, though, it goes really poorly. I actually made terrible spaghetti this weekend. I mean, god awful. It was just bad news. While my mother is someone who can cook just about anything she has a recipe for, I have a feeling I am going to be one of those types who has a one or two week rotation of solid recipes from which I will not deviate. Because come on, I messed up spaghetti. Really badly.
When I cook and things come out… not so good… it is so not so good that it’s horrifying/hysterical. It’s hysterifying. It’s horrifical. However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, when I manage to do it right, it really is quite good. I don’t have much middle ground at all, which makes dinner time such an interesting lottery. Today I have decided to show you something that I do manage to do well, so that you can follow my methods and achieve the same results for yourself. Today, Internet, we are making Oaty Oats.
First, start with like… a bucket-ish of water. Only put it on kind of hot, not all the way hot, even though you want your water bucket to boil.
Make sure to stare at it really impatiently. People say that a watched pot doesn’t boil, but that’s pretty much BS. The staring at it is what makes it angry enough to boil. So, stand there and stare at it and take the lid off a bunch of times to check.
Then, get together your raw Oaty Oats.
You’ll probably be able to put your raw Oaty Oats in one bowl, because you’re probably not a container misjudger like I am. You don’t have to get all superior about it, though. It’s not like you’re going to save any dishes, because I used the measuring cup as my second dish. It’s that kind of ingenuity that really sets my cooking apart from yours. But that’s why I’m showing you how to do it, you know? Because I’m a giver.
Also get together all of the stuff that you’re going to put IN your Oaty Oats. If you are making a great big batch of Oaty Oats like I am right now, you will want to keep it simple. We have extra stuff, like fruit and granola and such, that can be added in to individual portions.
This is the stuff you need to make standard Oaty Oats in a big batch. You can put apples and other whatevers in your big batch of Oaty Oats, but then you have to eat apple Oaty Oats all week. That’s not a terrible thing, but I’m just saying. Maybe you want some variety. Maybe you don’t. You don’t have to do things my way. Though I don’t see why you wouldn’t.
Stare at your water some more.
Make sure you get some nice refreshing steam into the lens of your camera.
Around this point, I get pretty impatient and I put the Oaty Oats into the water.
It looks like chicken food right now and that’s pretty unappetizing. Don’t worry – that’s not even close to as unappetizing as it gets!
Get some brown sugar next. About a fistful should do it.
Actually, it turned out to be closer to a fistful and a half. It pretty much depends on the size of your fists, really. Also on how big of a box you have, because it can be hard to get your fist into a small box. Keep fist size in mind when you’re grocery shopping.
Then you put the sugar in with the Oaty Oats.
Oopsie oops.
I’ve learned to always keep tongs nearby when I’m cooking. Boiling water gets some kind of magnetism going, you know? And it sucks glass bowls and utensils and other things right out of your hand and into the water. It’s an unfortunate fact of cooking. I hope science figures that one out some day.
Next, get your cinnamon and open the shaker side of it.
Give it a good bunch of shakeitys. Side lesson: A “bunch” is a cooking term, like “dash” or “pinch.” It basically means “about three shakes past good sense.” Shake it until you think you’re done, then shake it three more times. That’s one “bunch” of cinnamon shakeitys.
Grab your syrup next.
Little known cooking fact: syrup isn’t measured in cups and teaspoons and other traditional cooking measurements. I mean, you can try, but I’ll pretty much guarantee that you’ll get it wrong. Syrup is measured by smell. Basically, grasp your syrup, squeeze it into the Oaty Oats, and when it smells like there’s enough in there, you’re done.
So, at this point, you stir everything up and turn the heat down to just a little bit of hot – you don’t need your Oaty Oats to be totally pissed off anymore, but you don’t want them to forget that they’re kind of annoyed. Put the lid back on and then just walk away for a while. It’s okay if you forget they’re over there. I always do and nothing bad has happened yet.
After maybe 20 minutes or maybe half an hour, who really knows with cooking, it’ll look like this:
I told you it would get more unappetizing. Anyway, this is when you taste some. You will probably need another fistful of brown sugar and more cinnamon as well.
SPEAKING OF SPICES YOU GUYS? LOOK WHAT WE FOUND:
What the hell! Is there an extra “R” in tumor-ick or NOT?
Don’t put the turmeric or the tumeric in your Oaty Oats, please. I’m just saying. What the hell.
