Homemade Instant Oatmeal

 Laurel is a picky eater.  Have I ever mentioned that?  Right now her favorite food is oatmeal--instant oatmeal.  She wants it for every meal and for snacks.  She know where it is in the cupboard and often brings me a bag to make for her.  It is not the worst thing she could eat...but if you look at the box of instant oatmeal, you will see that most varieties contain 12-15 tsp of sugar.  Really, that much sugar in one little tiny packet of oatmeal?  Wow!  

So I decided to make my own "instant" oatmeal.  I used old fashioned oats, but to make it cook like instant oatmeal, I put in 6 cups of whole oats, and ground up the other 4 cups of oats to a fine powder in the blender.  I also added some wheat germ, nonfat dried milk, a little salt, and brown sugar--my goal is not to get rid of sugar entirely, since Laurel probably won't eat it if I do!  My goal is to reduce the amount of sugar!

Laurel helped stir it together. 

Then we poured about 1/2 cup of the mix into each little baggy.  Laurel did a great job pouring it, and didn't even get too much on the floor!

We ended up with about 20 bags of oatmeal.  If this goes over well and Laurel eats it, I plan to re-use the baggies each time I make oatmeal.

I left about half the oatmeal "plain," and added yummies to the other ones.  I know Laurel likes craisins, so I made some with dried cranberries and dried orange peel.  Some have raisins, some have dried bananas and coconut, and I added a little cinnamon to the bags as well.

Then I got really devious.  I put my bags of homemade oatmeal into the regular box of instant oatmeal.  I'm hoping Laurel will go into the cupboard to grab her packet of oatmeal at breakfast tomorrow, and won't even notice that it's something different.  I hope she likes it...otherwise I will be eating a lot of oatmeal for breakfast for the next few weeks.