Oatmeal for Breakfast

Oatmeal for breakfast with honey and pecans—the perfect fall breakfast.

When I was a kid, I hated oatmeal. Gummy, gooey, stick-in-your-throat mess. I forced mine down with toast. We ate cornmeal mush, sometimes fried in bacon grease, or boiled rice, with butter, sugar, and milk, but that stuck in my throat too.

Sometimes we had eggs but Mama always made “lace” on my eggs, burned places on the edges where it was cooked at too high a temperature, or the yolk would be broken or hard. And when she scrambled eggs, she stirred them in the pan, instead of beating them in a bowl first, and there were always strings of egg white, which made me gag.

When I was about ten, she gave me my own little cast iron fry pan which I still have and basically said, “Fix your own eggs.”  

Mama was a great cook who worked at the school cafeteria for 25 years. All the kids remember her brown beans and cornbread, turkey and dressing, hot rolls, but she was best known for her cinnamon rolls and peanut butter cookies.

Now I am trying to go back to God’s natural eating plan. I am still picky, but not as spoiled by my mama as I was when I was a child. I try to limit processed foods and use olive oil and natural oils for cooking. And I keep fruit and nuts and dark chocolate around for snacking.

I sauté fish and I use my electric grill for chicken breasts, instead of frying. We eat dark green salads with home-mixed olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. We eat whole-grain cereals and use whole wheat-bread.

Genesis 1: 29 “And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed ….and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.” Then after the flood, God told Noah, in Genesis 9:3, Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.”

God has given us good food to bless our bodies.