Get out your squeeze bear:
You probably will not need to put your squeeze bear through a hot bath like I did, because your squeeze bear probably doesn’t say this on its hat:
If your squeeze bear does say that on its hat, go ahead and ignore it. Squeeze bears don’t go bad, that’s just a scam to get you to buy a new squeeze bear. A hot bath will totally revive it. Don’t tell Phil. He’s really weird about stuff like that. He thinks milk is ruined forever if it sits on the counter for more than 15 seconds. He probably wouldn’t be thrilled to know I made Oaty Oats with a non-best-by squeeze bear. That’s why this post isn’t going up until well after he’s finished his breakfast. If he’s not dead by tomorrow morning, he’ll have no argument.
Anyway, put some squeeze bear in there – write your name across the surface of the Oaty Oats, or up to five letters of your first name. That’s about enough.
After a good stirring, you’re pretty much done at this point.
Get a refrigerator container and your scooper:
Sing Lunchlady Land to yourself while you scoop.
Oaty oats, oat-oaty oats.
Open the hole to let some hot out. If you don’t have a refrigerator container with a hole, I’m sure you can figure something out. Once most of the hot is out, you can put it in the fridge and keep it there for about a work week or so. You can scoop out as much as you need for your breakfast and just microwave it up. Make sure you stop cooking your Oaty Oats right when they look pretty gross and not quite thick enough, because otherwise they won’t microwave too well. If you cook them too thick, you can add milk when you microwave them and they will come back to life.
When you take them to work or whatever with you, you can bring some granola or fruits to put into it so you can have a different kind of Oaty Oats every day of the week, if you wanted to. That big container right there is enough Oaty Oats for both Phil and I to have it for breakfast for the rest of the week. So keep in mind when you’re making it that you’re going to have to commit yourself to daily oats for a while.
Well, Internet, this has been another exciting edition of Potential Kitchen Disasters with TJ. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions and remember – you’ve seen some advanced techniques and methods today. Try not to be too down on yourself if you don’t get them right right away!
Practice makes mostly edible!
By Adlib on Jan 19, 2010
That’s great! I agree that cooking is mostly an experiment most times. I’m pretty good at following recipes, but I need more of my mom’s recipes. She always had the most interesting ones. I’ve been craving my childhood foods recently, and an hour and a half is just too far to drive for her to make them sometimes.
I appreciated the plug about honey not going bad. You are absolutely right! I have beekeeper friends so I know too much about honey, bees, and pollen.
I’m jealous of your cooktop though. I have the stupid coils where food likes to run away and fall down into places where it’s hard to clean out. Ugh.
I always enjoy your picture posts! Must take quite a bit of time to put the post together.
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:02 am
The cooktop here is nice in that it is easy to keep clean, but it’s terrible to cook on. All the burners heat at different speeds and temperatures and it’s only since I got some really good new pans that I’ve been able to cook food evenly. These electric ones are nice when they’re new, but they go so crappy so fast. I want a gas stove some day.
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Adlib Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Yeah, I don’t really like cooking on electric burners anyway, but at least the flat ones would be nicer than these coils. Someday I too will have a gas range! :)
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By Awlbiste on Jan 19, 2010
This comment is for Phil: liquid honey never expires. Like Twinkies. Except Twinkies actually do expire while liquid honey does not.
While I am not an oatmeal person I think I would be inclined to try some Oaty Oats. Since, you know, they’re not oatmeal they’re Oaty Oats. And that makes all the difference.
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:00 am
He knows that honey doesn’t expire, but I feel like if he saw the date right on there, he’d want to throw it away. He’s pretty much of the mindset that milk goes bad if you don’t go directly home from the grocery store and some arbitrary rules I don’t understand on how long leftovers can be in the fridge before they’re totally deadly.
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Also, I don’t care for standard oatmeal either. I like the steel cut oats, though. The texture is way more tolerable.
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By DJ on Jan 19, 2010
I completely understand about fistful and shakeity. I tried to get my grandmother’s potato salad recipe and it was so full of dollups and large pinches that what I made in no way was even close to as good as what grandma made! I am a shakeity NOOB!
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Advice: When in doubt, always UNDER-DOLLOP. You can re-dollop later, but you can’t un-dollop!
