JULIE WELLS: Raisin apple oatmeal a quick, hearty breakfast for school days

I can’t recall too many times in my life when I walked into the pantry at my grandparents house and didn’t see a box of Quaker Oats Oatmeal.

I can also recall not being happy about seeing that box of oatmeal staring me in the face. I’d shutter at the thought of even having to eat it. Yuck.

I was made to eat it as a child, and I would pull out all the tricks imaginable to try and get out of eating it.

But I was raised to eat what was served to you. Oatmeal, asparagus and Brussels sprouts had to be eaten, whether I liked them or not.

One time, I even tried feeding the oatmeal to my dog, which was only flavored with salt and butter by the way, and I was completely busted when he started gagging on it.

It is hysterically funny now, especially when my grandfather got tickled over the whole situation, but my grandmother, well, she didn’t think it was too funny.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to really like oatmeal. However, the prepackaged oatmeal is loaded with stuff that isn’t really good for our bodies. In an effort to hopefully prevent my 3-year-old from feeding oatmeal to our dogs, I’ve located a recipe that is not only tasty, but naturally flavored, and it takes five minutes or less to make.

An advantage to making today’s featured recipe — raisin apple oatmeal — in separate bowls, instead of making it in one big pot on the stove, is that you make the each bowl specific to individual tastes. The microwave is one of my favorite kitchen appliances when I need something made quickly.

To that end, I made this hearty breakfast as a one-serving recipe, so that I only had one dish to clean when it was all said and done.

The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of maple syrup; you may need to adjust that depending on how sweet, or not sweet, you like your oatmeal. Additionally, I chose to use the golden raisins because they are not as tart and tangy as regular raisins.

There are four ingredients in this five-minute-or-less breakfast, and that makes it the perfect one to serve to begin a child’s day at school. Not only that, it eliminates the need for parents to be standing in the kitchen cooking for 30 minutes at 6 o’clock in the morning.

Enjoy.

Julie Wells writes the weekly food column The Recipe Box for the Rockdale Citizen.

RAISIN APPLE

OATMEAL

What you need …

Quaker Oat oatmeal