Cereal for Dinner (Oatmeal with Almond Gravy in a Winter Squash Bowl)

In my post about eating alone, I told you to save your Cheerios for breakfast.

Maybe this confused you. Maybe you think I don’t eat cereal, or that I don’t eat cereal at night, or that I’m a crap American who eats French things for breakfast, like croissants and brioche and crepes suzette.

To the contrary, I love cereal. I don’t eat Twinkies or Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheese, but I can’t escape my American yen for the flaky, the crunchy, and the machine-processed. I love Smart Bran, and Grain Shop, and Alpen muesli. I could write an educated op-ed about every Nature’s Path granola flavor (love the pumpkin, avoid the pomegranate).

When I said don’t eat cereal for breakfast, I was not expressing a hate on for puffed rice or flaked corn. You can eat cereal for dinner, you should eat cereal for dinner – if you can commit to your cereal.

Don’t eat dinner just to avoid passing out at tomorrow’s dance practice, or to pad your stomach before a keg race. Take every meal as a chance to explore and to savor. Eat your cereal. But only if you’re willing to enjoy it.

Tonight, I ate cereal for dinner.

The weather people mentioned we might get one or two inches of snow. D.C. did receive a few inches of that pretty, fairy tale white fluff, which sticks to tree branches and eyelashes but leaves roads well enough alone.

Frederick, though only a few hours west from D.C., experiences lower temperatures: I got off the train to find my Prius quilted in snow (which frostbit my fingers as I scraped the windshield), unsalted roads, and crazy, aggressive, panicked drivers speeding down ice-covered roads.

I came home late, cold, wet and hungry. I wanted something quick, something comforting. Steel cut oats, squash, quince, apples, and dried fruit came together with toasted almonds and an almond gravy to a make a meal somewhere between a creamy risotto and the cinnamon-scented porridge Mom used to nuke on Massachusetts mornings.

Halved, baked lady apples provided a not-so-ordinary side. I licked their sweet and creamy stickiness from my fingers.

Hey, I never said anything against finger food.

Cereal for Dinner (Oatmeal with Almond Gravy in a Winter Squash Bowl)

Serves one.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp steel-cut oats
1/2 small acorn squash, baked and kept warm
3 lady apples, halved and baked
1/4 cup quince, roasted and cubed
1 tsp raisins
1 tsp dried cherries
1 tbsp almonds, sliced and toasted
1 tsp almond butter
2 tsp plain soy milk

spices:

cardamom
nutmeg
cinnamon
kosher salt
black pepper

Measure steel-cut oats into a heavy saucepan. Add the spices. I used more cinnamon and cardamom than nutmeg. Cook the steel-cut oats according to package directions. When the steel-cut oats finish cooking, stir in the dried fruit and chopped quince.

Pour the soy milk into a saucepan or skillet on the lowest heat setting. Add a teaspoon of almond butter. Whisk the soy milk and almond butter together until the ingredients form a thick sauce that looks like gravy. Stir about one-third of the almond sauce into the oatmeal.

Spoon some almond “gravy” into the bottom of the baked winter squash. Heap the oatmeal into the squash’s empty cavity. Top the squash with slivered almonds and the remaining “gravy.”

The whole meal comes to around 220 calories, about the same as a half cup of dry granola. Which dinner provides greater appeal? You tell me.