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National Oatmeal Day 2025
Every day is a great day for it to be National Oatmeal Day, but it happens to actually be today. 🥣 So, boil some water, chop up some fruit and let’s get cozy…
🥣 Wholesome And So Versatile 🍪
Oats are a rich source of protein … they are wholesome and so versatile, that we can pack enough flavours and whip up some inventive and delicious dishes out of them ~Vikas Khanna
Okay, I was always a Cream of Wheat guy. Full stop. Even so, I can go for a hearty bowl of oatmeal from time to time.
Also, in the hierarchy of Christmas cookies, oatmeal cookies bubble up to my Top Ten list.
I’m not sure of the exact position without giving it some thought, but oatmeal cookies are solidly in my Top Ten.
Regardless, oatmeal is a perennial favorite. It’s a seasonal comfort food, and it’s highly nutritious.
The highly soluble fiber marks it as a heart-healthy option and it’s known to help lowering your LDL or “bad cholesterol”.
Add a bit of fruit such as diced apples, raisins or Craisins (a personal favorite of mine with a dash of cinnamon) and you’re adding more vitamins and a touch of sweetness.
We could all use some sweetness to start the day, couldn’t we?
Cook 🥣 Those 🍪 Oats
Amazing Homemade Oatmeal on the Stovetop | Cooking Basics
The great thing about oatmeal is that even the old-fashioned rolled oats don’t take that much longer to cook up.
It’s a quick dish, even in our microwave-driven society.
The main thing about oatmeal as a 🍁🧸☕ peak cozy breakfast option ☺️🥧🍂 is that either quick oats or slower-cooking rolled oats are as simple as they are decadent.
Taking a few extra minutes in the morning to cook up some tasty oatmeal with spices and fruit is a gift to yourself.
Apart from breakfast, oats can serve as a binder for savory dishes like this pseudo-quiche.
I made baked oats for DINNER (savory version) HEALTHY AND CHEAP!
As the video chef notes, the oats will absorb the flavor as you prepare the mixture, so including oatmeal in a savory dish provides a sort of flavor battery for whatever dish you’re making.
We don’t usually think of oatmeal outside the context of breakfast or cookies, but the video clearly demonstrates that oatmeal serves as a flavor sponge and binder for the final dish.
Last, but certainly not least, we come to the humble oatmeal cookie.
These things are one of those fifty-fifty propositions.
Oatmeal cookies are reviled by some and revered by others. I’m in the pro camp.
I 🍪 loves 🍪 me 🍪 some 🍪 oatmeal 🍪 raisin 🍪 cookies!
These ladies bring a bit more craft to the cookie-making. Check out their improvements to the basic recipe.
The Best Recipe for Chewy Oatmeal Cookies is Not on the Back of the Oat Canister
🥣 Heaven 🍪
I could live off oatmeal. I’ll eat it with berries, nuts, a little almond milk, and cinnamon. Heaven! ~Taylor Schilling
Again, I’m primarily a Cream of Wheat enthusiast when it comes to a cozy seasonal breakfast.
Even so, I will occasionally have a bowl of oatmeal for another sumptuous texture.
Varying textures also works in prose.
Sometimes you want things to flow smooth like Cream of Wheat and sometimes you want a little friction like in oatmeal.
BookTubers and AuthorTubers love to gab at length about the role of conflict, but it’s often overdone.
Back in my various English classes, we took note of a core conflict of man vs man, man vs nature, man vs self as the primary core conflicts of a story or novel.
Cool, yes. The grand scope of a short story, novel or series can be something as basic as Luke Skywalker vs the Empire or crashed bush pilot surviving the wilds of Alaska or the seemingly infinite hazards of the Amazon. We can watch a character struggle to overcome some crippling false belief about himself or herself. That’s the basic framework.
Within that framework, you need some friction. The character faces an implacable enemy, a deadly environment or the mental maze of false belief.
That being said, you also need some progress. Unless the point of the story is for the main character to fail, the friction needs to provide forward traction.
Points of contention are obstacles to be overcome. It could be a clever sidestep or it could be clinging to a cliff desperately by your fingertips, but the obstacles are to be overcome.
That’s the part you don’t really hear from the Tubers. They sell the obstruction but they don’t acknowledge that obstacles are there to be overcome.
They seem to think that obstacles are supposed to be soul-crushing, insurmountable cliffs.
No, it may serve the narrative for the character to perceive them as such, but even the most daunting obstacle is there to be surpassed.
Unless your story is some kind of cautionary tale, the main character is supposed to get over, under or around these obstacles and come out better in some way.
We typically like happy endings. So, no matter how many rocks you throw at your characters in the course of the story, the intent is to have them come out better than they started.
As for my own happy ending, my PC is finally restored and I’m back to writing 💡🎄🌟 Goodness & Lights 🌟🎄💡.
I’m not sure if I’m still on target to have it all done before 🦃 Thanksgiving Day 🥧 as I’d hoped, but I’ll have most of it done before then (God willing).
That’s all for today. See you back on Saturday for 🥟 calzones…