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By Emma on Jan 19, 2010
As soon as I finish my Breakfast Cake (AKA leftover birthday cake covered with chocolate chips, cherry pie filling, chocolate pudding, whipped cream, shredded coconut, and maraschino cherries) I’m all over this Oaty Oat thing. The pictures are super helpful, although a specific measurement of your hand would be great so I can compare my fist to yours.
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Oaty Oats sounded so good to me until I heard that someone else had cake.
As for fist size – it’s about the same as the middle-sized Tylenol bottle. You know the one? Not the GIANT one that never seems to get empty and not the little ones that we keep buying because we lose them. The middle size.
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By Swistle on Jan 19, 2010
This reminds me of when my mother-in-law gave me her recipe for cinnamon rolls, and it was all typed up and everything, and it basically said to take some bread dough and add some butter and some brown sugar and some cinnamon and then cook it for awhile. Except that my mother-in-law was doing it on purpose because she liked to think she was too awesome a cook for recipes, whereas you are being adorable and funny. Favorite parts:
1. Don’t worry – that’s not even close to as unappetizing as it gets!
2. Keep fist size in mind when you’re grocery shopping.
3. Give it a good bunch of shakeitys.
4. Don’t put the turmeric or the tumeric in your Oaty Oats, please. I’m just saying. What the hell.
5. Squeeze bears
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
OH MAN, I hate when people won’t give out their real recipes. I have a whole stack of my grandmother’s handwritten recipes right now and she put everything right out there (though I’m not exactly sure what “oleo” is). But then you’ve got people who keep “forgetting” to give you a recipe or leave stuff out on purpose so you make a failure.
I mean, if I liked something that you made enough that I want to continue to eat it when you’re not around, that’s a COMPLIMENT, right? Why do people have to get all proprietary and weird about the stuff they make?
ALSO? This is a recipe I am dying to try AND it has measurements. So there, Swistle’s Mother in Law (please don’t haunt me).
http://www.southernplate.com/2009/11/homemade-cinnabuns-theres-an-easy-way.html
I’m just waiting for a Rhodes coupon to combine with a Rhodes sale (because that is how I shop) and I am going to make the CRAP out of those rolls!
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Shin Ae Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I’m feeling like oleo might be how some older people say margarine? It’s ringing a bell…
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Melme Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Yup. Oleo is margarine. My great grandma used to call it that when I helped her cook.
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By motobu on Jan 19, 2010
it’s interesting that you follow WoW guides to the letter, even completing old grey quests, however you don’t follow recipes at all…
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
What are you talking about? I just showed the entire recipe, with photographs, even! Dead on!
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By Aufero on Jan 19, 2010
This actually sounds like a pretty good recipe. (All my recipes involve shakes and dollops anyway.) Someone gave me a giant can of steel cut oats for Christmas, and since I can’t make ‘em in the microwave like I usually do with oatmeal, I haven’t done anything with them. I’ll try it.
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TJ Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Let me know how they come out!
4 cups of water for every 1 cup of oats. 1 cup of oats will make several very large servings. Just boil the water and add everything and simmer until it’s thickened up.
If you want to chop up fruits and put them in to the whole batch, do it when your oats are just starting to get thick, so the fruits can get all flavored up in the oats.
Otherwise, I suggest you follow my recipe to the LETTER. OR TERRIBLE THINGS MIGHT HAPPEN.
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By Kelektra on Jan 19, 2010
My husband is the same way, RE: Expir[ed][ing] things.
Him: “EEEEW, that yogurt is going to expire tomorrow? DON’T EAT IT, DON’T EAT IT!”.
Me: Will pretty much eat anything as long as it smells okay and isn’t green and fuzzy. Though, he’s the same way with Tylenol/Cleaning Supplies/etc also… Makes no sense to me.
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TJ Reply:
January 20th, 2010 at 10:27 am
I’ve just stopped telling Phil. If I won’t eat it, neither of us does. If I will eat it, well, what he doesn’t know won’t kill him. Or it might, but it’ll end up killing us both, so no big.
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By Wynthea on Jan 19, 2010
Teej,
I haven’t told you I love you in a while. In fact, I may never have said it. But i want you to know i was thinking it the whole time, espeically today.
I nearly died at the part about the squeeze bear scam – because the truth is dangerous!
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By Wynthea on Jan 19, 2010
I was thinking it so hard, in fact, that I misspelled “especially.” Which never happens.
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By Shin Ae on Jan 19, 2010
I think this is the best cooking tutorial I’ve ever seen.
