Home made instant oatmeal

I've decided that I need a section in my blog that focuses on penny pinching, wildcrafting and homesteading.  I will have to go through my blogs to see if I can find some other tutorials, but for now, I will just describe my current chore at hand.
I just finished making instant oatmeal packs for the month.  I've found I can have a healthier more flavorful oatmeal with more good stuff in it than if I was to buy the instant oatmeal in the store.   You will need:
* One box of powdered milk.
*One 2-lb box of instant oats.
* Salt.
*sugar or substitute.
 It's 1/4 cup oats, 1 tablespoon powdered milk, 1 packet of sugar stand-in or 1 tablespoon of regular sugar, pinch of salt.  That is your base.

you can mix whatever you want in from there.  You can make TONS of oatmeal with these few ingredients.  the powdered milk will last a long time because you only use 1 tablespoon per pack.  the only thing that you need to keep stocked up on regularly is the oats and whatever you want in the packets flavor-wise.


I kind of set up an assembly line when I do this.  A finger bowl of spice, salt, the fruit/nuts, a bowl with powdered milk, oats.  have your measuring spoons with your ingredients, so that you just open a bag and start adding what you want.

This morning I made banana nut muffin oatmeal:
Base oatmeal
Mix 1 tbs cardamom, 1 tbs cinnamon  and 1 tablespoon nutmeg together in a little finger bowl.

then open your baggie and in goes:
* a pinch of salt.
* a healthy pinch of spices.
* a packet of sugar substitute or a tbs of sugar.
* a small handful of crushed dried banana chips.
* a small handful of walnuts.
*A tbs of powdered milk.
* a 1/4 cup of oats.

I also made berries and cream, which is just some dried berries added to the base.  Then I made chocolate date chai, which is the cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg with some clove added in, dried dates and a tiny handful of mini chocolate chips. I have well over 50 servings of quality, healthy, oatmeal for the same price as 1 box of commercial instant oatmeal and it took me about an hour to prepare  enough for a month or more. I have 3 kids at home right now, so 50 bags is about a month's worth for us. You may use more or less depending on how many mouths you have to feed :)

To serve, simply put the mix in a bowl, add just enough boiling water to cover the oats, let it sit a few minutes and eat.