![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oatmeal Project 2024
Way back in June, I had this realization of “Turns out, when you buy jumbo things of oatmeal every time it’s on clearance, on the theory that it’s a great versatile base you can make a lot of meals with…you just end up with a cupboard of uneaten oatmeal.”
So I bought a bunch of toppings, and started eating 1 variant Bowl Of Oatmeal per day. (I kept track of the variations on Mastodon, I’ll put the whole list under the cut.) Didn’t keep up that pace, I dropped down to 1 bowl every 2-3 days, but after almost two months, I had finally worked through all of it!
…yeah, I finished it off the day before the almost-week-long power outage. You know, exactly when it would’ve been most helpful to have a big stash of food that can be stored at room temperature and will stay fresh and edible for months. Sigh.
I said in the Mastodon thread that maybe I should buy more, but having looked at the contents of my cupboards again…pretty sure what I need next is a Rice Project.
Oatmeal Project results:
Day 1: blueberries, walnut pieces, honey
Basically dessert. Most of the honey in the bottle is crystallized, gotta look up how to fix that, but there was enough left to drizzle. Good note to start on.
2: sliced banana, golden raisins, pecan pieces, chopped black olives
Like a fruit smoothie. Pre-diced olives were out of a can; they gave it a weird zing, but not a bad one. (Sliced my own banana.)
3: crumbled feta, rest of the black olives, garlic+herb chicken-seasoning
Savory! The seasoning isn’t my favorite, probably why I never got around to using it on chicken, but you can’t go wrong with enough feta.
4: shredded mozzarella, sliced banana
Was going for a “fruit & cheese platter” vibe. Should try that again some time…with more strongly-flavored fruits and/or cheeses.
5: blueberries, golden raisins, walnut pieces, butterscotch chips
Like trail mix, or a granola bar. This one worked out much better.
6: blueberries, walnut pieces, cinnamon sugar
More dessert. Mostly needed to finish off the blueberries.
Skipped Friday to focus on eating a different “container still sealed, but the best-by date was in May” food item. (Watching Hoarders is a great motivation to crack down on those…)
7: sliced avocado, shrimp
Friendship ended with avocado toast, avocado shrimp oatmeal is my new best friend
8: sliced banana, walnut pieces, honey
Got the honey de-solidified enough to pour! …It came out in crystalline chunks, so the aesthetic suffered, but the taste was fine.
9: sliced avocado, shrimp (reprise)
Had to finish off the leftover shrimp, figured I might as well make more Oatmeal Progress while I’m at it.
10: diced spam, shredded mozzarella
The kind of combo I would normally throw on top of rice, or pasta. Hearty!
11: golden raisins, cashews, butterscotch chips
These granola-bar-style topping mixes land every time.
12-13: reprises of 10-11
If it works, it works!
One economy-size container of oatmeal down, one more big container + one box of breakfast-size oatmeal packets to go.
14: blackberries, sliced banana, honey, strawberry syrup
Mini bottles of the syrup were on sale. Pretty sure it’s intended for ice cream and/or pancakes, but it worked for this just fine.
15: diced spam, walnuts
Hearty. Finished the can of spam.
16: blackberries, honey, walnuts
Almost finished off the bottle of honey! Not sure how overdue that achievement is, I’m not even checking the date.
17: raspberries, walnuts, feta
18: raspberries, walnuts (I used up all the feta)
Second version used the apple cinnamon oatmeal mix as a base. Figured I should start using it on the sweeter topping mixes, instead of running through the basic carton and then having just this left as an option for savory.
19, 20: apple cinnamon base + just walnuts
Too hot to think about topping combos, I just needed protein.
21: apple cinnamon base + sliced banana
…and, wow, I hadn’t realized how little of this was left. That finished it up! Just the rest of the last carton to go.
22: diced black olives + bacon bits
Did not care for this one. “Top it like a salad” apparently doesn’t hit the way “top it like a pancake” does.
23: blueberry pie filling + honey
Much better. (I’m basically finished with the honey now…but this is going to leave me with way too much extra pie filling.)
24: strawberries + blackberries + last of the honey
Featuring the top half of a big mixed-fruit cup I got at the store.
25: grapes + blueberries + the strawberry syrup
Bottom half of that big mixed-fruit cup.
Apparently my phone predictive text can’t figure out to suggest “strawberry” as an autocorrect for “atrawberry.” Aeriously?
26: diced spam + mixed nuts/raisins
Protein! Hearty.
27: just blueberry pie filling
If I plop a hefty layer of this on every bowl of oatmeal from here on out, I might finish off both of them at the same time.
28: walnuts + butterscotch chips + feta
Trying another granola bar variant. I don’t think the feta worked for it.
29: walnuts + butterscotch chips
Much better.
…And that’s it!
no subject
no subject