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Ten pounds of quick oats...help!?


dtremit

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Oh boy. I have somehow found myself with ten pounds of quick oats.

 

I bought a huge package by accident six months ago — my partner uses lots of rolled oats to make granola, and I hit the wrong button on Amazon. Oh well, I'll figure out something to do with them, I said.

 

Well, apparently I clicked "Subscribe and Save," because another 80oz box just showed up. 

 

Normally we are steel cut oat people for normal eating — the texture of instant or quick oats cooked "normally" is not exactly our favorite. 

 

I would love to find some recipes that we can make regularly to use these up. I know I can put them into cookies and the like, but by my math this would make 400 cookies, and we really don't need to be eating 400 cookies right now 🤣

 

Healthy breakfasts would be especially great, but totally open to just about anything — sweet, savory, breads, whatever. 

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Actually, they're not even great for cookies.

At least not according to our friends at Cooks' Illustrated, who years ago published a recipe for "the greatest oatmeal cookies in the world;" at least not until their next recipe for the "then greatest oatmeal cookies in all the world."

 

Truth be told - I've made their greatest oatmeal cookies in the world with their recommended rolled oats. And they're pretty great. Given away many as gifts, and always the question is - when can you make some more? (I like to sprinkle some fleur de sel atop prior to baking).

 

cook’s illustrated thin and crispy oatmeal cookies
ingredients:
1 cup (5 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
14 tablespoons 1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but still cool, about 65 degrees
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar (I use baker’s sugar)
1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (must be old-fashioned, not quick-cooking)

instructions:
1. adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. line 3 large (18- by 12- inch) baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
2. in standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars at medium-low speed until just combined, about 20 seconds. increase speed to medium and continue to beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute longer. scrape down bowl with rubber spatula. add egg and vanilla and beat on medium-low until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. scrape down bowl again. with mixer running at low speed, add flour mixture until just incorporated and smooth, 10 seconds. with mixer still running on low, gradually add oats and mix until well-incorporated, 20 seconds. give dough final stir with rubber spatula to ensure that no flour pockets remain and ingredients are evenly distributed.
3. divide dough into 24 equal portions, each about 2 tablespoons (or use a #30 cookie scoop), then roll between palms into balls. place cookies on prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 1/2 inches apart, 8 dough balls per sheet. ssing fingertips, gently press each dough ball to 3/4-inch thickness.
4. bake 1 sheet at a time until cookies are deep golden brown, edges are crisp, and centers yield to slight pressure when pressed, 13 – 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely on sheet.
yield: 24 cookies.

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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The soup kitchen where I volunteer was given a GIGANTIC bag of quick oats mixed half and half with sugar recently. This was handed to me to see what can be done with it. Turns out, it's perfect to make any sort of crumble dessert. Don't need to add sugar - mix in some butter/margarine, a little cinnamon...it's done. also used it to make some jam squares. This is a wonderful thing to donate if, as it sounds, you have more than you can grapple with.

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Quaker has recently started selling oat flour, so if you feel like pulsing the oats for a few minutes to powder 'em, you can check out some of those recipes:

https://www.tastyrewards.com/en-ca/brands/quaker/recipes

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"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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57 minutes ago, Mjx said:

I break them down (e.g. in a food processor) and use them in place of bread crumbs.

 

I do that, too. Use the "oatcrumbs" to make a crusting for fish then baking or frying it.

 

It's a traditional way to do herring in Scotland. I can't get herring here, but I've used it successfully with other fish.

Never  had to deal with 10 lbs, though. Might work with whale!

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13 hours ago, chromedome said:

Quaker has recently started selling oat flour, so if you feel like pulsing the oats for a few minutes to powder 'em, you can check out some of those recipes:

https://www.tastyrewards.com/en-ca/brands/quaker/recipes

 

Aren't rolled oats, and similarly quick-cooking oats, steamed/dried and rolled?  And isn't oat flour made directly from oat groats?  So is it actually the same product?

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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 AFAIK all oats intended for human consumption are heated/steam treated to inactivate the enzymes which otherwise would cause them to rapidly become rancid. Can't check McGee right now, as I'm still riding herd on a small grandson.

“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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7 minutes ago, chromedome said:

 AFAIK all oats intended for human consumption are heated/steam treated to inactivate the enzymes which otherwise would cause them to rapidly become rancid. Can't check McGee right now, as I'm still riding herd on a small grandson.

 

McGee does say "Steam treatment or careful removal of the bran...is necessary to avoid rapid spoilage" And then my eyes glazed over.

 

And it certainly seems that the flour can be made in any number of ways, including from what we might cook as a cereal.

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/oat-flour

 

Good to know I can make oat flour any time I need some.

 

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Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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Thanks for all the replies. They are all sealed up so we might just end up donating them — I had thought of that but figured the bags would be too big. But as @Margaret Pilgrim suggests it might be just the thing for a soup kitchen or similar. 

 

We *also* have a huge bag of old fashioned oats that I think most of these suggestions would work just as well for 🙂

 

I did see some mention that quick cooking oats are steamed for significantly longer than other oats — apparently they don't work well in oat milk recipes for that reason. So it might make them a poor choice for oat flour used as flour (though probably fine in the breadcrumb use case).

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On 6/5/2021 at 8:14 AM, chromedome said:

 AFAIK all oats intended for human consumption are heated/steam treated to inactivate the enzymes which otherwise would cause them to rapidly become rancid. Can't check McGee right now, as I'm still riding herd on a small grandson.

 

This prompted my interest, as I am fond of oat groats that I typically flock for oatmeal.  I wrote to customer service at Bob's Red Mill and received a detailed and quick reply.  Bob's oat groats are heated in a dry kiln to 200F for 4 to 5 hours.

 

The representative also told me that the company's oat groats had been discontinued.

 

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9 minutes ago, mgaretz said:

If from Amazon, you may be able to simply return them if they are sealed.  I use about a cup of oats in my meatloaf.  

 

If from amazon it shouldn't matter if the oats are sealed.  We're not talking about computer parts.  Amazon is generous about most returns, as long as the returns are within thirty days.

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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I buy 3 kilos of oats at a time and have no trouble using them up. Do they go stale? Do they get moldy? We've just started the rainy season, when the humidity is routinely over 60% even when it's not raining, so if there's any place where oats would mold it would be here. Oats don't seem to go off in any way. I always include them in breads, and given that we eat oatmeal for breakfast about once a week we finish the 3 kilos and have to go back for more. (We have a wonderful bulk store in Morelia.) And I also use 2-3 tablespoons in the blender for our smoothies.

 

So if you use oats in that way, in bread and oatmeal breakfasts, I'd say stash them away in a "cool dry place."

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Formerly "Nancy in CO"

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