Breakfast foods for cold days......

At around 7:00 this morning, it started to snow. It's still snowing as I write this. I don't know how much we'll get; the weather forecasters are predicting 1-3 inches.

When I was much younger, my mom (who was a stay-at-home mom) would feed me warm breakfast foods, like oatmeal, farina, or Cream of Wheat. Thanks to a local radio talk show host who loved the stuff, I discovered Coco Wheats. And so I prepared a bowl of Coco Wheats for myself, along with a pot of coffee.

Coco Wheats are cocoa-flavored; hence the name. And like Cream of Wheat, they're made out of dried wheat meal. It's fun to watch them in the microwave. After the granules have absorbed the water, the whole mass begins to swell and rise. It's like something out a cheesy sci-fi movie.

So, how do they taste? Not bad. It still has a granular texture, which I'd imagine would go away if I cooked them longer. Of course, milk and sugar (and maybe a pat of butter) help the flavor. That's how I used to eat farina and Cream of Wheat. Now I eat 'em straight.

I usually have steel-cut oatmeal on the weekends. They take about a half-hour to cook, and the texture is a little more "nutty" than Quaker Oats (which is rolled oats). SOmeone once told me that rolled oats have lost a lot of the nutrition that steel-cut oats still have.

What hot breakfast foods do you remember eating when you were younger? Did you like or dislike them?