Oatmeal with Hot Water Kettle

[yondavies]

Hi all,
I'm moving into my dorm in a week and there's a possibility I might not be getting a microwave in the room. This isn't a problem, since all I use it for is coffee, tea, and oatmeal.

That being said, is there any way I could make oatmeal using just hot water? Like, steel cut or rolled oats, not that flaky instant crap. Normally oatmeal requires like 2 1/2 minutes of cooking time in the microwave, do you think just pouring on hot water might give me a nice consistency?

[ThePunkHippie]

If you have access to a mortar & pestle, you can make your own instant oatmeal - just take large flake oats & grind them up a bit.

[Chris VR]

Check out this previous discussion. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/679150 It requires a bit of planning the night before, but it seems to work great.

[seamunky]

An immersion heater might help also. Basically, it is a heating coil that you can put in your bowl for the 2-3 minutes you need to keep your oatmeal cooking.

http://www.amazon.com/NORPRO-559-Imme...

[chartreauxx]

or you could invest in a rice cooker. cheap ones are $15-$30 new, and work just fine. i've successfully made many things in one, including rice (duh), pasta, oatmeal, and once even a spicy szechuan-style beef soup...

[todao]

I don't believe that you'd be able to maintain a water temperature high enough or for the length of time needed to do a decent job with oatmeal simply resting in hot water. You didn't say how you intend to heat the water so I assume you're using hot tap water.
You might try one of those electric coffee cups:
http://www.google.com/search?client=u...
so that enough heat is maintained over time to make your oatmeal.

[yondavies]

Oh sorry -- I'm planning on heating it up using an electric tea kettle. I think maybe if I cover the oatmeal the heat might be enough to at least give it a bearable texture. I will try it out today with some stovetop water.

Thanks for the cup suggestion, never heard of them, I'll check em out :)

[todao]

OK; in which case I'd probably opt for the bircher muesli suggestions from melanieb1978 and add some hot milk or additional hot water to heat it up on a cold morning.
Best of luck in your college experience.

[melanieb1978]

Or, you could do a bircher muesli. No heating needed, soaking the oats overnight in the fridge instead of cooking (if that's an option). I do this every day, it saves time, and gives a break to the monotonous oatmeal.

mynewroots.blogspot.com/ - enter bircher muesli (work blocks blogs, so can't give you the full link)