[Recipe] Overnight Oats

I'm not one for following recipes - they all tend to end in diaster. (Which may explain why I failed in all the Chemistry lab classes in college.) So these are more like "cooking guides" where everything here is "approximate" and you can tweak it to your liking.

A few weeks ago, my friend Angela started a sensation within our friends circle by emailing us about overnight oats. It's a super easy breakfast idea for summer - you prep it the night before, and it's ready the next morning by the time you head out the door.

After I looked over several blogs showcasing overnight oats (I like this one too), I realized that it doesn't really require a "recipe" persay - perfect for a lazy person like me. You just need the following:

- oatmeal (could be steel, quick, or rolled although I read somewhere that the steel oats don't soften as much and can be chewier than liked and that the rolled is more appropriate)
- milk (or soymilk, almond milk, etc)
- sweetener or flavored yogurt (I opted for the latter)
- fruits of your choice
- any container that has a closed top (many blogs use mason jar, but I use a screw top glass jar that looks more like a candy jar. I have yet to use a Tupperware but I'm sure it would work just as fine)

Optional: other nutritious goodies like nuts, granolas, chia seeds, flax seeds, etc

1. Add oats, milk, and sweetener/yogurt to container. Don't fill the milk to the brim if you are adding chia seeds (they need room to expand) or if you are transporting this to the office.

2. If you are adding chia/flax seeds, add them now. If you are adding nuts and granolas, you can add them right before you eat so they don't get too soggy.

3. Cover lid and refrigerate. Shaking optional. Enjoy next morning! Easy!

Wait? What happened to the fruits? You can add them in any time. I opted to add them into the jar along with the oats and milk in the beginning to let the flavors swirl all together, but you can also add them right before eating. Adding the yogurt probably doesn't make it as sweet as adding sweeteners, but I like it better not as sweet and I also get the added benefit of yogurt. The cool thing about this is that you can choose to follow the recipes you find online to try the difference combinations of flavors, or you can make up your own!

Now...if only I can get H to eat this, then I wouldn't have to make a separate breakfast for him during the summer months...