Oh My Oat Groats!

I’ve mentioned a couple times here before about my curious obsession with the bulk bins in the health food stores, and I’ve finally had the opportunity to try a new bulk bin item: oat groats!

Oat groats look a lot like wheat berries, but they are actually a less-processed form of something you’re more familiar with – old fashioned rolled oats.

I’ve been wanting to start preparing healthier foods on the weekends when I have more time and then utilizing them throughout the week. This will be especially helpful for foods that take a long time to prepare, like these oat groats. I took advantage of the extra time I had on Monday to make a batch of oat groats to eat this week. I took a cue from culinate.com and used my rice cooker to cook my oat groats. I rinses the oat groats, then mixed a 3:1 water to oat groat ratio in my rice cooker, and finally, I just turned the rice cooker on – yea…it was that easy.

The oat groats were done cooking before I knew it.

I was so excited to try the oat groats, I went ahead and prepared a double-batch of stovetop oats (3/4 rolled oats and 1/4 multi-grain hot cereal from TJ’s) for me and hubby to enjoy as an afternoon snack.

The oat groats went into the pot.

Once the oat mixture was ready, I added fresh blueberries…

…some of that vanilla sugar I made awhile back, and some skim milk.

To finish, I topped my bowl off with sliced almonds and ground-blueberry-flaxseed.

Conclusion

Oat groats rock! Not only were they a cinch to prepare (albeit a little slow and not for every morning), they are a welcome addition to the normal bowl of oats in the AM – I love the subtle, chewy texture they add. I’ve been working a lot lately on trying to eat more whole grains and less processed foods, and these are a nice option to have on hand. Besides adding to oatmeal, I’d like to try preparing oat groats like I would for pasta salad or tabbouleh…the possibilities are endless, and I’m looking forward to experimenting.