Intermittent Oatmeal

[mific]

I have this low-effort way of making oatmeal, developed as I got fed up with burning it in saucepans on the stove, or having to stand over it stirring, and then all the tedious clean-up of the pot.

In a medium-to-large microwave-safe bowl (mine's about 8" across):
1/2 cup rolled oats (ordinary rolled oats/oatmeal - if you use steel cut oats you need to cook it almost twice as long or remember to soak it overnight first)
3 heaped tsps skim milk powder
1/3 tsp salt
1.5 cups cold water

Stir well until the milk powder is dissolved. (Stir it throughout this process with a spatula as that's what you'll eventually use to dish it up and it saves washing a spoon.) Then microwave for 3 min (my microwave is cheap and not very powerful so I always use it on full). Wander off and do something else. It's good if you forget the oatmeal for at least 30 min. It's now half cooked and soaked. Stir well, then microwave again for 2 min. (Longer cooking periods make it boil and splatter all over your microwave, and you don't want that!) Probably forget it again. When you remember it again, if it's cooled, can do another 2 min blast. If it's still hot, just 1 min at a time between stirrings. Repeat this a few times until it's as cooked as you like it. Use the spatula to get it into a serving bowl if you're feeling posh, or if not, eat it from the microwave bowl. Serve it how you like it - I like mine with cream and muscovado sugar - this also doubles as a dessert. :) Put the microwave bowl and spatula in the sink and fill with water. Wander off and do something else. They'll just need a quick rinse when you remember later.
 

Cutlery life hack

[mific]

This only works for someone like me who lives by themself, or just with uncritical housemates like cats or dogs.

Several years ago, to reduce doing too many dishes, I started keeping the bare minimum of cutlery in an old chipped mug by my main sitting chair (I don't eat at a table ever, unless at a restaurant or out for dinner at a friend's. The mug also contains other non-eating essentials of course, like scissors, pens, Apple iPad stylus).

Anyway, these are they:

From left to right:
- all-purpose titanium spork for main meals
- Favourite teaspoon for desserts, oatmeal
- Serrated kitchen knife, mostly for cutting up apples
- Long-handled spoon (recently acquired from a thrift shop as a brand of jam I like comes in tall, thin jars)

Together, these cover every eventuality. They rarely get washed in the normal way. I lick them clean then polish them with a tissue. It works fine. This is all part of my "one advantage to being older than dirt is you can be as eccentric as fuck" policy.