"Hands off" old school oatmeal

Here is our best and easiest way of making old school oatmeal - use rice cooker! It doesn't get easier than that.

For our family of three I use

1 cup of oats (I buy bulk in my grocery store)
2 cups water

I put it all in my rice cooker, in the main bowl, turn the steam cooking function for 12 minutes and go take shower, get dressed, get my kid ready etc.
Oatmeal cooks in the meantime. No need for steering, checking etc. After 12 minutes it turns to keep warm and is just waiting for us :-)

I know "steam cooking"  sound strange here, but it's just the function in my rice cooker that works best for this, we don't steam oats of course, they just cook in the main bowl in the liquid. I don't know how it would work in rice cookers that doesn't allow to set a specific time.

It takes 12 minutes in our rice cooker for the consistency we like, but depending on taste preferences or rice cooker, you might want to cook longer or shorter time.

I divide hot oatmeal in individual bowls and mix with some cold milk from the fridge, this gives it immediately "ready to eat" temperature. And my husband just adds maple syrup to his portion but don't add anything to my and my son's, no sugar, until my child figures it out :-)

Sweet potato and other stuff

No day with the toddler is fully predictable, that's almost a given. So on the days that something just came up again or I just don't feel like cooking or the weather is so nice that we just want to be outside, I use one of my  "healthy shortcuts".

Pour some water into the main dish of a rice cooker and put on rice cooker's steamer basket:

- sweet potato cut into about 1 inch cubes (can cut in advance, or buy already cut up)
- a handful frozen petite peas

- chicken rissoles (straight from the freezer, I don't thaw it in advance), I will post my recipe for chicken rissoles in separate post, but any meat rissoles or meatballs will do.

Turn steam cooking function in rice cooker on for 25 minutes and leave the kitchen.
Come back when you are hungry, rice cooker will turn to keep warm after 25 minutes and can keep it for quite some time, depending on rice cooker.

Sometimes I just use sweet potato and rissoles and nothing else, but if I have it at home (and the child does not have allergy to green color) , I add to that a little bit of all or some of the following:

- butternut squash cut into about 1 inch cubes

- few baby carrots

- a handful of frozen petite peas or frozen corn

- a handful of fresh baby spinach leaves

After it's cooked I take it out from the rice cooker straight to the plate,  add a spoon of cream cheese (optional), mash together (right on the plate using a fork) sweet potatoes, butternut squash and carrots, takes just a minute. After it's mashed I steer in petite peas (unless decided to serve them separately), corn and spinach if using (I guess you can just mash it all together but I like to mix it after potatoes are mashed). Add the rissoles and ready. I don't season anything here. Rissoles are already done and seasoned before. The rest doesn't require anything. My rice cooker steam basket is big enough to fit the amount for 3 kids or 1 kid and 1 adult portion.

My rice cooker has function that allows steam cooking with timer, I pour about 1-1.5 inch of water then place the food on a basket, close it and turn on steam cooking for 25 minutes. The amount of water is not too much to start boiling quickly and steam the food but it's not too little either so when it's done after 25 minutes turns into keep warm and it can stay on for more than an hour or longer. It's also enough time to thaw and cook rissoles (they are actually really nice and soft after being steamed). I often just throw everything in, turn it on and go out to play outside, an hour later we are back hungry, the food is ready and warm. You can only leave it like that though, if you can trust your rice cooker not to use water too quickly and burn.