if you like cold grits...

... you might find that you can enjoy cold oatmeal. No guarantee, of course, because first you have to get past the idea of eating something straight from the fridge. A breakfast food that your mom always served in hot off the stove in warm bowls with brown sugar and possibly raisins stirred in. This is certainly 'not your mama's' version.

I've had it a couple of times in Decatur and decided I like it well enough to stir up some at my house. So I requested the recipe to get the basic ingredients and measurements right. Then, as you might suspect, the first thing I did was to start tinkering with the recipe. Never one to leave well enough alone, or walk by stinky things on the beach without inspecting, wishing for a stick to give it a poke.

The recipe forwarded to me from a blog, calls for Greek yogurt, which I cannot make myself like. I knew I didn't when I first tried it, under duress, from the person who said: you're gonna love this. Wrong. Texture? Flavor? Whatever. I couldn't like it. But tried again when I read it has so much more protein and calcium than what I have been buying and eating all these years. Still not liking it. So at least I know not to buy something I will have to force myself to consume. Regular yogurt works just as well, along with using the Almond milk, unflavored version, that has more calcium than what a cow can produce.

So this is the basic recipe. I tripled it to make enough to fill three little half-pint canning jars, and put in the fridge. I bought fresh blueberries at work yesterday and put a dozen or so on top before I started spooning it in my mouth. Delicious, and just like your mama claimed - it sticks with you.

Cold Oatmeal (yeah, I know - it sounds gruesome...)
1/4 cup Old Fashioned oatmeal -don't use quick cook
1/4 cup yogurt - recipe calls for greek, but that won't be me: Publix light, fat free vanilla
1/3 cup skim milk - I used Almond milk, unflavored
1 & 1/2 tsp. chia seeds

stir well, put in fridge to thicken, overnight. The blog/website has lots of good recipes for add-ins, fruit and flavorings. I tripled the recipe to make three jars, and have already had to make it aga.in this morning, after consuming two-thirds of my efforts last night and today.

Pleased to evaluate all the ingredients and discover the jar comes to about 3 1/2 points for WW. Happy to know that WW does not make you count fruit and plain veg. so those berries don't add sin to the end product. According to the website, each serving is about 7 points, but that is with all the other goodies that are included, like mango, or bananas, or maple syrup

If you google it up, you might find it called summer porridge, which I assume means the stuff Golidlocks was eating, having gotten too cool in the smallest bowl, was actually Cold Oatmeal, stirred by the devoted loving hands of Mama Bea.