Chocolate Oatmeal

Breakfast is one of the most important components of a successful day—without it, focusing in class is close to impossible. If you do put in the extra five minutes in the morning, you don't have to plan for a gargantuan lunch, and there's probably health benefits to it and all that. Whether you eat it while walking to class, during class, sitting in your room before class, or all three (like me), breakfast should be eaten. It's just something you should do.

Unfortunately, I often don't have my act together enough to actually make a decent breakfast, so I usually end up eating cereal or almonds out of a quart-sized plastic bag for the first hour and a half of my day. But at least once a week, I manage to make oatmeal, which I nuke, then stick in a foam cup with a plastic spoon and sprint off to class. I use the EarthFare brand Instant Oatmeal, which has yet to make me sick (because of contamination)!

The following usually end up in the oatmeal:

• Almond or rice milk.
  
• Agave syrup
  
• Frozen blueberries (which have the most awful texture because my freezer doesn't actually freeze—I don't know why I put them in, since they taste terrible). Strawberries would probably be very good instead.
  
• CHOCOLATE.
  

It's really very simple—microwave the milk for about a minute, mix in oatmeal until it looks like a good consistency (err on the side of too thin), microwave again, then pour in agave and a few squares of dark chocolate broken up into pieces (and fruit, if you wish). I put in craisins this morning, and they were quite good. I might try just cinnamon and extra milk sometime, when I'm NOT craving sugar like a madwoman.

Yes, there is probably something wrong with having chocolate for breakfast. But I have yet to find a real reason, so until then...

This combination is quite good. Easy, hot, filling, and sweet. Curbs the chocolate craving for at least a few hours. Highly recommended.

*Note: Be careful about oatmeal. Cross-contamination is often an issue--don't buy a huge container unless you know that the particular brand won't make you sick. I'd also be careful about having the flavored kind. If they contain "natural flavors," odds are they include soy.
**Note #2: The picture above is nothing like what I ate this morning. I just wanted a picture of oatmeal and picked the second one that popped up on Google Images...

[EDIT: I've been told repeatedly to stop eating oatmeal, since it is definitely way too contaminated, so as of March I've been staying away from this and sticking to other grains. But the general ideas in this post can apply to other breakfast cereals anyway :-)]