Instant Oatmeal and Pancake changes (bonus other swaps)

Instant Oatmeal

Since I was last here I have managed to try making my own instant oatmeal.  One good thing is that Mr. Padawan and the little Padawans* are very happy eating the same thing over and over again.  This makes my life a bit easier since I don't have to make a variety of instant oatmeal flavors.

I settled on maple and brown sugar.  I did play with a few different versions that I found on the internet and found that I prefer the old fashioned rolled oats because that is what I use to make my granola and I didn't want to have a variety of oats in the pantry.  This means that I do toss my oats into a mini food processor and some of it I do chopp relatively fine, some are cut down a bit and some are left as is.  I then dump it all in a big bowl add in brown sugar and cinnamon, mix and then dump it into a glass jar.  For Mr. Padawan I do a general 1/3 cup, for the little Padawans, who seems to eat BIG breakfasts they do a 1/2 cup.

One note, I need to do a better job mixing it up as the brown sugar  was not evenly distributed.

The little Padawans favorite is the apple and cinnamon flavor but finding dried apple bits that do not have a tree nut allergy warning on it is proving to be impossible for me.  But I have considered making my own, I just haven't pursued it yet.  Partly because it seems overwhelming, and partly because we are finally getting some spring weather.

While I don't typically eat hot oatmeal (instant or other) I do enjoy overnight oats which are cold.  With the warmer weather we are edging closer to overnight oats season.  Our favorite is peanut butter overnight oats, but we also do enjoy some with greek yogurt and fresh fruit as well.


Pancakes/Waffles

So for this I did find a mix that was less processed, but I just went to my Grandmother's Betty Crocker cookbook.   Because my little Padawans have big appetites I attempted to make 1.5 of a recipe and whatever I did that first time made a lot of pancakes and they were truly wonderful so light and fluffy.  Sadly the second time they were dense and chewy.  I will need to go back and check my math, or just make the original recipe as is.

The waffles were really good and I liked them better than Bisquick waffles.  The reality is that it wasn't that much more measuring than Bisquick so I may not search out another mix.   One thing I would consider is measuring all the dry ingredients the night before if I think I will be too frustrated or tired in the morning.

 Bonus swaps

In my quest to find swaps that are less processed I have tried 3 things 

  1. Annie's Mac & Cheese for Kraft, this was a failure.  The texture of the pasta was wrong, it wasn't cheesy enough.  I do enjoy home made baked mac & cheese the little Padawans do not, so it is not worth my time and effort.  I will simply limit how often I use Mac & Cheese in our menus.
  2. Hersey's Simple 5 Chocolate syrup for Hershey's chocolate syrup.  The jury is still out on this one, the Simple 5 is not as thick and it has a bit of a weird after taste.  I am not sure if this is enough to put me off it.  I am debating making my own and going back to the processed stuff.  If I had to guess right now I would say before I go back I will try making my own.
  3. Crazy Richard's Peanut butter for Simply JIF.  Crazy Richard's really is just ground peanuts that is it. I can deal with needing to stir to re-incorporate the oils and keeping in the fridge.  While I love peanuts on their own, I think I would need a bit of sugar in it. I may search for another peanut butter to try because I eat a lot of peanut butter.

 

 

 

* my little Padawans are not so little anymore 😢 in age and size.  This is such a bittersweet thing for me, I love seeing them grow while missing how small they used to be.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What to do when it seems that the world is on fire?

 First of all DO NOT PANIC!  Nothing good ever comes from panicking. Second, take a deep breath and then say a prayer, then count your blessings.  People that lean into their faith are happier.  Here and here Third, focus on your small circle what is going on there and focus on that.  So the stock market is crashing you really can't do a how heck of a lot about that other than don't panic.  So focus on what you have been doing to care for yourself and your family, use this time to identify an area or two to be frugal.  Being wise with your money is always a good thing, and this is a way to make lemonade. Fourth, largely ignore the news especially that of overseas tragedies.  Humanity sucks, but it is also beautiful.  We were not designed to have all of this information especially horrific information coming at us 24/7/365.  There is absolutely nothing I can do about some far off place to make it better, if I focus on those areas I feel ...
Read more

I am losing my momentum...

in many different areas.  I am still in showed up mode just skating by and maintaining but not breaking out of my rut. In some ways, I want to say it is ok because I spent two weekends in NJ visiting my Aunts and helping clear away some things at their house and the funeral.  I think everyone in this house has been sick not all at once so it seems like it has lasted forever.  So yeah there has been a lot of stress and uncertainty. I spent a good chunk of today focusing on some business-related things that I am really hope come to fruition.  I have also been doing some planning on Pinterest to try to incorporate some fun with my boys.  One of my fears is that as a 'Boy Mom' that I don't engage with them as much as I should or could because quite frankly I love them to bits but their interests don't really align with mine.  As the parent I know that it is my job to focus on them and come up with ways to join their interests, I get a lot of support from ...
Read more

Success...Happiness...Preconceived Notions....Letting Go

I am not really sure where I am going with this but I have been toying with this idea that success doesn't lead to happiness but it can sure enhance it.  So what exactly is success and really shouldn't I define success for me and ignore what "others" define as success? I have been thinking about this a lot and not really going anywhere partly because I am afraid of the answer.  But really I need to think about this for my own happiness, I get to decide what is right for me.  I also need to accept that I do not live in an ideal world so my vision of what I thought was success, probably isn't going to exist in the real world.  I need to adjust my idea of success to match reality and not what I wish, I have done it in other areas... Example of shifting expectations and ideals So I had this idea of how I would be as a parent before I had children, in fact I was an amazing parent and then I had kids.  The the kids came into my world and life changed in so many...
Read more