College student diet - Breakfast

Since our move to Rexburg, our income has sliced to less than a quarter of what it was in SLC (and we weren't making a ton there either). That being said, our grocery budget has had to majorly decrease.  We I am having to work hard to overcome our my addiction to fast food and the convenience of it. I managed to cut our grocery bill way down by coming up with three very simple dinner meals that can be dumped into the crockpot, add water, and go. It was super easy and convenient when we first got here, but then school started. I was finding myself waking up late before class, scrambling to get any last minute homework done before leaving, and not to mention actually trying to look decent before walking out the door. I was finding that I rarely had time to eat breakfast, let alone pull out the crockpot, wash it if we had not done dishes the night before (Have you ever tried to wash a crockpot where food had dried to it? It takes an ETERNITY), and actually get everything into it before having to leave for class. After a couple weeks, I pretty much quit even trying and we were jumping right back into our fast food/processed food crap that made me gain all my weight when we first got married.

So that's dinner. We also were struggling to find ways to eat a healthy breakfast or lunch, if we ate it at all. The meals that I have prepared for the crockpot are meant for a crockpot, so they don't cook very quickly on the stove, and I don't really have time to stand there and monitor it on the stove anyway. I have been seeing a lot of people online raving about something called an "Instant Pot". It pretty much is a pressure cooker that cooks things in insanely quick amounts of time without the gross texture microwaves give food and without the constant monitoring of cooking on a stove. I convinced Nathan to let me buy one the other day, and I am already in love!

One of my go to meals in the crockpot is homemade refried beans with dry beans (because they are dirt cheap), but one of the downsides is that you really should soak them overnight before making them in the crockpot otherwise they have to cook longer and come out more crunchy. I read online that you can pressure cook the beans without soaking and it will still come out as if you soaked them overnight. I was reluctant, but gave it a shot and the beans were amazing! I cooked them on the pressure cooking setting for an 1 hour 15 minutes, vs the 8 hours in the crockpot (or 4 on high). I then tried my other go to of split pea soup (again - dirt cheap) and instead of the 8 hours on low (4-5 on high), it cooked in 30 minutes and the texture came out way better than I am used to. I'll share some of these recipes later in life, but for now I want to get down to the real reason for this post - BREAKFAST.


I saw Nathan pull out another bowl of Cheerios, and I knew that wasn't going to fill him, so I started looking up recipes for instant pot breakfast ideas to see if I could make him something more hearty or filling. I found lots of great things for different egg recipes (hard-boiled, omelettes, casseroles, etc.), porridge, yogurt, and oatmeal. Holy options, Batman. The only thing I had on hand today was oatmeal, so I decided to give it a try. DISCLAIMER: I HATE OATMEAL. With a passion. I hate that it comes out thick, I hate the gluey texture, and I really don't like the taste if we are going to be real. It is probably because of all the forced oatmeal I had to eat as a kid. I know that if I am going to lose weight, I need to give healthier food a chance, so I went at it. While I was waiting for it to start cooking, I pulled out another recipe book trying to come up with other things I could make later. I found a recipe for an "Autumn Glaze" which isn't the most healthy thing, but I thought I would try it mixed in with my oatmeal to make it a bit more bearable for myself.

After the oatmeal was finished, I mixed in my glaze, and added some slivered almonds that I happened to have on hand to the top. Then I took a bite. IT WAS A MIRACLE. I absolutely loved it! It was so yummy! The instant pot kept it from getting super thick and gluey, but still kept it cooked. All the things I hated about oatmeal were literally not present. So yeah. I ate oatmeal today. What the what. I am going to keep adding recipes I find to this blog so I have somewhere to reference my crazy feelings about my new foods and somewhere that I can actually pin my recipes from. Because who needs cookbooks? Pinterest is where it's at. #Millenial

Instant Pot Autumn Oatmeal for 2

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of water (plus 1/4 cup for the syrup)
• 1 cup of old-fashioned oats 
• 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• Slivered almonds for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Put 3 cups of water and 1 cup of oats into instant pot and stir. 
2. Set instant pot on manual pressure cook for 3 minutes
3. In a small saucepan bring 1/4 cup of water to a boil
4. In your measuring cup add confectioners sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and pour into pot
5. Stir until dissolved.
6. You can continue stirring until it forms the consistency of a syrup or keep it somewhat watery for your oatmeal. Whatever fits your texture preferences.
7. Naturally release pressure on instant pot 
8. After release add the glaze to the oatmeal and stir
9. If desired, add almonds to top of your oatmeal

You can totally just make the oatmeal part and add your own ingredients in if desired. I really liked the nutmeg taste in the glaze to go with my oatmeal. I am super excited to keep trying recipes out in my new toy!

Disclaimer: I combined two recipes to make this. The oatmeal comes from Sisters under Pressure and the Autumn Glaze comes from my recipe book "Nom Yourself" by Mary Mattern. The only thing altered is I did not add sage to my glaze as the recipe calls for.