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By Suzy on Jan 19, 2010
Wow, for a minute, I thought I was looking at Pioneer Woman’s site!
When you do reheat your oaty oats, do not walk away from the microwave or you may have an oatmeal volcano on your hands like I did yesterday.
I didn’t have the good homemade Oaty Oats, just some Trader Joe’s pack but still, you don’t want an oatmeal volcano first thing in the morning.
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By Elly Lou on Jan 19, 2010
I’ve got the shakeitys in anticipation of the ensuing sugar rush! I suppose I should skip my morning brownie if I’m having oatey oats that morning? That’s gonna be tough. I really like a good breakfast brownie.
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By Melme on Jan 19, 2010
Lol! Great recipe. Sounds like me trying to explain to my husband how to make the chicken, broccoli and rice casserole we ate last night. It was especially
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Melme Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Ack! My computer just got all possessed and turned off my music and posted before I finished!
As I was saying… It was especially adventurous because I was out of the usual ingredients and had to improvise. That’s how my grandma always cooked anyway! :)
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By kLog on Jan 19, 2010
Ahh, Steel cut oats. Good stuff. The only problem is that it takes a loooooooooong time to cook, and that “instant” steel cut from Trader Joe’s clearly doesn’t know what its advertising. I used to melt butter in the pan and toast the oats (don’t burn!) before adding water (and apples!) and stuff. Gives it a nice nutty flavor!
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By Firespirit on Jan 19, 2010
I hate oatmeal. Cant stand it anymore. I mean, Ill eat it. I kind of have this whole diet thing going. If I have to eat it I will. But I will bitch and complain the entire time, and even after.
I was in the kitchen with my grandmother and my great grandmother since I was ever so small. Some of my very early memories are in the kitchen with them. I learned to cook by feel – smell, touch, taste. I am very happy that I inherited that from them.
My mom… Its shades of black people, shades of black. Remember the lucy episode where she has to scrape the burned toast away. Yeah. Every night while growing up. It was either burned or raw. I think that is why my grandmothers worked so dammed hard on me and my sister, so that, while the cooking gene would ultimately pass one generation, it dammed well wasnt going to jump the second.
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By yunitard on Jan 19, 2010
3 important things to TJ…
1. i am now a delurker. ty TEEJ for making me a blog commenter even tho i didnt take you upon it the first time you challenged us. I have commented on the New BRK site (he’ll always be BRK to us hunters) but never here in TEEJ’s internet.
2. cooking is overrated! honestly people actually pay to learn how to cook and how to cook well! just be happy that that allow you to pay them for their services. p.s. Taco Bell is not a gourmet meal, but they put cheese in everything, how can you screw that up?
3. they are TEEJ’s lil WoW toons and she should be able to play them how she wishes. You play your way, I play my way, She get’s to play her way, and that’s the end of that =)
Also… I only commented here because you linked Adam Sandler, Lunch Lady. and those types of things will keep me coming back
byeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Yuni
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By Katie on Jan 19, 2010
I wouldn’t get past the water boiling part. I burn water you know. <3 my microwave.
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By angelynn on Jan 20, 2010
The hole on the top of your container is brilliant. It looks like it’s a glass container which is even more brilliant. Then you put in these tasty Oaty Oats and treat us to Adam Sandler and Chris Farley. Thank you TJ. A wonderful tutorial that I will definitely use. There aren’t many things that can compete with homemade oatmeal on a cold rainy morning.
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By MiddleAged&Crazy on Jan 20, 2010
My grandmother taught me to cook, and lucky for me she didn’t follow recipes. I’m lucky because I have all these recipes in my head and can’t give them to anyone because I don’t measure out anything either. It’s also sad because allot of good food is lost over the years because of that same thing.
Just as a side question? Do you really love chocolate? If so I can give you a recipe for a great souther tradition called “Chocolate Gravy” when served over a hot biscuit is to die for!
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By Shelly on Jan 20, 2010
I love this cooking guide. Particularly the angry pot part.
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By Wolfmane on Jan 20, 2010
Finally got around to commenting. The last day and a half is lost to me. They say they found me on the floor, twitching and drooling. Apparently they also found my browser open on this article. Something about imaginary transference of homeostatic glucose imbalance in the liver. /shrug
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By Amanda on Jan 20, 2010
You’re like The Pioneer Woman now! Look at you go…
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