A great way to start your day

[Clipper]

Kathy makes the most delicious oatmeal I have ever eaten. She starts with about 2/3 of a cup of water in the bottom of the pan and slowly simmers 1/2 of a cup of raisins until they are nice and plump. Then she adds the desired amount of old fashion style oats, and the recommended amount of liquid and a pinch of salt. The difference is that she simmers them slowly in milk instead of water, and she also adds a dash of vanilla extract. She lets is simmer stirring often until the oatmeal is creamy and smooth. I like to stir a pat of butter into the bowl of oatmeal, and sprinkle it with brown sugar. My grandmother used to slow cook oatmeal in a double boiler over low heat and it was my grandfather that always added the pat of butter. I just brings a bit of richness and adds to the creamy texture.


There is no substitute for slowly cooked old fashion oats. Quick style oats and microwave oatmeal are like glue and don't fill the bill. When we go to the Amish store I always buy a box of the Irish steel cut oats and they are great, but for everyday oatmeal there is nothing that beats Quaker Old Fashion Oats. No generic store brand will do.

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

Did you ever have cream of wheat. I used to like that when I was in the Monastery. Our breakfasts were fantastic in Monastery/Infirmary property. Variety of items to choose from. Eggs, bacon, breakfast sausage which I liked and can never find the type they used it had these little seeds of some spice that was delicious and were fat not thin like regular breakfast sausage, oatmeal, crème of wheat, cold cereals. Amazing. Eggs were alway a variety; hard and soft boiled, scrambled, fried and poached.

There were 65 of us to feed. Usually at least 10 away from Mother House at the House of Studies.

[Clipper]

I am not a big fan of cream of wheat. The consistency is much like hominy grits though and I LOVE grits. No milk and sugar for grits. I put butter and salt and pepper on grits. Sometimes I will cook a sunny side egg or two and stir the soft yolk right into the grits. Yum. I also like risotto with shrimp sauteed in garlic and butter is my favorite although plain risotto with butter, salt and pepper is also good.

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

I like the risotto with shrimp also. Long time ago a lady used to make shrimp and grits and invite several of us to meal with her.If I remember correctly she was from Georgia. That dish is excellent I think. We had a Brother in Monastery who like a sunny side egg on grits and he also stirred a yolk into the grits!!! Maybe that was you. I really enjoy polenta either served with a tomato sauce with Pecorino Romano cheese or with a sage butter sauce.

[Clipper]

I had polenta no long ago at a diner in Abingdon that is run by an Italian guy from Long Island. He cooks it and I guess he refrigerates it on a sheet pan. When you order it he cuts it like brownies and grills it on the flat top. It was cheesy and had some sort of seasoning in it but I don't know exactly what it was. I like to check out a variety of breakfast items. I buy scrapple once in a while at Aldi's, and Food City has a product called liver mush that slices like scrapple and is good fried up in a skillet and served with your morning eggs and toast.

Talking about the liver mush aroused my curiosity as to what is in it and how it is made. I looked up a recipe. It looks like it would be easy to make. I may have to try making some. I made a 10 lb batch of breakfast sausage a few weeks ago but pork butts have gotten so expensive that I probably won't be making any more unless the price comes down a bit. Liver mush looks like it would be less expensive to make. It tastes similar to sausage in that it has sage and pepper in it. Fat back (pork fat) and liver is fairly inexpensive. A lot of people here use fat back in their cooking. It is not salted like salt pork. I guess they use it like lard. I bought a chunk when I made the sausage to add to the pork. I had one small pork butt and half pork loins were on sale so I used some lean pork loin and fattened it up with a about a half a pound of fat back.

www.cooks.com/recipe/uq0hq3ov/old-fashioned-liver-mush.html