Easy oatmeal

I use paper plates. Like, a lot. So you can guess how i feel about scrubbing gross leftover oatmeal out of a pan after breakfast. (Not wanting to do dishes is the mother of invention for me, apparently.)

If you also dislike cleaning up oatmeal remains and like to have breakfast ready in roughly two minutes, here is my favorite new way to cook oatmeal. I have an electric tea kettle, but i think this would still work without it. More time, but still less mess than the traditional stovetop method. 

Anyway. To make quick oatmeal without quick oats: start water boiling in a kettle. Dump some oatmeal into a bowl -- a fairly wide, shallow one to prevent boiling over. Once the water is fairly hot, pour enough to just cover the oats. I usually let it sit for anywhere from 10-60 seconds, depending on how long i've put off getting out of bed...the goal is to just let the oats soak up the water a bit. (A "bibit," as Pen says.)

Next, pop it in the microwave for 25-40 seconds. It takes a surprisingly short time to get very soft oatmeal. 

And then i distribute the oatmeal into smaller bowls for the kids. And only give Lincoln some if i can't find anything else, because one-year-olds + oatmeal = big, big mess.