Awesome Additions

I was craving some oatmeal earlier, and luckily there was some oatmeal sitting in my pantry. As I was searching through my refrigerator for something to eat with my oatmeal, I came across some leftover red bean from the bao I made earlier, and I had a simple yet brilliant idea. Why not combine them? Oatmeal is great, and red bean is great; shouldn't they be even greater together? After trying it out, I've decided the answer is: sort of.

The oatmeal and red bean combination tasted exactly as one would imagine it to taste: like oatmeal and red bean. It'd be overkill to call it amazing, but it was still quite good. I wouldn't go out of my way to obtain red bean for my oatmeal the next time around, but if I had some handy, I wouldn't object to combining the two again.

I am a fan of oatmeal with stuff. While I don't mind the lumpy porridge on its own, it's always tastier with some additions. Corner Bakery, an awesome chain breakfast/lunch type place, which I frequent fairly often, has an item called Swiss oatmeal on its menu. It's served cold, and it's got all kinds of goodies, from apples to bananas to raisins, in it. I can vouch that it's fantastic. One of these days I may attempt to reproduce it, but for the time being, it's not that hard to just hop on down there and order it.

I have quite a list of things I like with my oatmeal. Some of them may seem kind of strange, but I assure you that they're quite delicious. I recommend trying them out first hand.

My list: milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, almonds, cottage cheese, takuan, dongchimi. The last two items are two forms of pickled daikon radish. I guess red bean has been added to that list now.

One last thing. Some people prefer steel-cut oatmeal, but I find it just a bit too chewy for my liking; when I eat it as is, I just don't feel like I'm eating oatmeal. I did discover, however, that a ratio of 1:2 of steel-cut oats to regular rolled oats makes for great textural variety. In terms of cups, that translates to something like 1/4 cup of steel-cut oats plus 1/2 cup of rolled oats.