easy to make

There are some grains and things that are so easy to make, you can do it even if you are weak with hypoglycemia.

Couscous is a good one. You take a measure of water, and boil it. Then you take the pot off the heat, put in the same measure of couscous, and put a lid on it for about five or ten minutes. It's a good sort of "grain" that is actually a pasta, and if you fluff it with a fork you can use it for salad, or put vegetables in it, or sauce on it.

The same for bulghar wheat. This is the grain that makes tabouli: it's a sort of parboiled cracked wheat. You make it the same way you make couscous. To use it in tabouli, add lots of chopped fresh parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, tomatos (and use their juice for the dressing), a little basil, a little mint, salt and pepper, and cucumber. (But the thing about cucumber is that, once it's cut, it goes mushy pretty fast in the fridge, so if you're going to save the tabouli, maybe only cut up the cucumber just before serving.)

For both bulghar wheat and couscous, you can even boil water in the kettle, and leave it to steam in the serving bowl with a plate overtop.

Polenta is another good little grain dish: boil three measures of salted water for every measure of corn meal. It's better if it's good, thick water-ground corn meal rather than the bright yellow box stuff, but both will make some sort of cake with this method. While the water is boiling, mix with the dry corn meal things that might make the finished corn cake interesting: red pepper flakes, saffron, oregano, sundried tomatos. When the water is boiling, turn the stove down low, pour in the corn meal and whisk or stir it to make it smooth. Put the lid on and leave for about 15 minutes on low or no heat. It will be kind of gooey, and you can eat it like this, or . . .

put it in a container in the fridge, with the lid half-on. It will get firm, like a sort of moist cake. Then you can slice it and fry it or bar-b-q it or make it into cubes and use like tofu. If the cubes are firm enough, you can even put them in soup just before serving.

So, RBT asks, is any of this "healthy"? Well, compared to corn chips, white flour, sugar, mashed potatos with gravy, even bagels, these grains are really nutritious. They are filling, and how they rate fat-wise depends on what you put on them.

I really wouldn't worry about whether something has lots of calories or fat, so long as it's a whole, unprocessed food. The less packaging, the fewer ingredients on the package, the more recently is was packaged, the more "healthy" you should consider it. Good food is more about variety and provision of nutrients than calories, carbs and fat.

Bad food has lots of bulk or weight but not much for nutrients (my bagel example). Some food has lots of bulk but shouldn't be avoided: it still has lots of fiber, nutrients, or complementary protein.

I can't believe you listen to me.

Oatmeal

The first thing for oatmeal is you need boiling water. So boil it. About as much water as the amount of oatmeal you want to end up with.

In a bowl, mix up some things you want in the oatmeal. Start with oats. The rolled oats, really thick kind, are the best for boiling because they don't get all gluey. Flax seeds are good to add, they are easier to digest if they are boiled (but maybe that kills all the good oil, who knows). Corn meal, oat bran, wheat germ, bran, you can add a spoonful or more for each bowl being served. Raisins. Shredded coconut! (This adds fat but also flavour and nuttiness.) Chopped almonds.

Some spices that make it good: a stick of cinnamon, a few cloves, nutmeg. Remember about the pieces when you eat the oatmeal later, you can even just put it all in the water while it's boiling then take it out before the next step.

Add the oatmeal mix a small handful at a time. Dad always emphasised the steady stream while whisking. Turn the heat down to just below three so it doesn't boil all over the stove. Dad didn't like to measure the oats, he just sort of got a feeling for when it was thick enough, and then he just stirred. It was done when it looked edible. Err on the side of too little heat so it doesn't burn.

I don't know what Dad would think about all the extra stuff I just mentioned, he was more of just a raisin kind of guy.

Then the best part was at the table, you make a well in the top of the steaming oatmeal, and then put in that dark brown demerara sugar mom and dad liked, a spoon of butter, and pour milk all over it.

You can use maple syrup, coconut milk, molasses, sucanat, etc. at the end. I mean, go nuts.

Cheese Sauce

The point of cheese sauce is to control the cheesiness.

First you gotta heat up some oil or melt some butter in the pan. Start with about a tablespoon. Only put it at about 3 or 4, no need to ever have to stove too hot for this.

When the fat is hot, put in about a tablespoon of flour. White or whole wheat, it doesn't matter. Stir it with a wooden spoon until it's a kind of paste, all heated up, and a little cooked smelling. When flour is cooked it can thicken things. When it's raw it just makes lumps.

Then you can slowly stir in milk, unsweetened and unflavoured soy or rice milk, or broth. You can probably even use cream. If you use real dairy, for sure make sure the burner isn't too hot.

(At this point, it's a cream sauce, and you can flavour it however: tomato, cheese, add it to pureed vegetables and broth for cream soup)

Stir it and smooth out the lumps with a wooden spoon. If you are using a stainless steel pot, you can whisk it to get the lumps out.

Then you can add lots of shredded cheese (but not rubbery cheese like mozzarella or havarti). Paprika is good, too, and oregano.

It doesn't need to be cooked for long after you add the cheese.