Oatmeal

Milk instead of water, vanilla ground in, pecans toasted dry, and fruit both in the pot and on top

· 29 minutes start to finish · refined breakfast oats

Milk

Rolled oats into a cold pot, then milk poured straight over them. Water makes oatmeal. Milk makes it creamy, and it is the one swap here that changes everything downstream of it

start Rolled oats poured from the bag into a stainless pot on the hob +1 min Milk poured from the carton over the dry oats

Vanilla ground in at the start rather than stirred through at the end, so it cooks into the oats with the milk

+2 min A vanilla grinder held over the pot, dark specks scattered across the surface

Pecans

Dry cast iron, no oil. Shaken rather than stirred, so they stay flat against the metal and colour on both faces

+4 min Raw pecan halves spread across a dry cast iron pan +5 min The pan shaken by the handle, the iron speckled white +7 min The same pecans four minutes later, darkened and glossy

Over

Milk foams where water does not. It climbs the pot fast and gives no warning

+9 min The pot filled to the rim with white foam, about to go over

Fruit for the top

Gold kiwi peeled and cut into chunks

+12 min A peeled gold kiwi sliced and cut into chunks on the board

The oats have taken up most of the milk by now. More milk from here keeps it loose, less lets it set firmer, and it can be corrected in the pot at any point

+16 min The pot with the oats thickened, a dried milk line up the sides

Dried apricots cut into strips

+17 min Dried apricots on the board, some left whole, the rest sliced into strips

Fruit for the pot

Frozen berries straight from the bag into the hot oats. Raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, stirred through and left to thaw in the pot, which is what stains the whole thing pink

+21 min Frozen berries sitting on the hot oats, still frosted, spoon alongside

Peanut butter and sauce

Peanut butter scraped out over half of each bowl, then apple pear sauce over the other half. Neither gets stirred through, so a spoon can be taken with one, the other, or plain oats

+24 min Peanut butter scooped from its tub onto a bowl of oatmeal +26 min Two bowls with peanut butter, pecans and apricots, the tub of apple pear sauce alongside

Sugar on the side

Brown sugar in its own dish rather than over the top. Sprinkled as the bowl goes down, the last spoonful is as sweet as the first

+29 min Three bowls of oatmeal topped with gold kiwi, pecans and apricots, a small dish of brown sugar beside them

Commentary, extra notes

  • Four minutes in a dry pan and a pecan stops being the same ingredient. Once that has been tasted the raw ones are hard to go back to
  • Fruit in the pot and fruit on top are doing separate jobs. The cooked berries colour and flavour everything they touch, while the kiwi and the apricots are there for the bite, and the apricots are the only chewy thing in the bowl
  • Everything here swaps. Any dried fruit for the apricots, any nut for the pecans, any purée for the sauce, maple syrup or molasses or honey for the brown sugar