Sometimes A Grain is Just A Grain

Sorry for the long lull in posts. I'm getting a little bored with the concept, but have yet to figure out what's next. If anyone has ideas, let me know!

But I had to post about tonight's meal, because it epitomizes the freakish nature of my best weird meals.

I had stuffed peppers for dinner, with a side of toasted ravioli and scotch.

Not weird, you say? The pepper was stuffed primarily with oatmeal...

I have been experimenting with fermentation for awhile now- first a sub-par cider, then a strange grape concoction. I approach it with the same disregard of rules I apply to cooking, so I'm comfortable producing sub-par things, as long as it's kind of educational.

In any case, this morning I started my first quasi-beer by boiling some grains in water- about 60% oatmeal, 40% red wheat. I made my quasi-wort, then wondered what to do with all the leftover grains. Needless to say, I don't have a cow (which is where brewers ditch the byproducts of beer-making), but the grains weren't overly mushy. I ate some for breakfast, a la cereal, but had a ton left over.

Around dinnertime, I realized I had a ton of veggies I needed to eat. Stuffed peppers sounded good, but I didn't want to have to cook quinoa, kasha, or rice. And then I remembered the oatmeal.

I was grossed out by the concept, but a little curious. And in the end, it was a great call. I added a little mozzarella, then baked them for close to an hour. The cheese made the grains taste sufficiently savory, to the degree it was very tasty. I couldn't have distinguished the grain primarily as oatmeal based on taste.

We'll see how the quasi-beer turns out in a few weeks...In the meantime, my Glenmorangie is pretty decent.

Experimental Breakfast at Home

For breakfast, I had oatmeal. Special oatmeal.

See, it's getting close to Easter, which means primarily one thing- Cadbury's chocolate eggs are here. I know they're actually disgusting, full of sugar, corn syrup, and other things I rail against. But I love them anyway. They're the one mass-produced candy I can't get enough of, and it's only gotten worse since they started selling them in 4-packs. So, I happened to have about six of them sitting on my counter this morning (including three of their new orange-flavored ones, which are amazing), and I really, really wanted to eat a chocolate egg for breakfast, instead of boring oatmeal.

So I formulated a compromise. I'd heard about people making cupcakes with a chocolate egg in the middle, what about egg in oatmeal?



I broke the egg into a few pieces and placed them on top of my bowl of oatmeal and milk, then microwaved the whole mess until the egg looked melty.



Finally, I mixed the softened eggs into my oatmeal. It looked disgusting.




Not so good in terms of taste, either. The egg gave the milk a nasty fake flavor and almost puddinglike texture, and the oatmeal ended up tasting like watered-down Cocoa Pebbles. Interesting experiment, but not one to be repeated.