Overnight Oatmeal

I spent about a half hour this morning making overnight oatmeal. It's one of the easiest breakfast items I have found that can be prepared ahead and will be enough for several days.

I had all my ingredients on the table when I started, which made the process go by a lot faster. I had eight pint-size jars clean so that's how many I used.

I always layer the dry ingredients first so when I shake up the jar, nothing really sticks to the bottom. Once all my ingredients are in the jar, I tighten the lid, shake it up and stick it in the refrigerator.

EASY!

Allow it to sit overnight or at least several hours. This gives time for the oatmeal to soften up and absorb the liquid.

Here are the recipes I used today.

Enjoy!!

Whatever Kind You Want Oatmeal

BASE RECIPE

1/4 cup of whole-grain oats

1 tbsp chia seeds ( I also use flaxseed sometimes)

1 tbsp Greek yogurt

1 tsp of REAL maple syrup or another natural sweetener

Blueberries, strawberries, bananas and any other fruit you want to add. You can use as much or as little as you want. Just leave enough room for the oatmeal to expand as it absorbs the liquids.

(I use 1 tbsp of REAL peanut butter if I make a peanut butter banana oatmeal)

1 cup of kefir (or enough to fill the jar just below the neck of the jar) You can also use milk. Raw is best. **If you choose to warm up your oatmeal rather than eating it cold, use milk since heat kills the probiotics in kefir.

*I actually used honey in this batch of oatmeal BUT I really should have used maple syrup or another natural sweetener since I was using kefir. Honey is anti-microbial and kefir is pro-microbial. Honey should have been added when the oatmeal was about to be eaten to avoid the honey killing the microbes in the kefir. It will still be tasty it just may not have ALL the health benefits I was going for.

LIVE AND LEARN. :D