O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month - Jen's Rockin' Oatmeal

O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. In honor of Gina DePalma, author of Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen and Executive Pastry Chef of Babbo Ristorante in NYC, who was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Sara of Ms Adventures in Italy, Jenn of The Leftover Queen, and Michelle of Bleeding Espresso are asking you to donate to the:

Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (via FirstGiving.org)

and then, out of the goodness of your hearts and to be eligible for the O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month Contest, please do the following:

1. Post a recipe to your blog using a food that starts or ends with the letter O (e.g., oatmeal, orange, okra, octopus, olive, onion, potato, tomato) and include this entire text box in the post;

OR

2. If you’re not into the recipe thing, simply post this entire text box in a post on your blog to help spread the word about the event and Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.

AND

3. Then send your post url [along with a photo (100 x 100) if you've made a recipe] to ofoods[at]gmail[dot]com by 11:59 pm (Italy time) on September 30, 2008.

We will post a roundup and announce prize winners on October 3.

Prizes:

* 1 Recipe Prize for best “O food” concoction: $50 gift certificate to Amazon;
* 1 Awareness Prize for only publicizing event: Copy of Dolce Italiano cookbook.

———

From the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund:

* Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancers in the United States and is the fifth leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women; a woman’s lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is 1 in 67.
* The American Cancer Society estimates that 21,650 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the U.S. in 2008 and about 15,520 women will die from the disease.
* The symptoms of ovarian cancer are often vague and subtle, making it difficult to diagnose. There is no effective screening test for ovarian cancer but there are tests which can detect ovarian cancer when patients are at high risk or have early symptoms.
* In spite of this patients are usually diagnosed in advanced stages and only 45% survive longer than five years. Only 19% of cases are caught before the cancer has spread beyond the ovary to the pelvic region.
* When ovarian cancer is detected and treated early on, the five-year survival rate is greater than 92%.

Please donate to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund
and help spread the word!


When I was growing up, my father used to joke that if he'd known my mother ate peanut butter on toast for breakfast every morning, he never would have married her. While this isn't D's sense of humor, we definitely agree to disagree on the preparation of oatmeal. He likes his creamy; I like mine on the dry side. He likes it best with milk; I find that an abomination. Er... however, to be fair, he thinks everything I love in oatmeal is an abomination. And yes, my tastes in oatmeal are a bit unusual, but the concoction I make sticks to my ribs and brings me back to my childhood, so... phthththththththt!~

So, for O Foods for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month I give you...

Jen's Rockin' Oatmeal



Ingredients:

any type of old fashioned oats or a multigrain hot cereal (my fave of the moment is pictured above
water
dash of salt
2 TBS raisins
1 TBS crunchy peanut butter
1/2 TBS honey
a dash or three of cinnamon

Directions:

1. Boil 1 cup of water and dash of salt.
2. When water comes to a boil, add 1/2 cup oats, raisins and the cinnamon. Turn heat to medium/medium-low.
3. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until water is absorbed - about 5 minutes or so.
4. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and honey.

Enjoy! Serves 1

Variations:

Omit the raisins and honey and cook in sliced banana instead (the banana will "melt" into the oatmeal while cooking).
Either leave the raisins in or not, and cook in chopped, peeled apples. Add some nutmeg, too.
Substitute dried cherries and some chopped crystallized ginger for the raisins and honey.
Substitute a couple of TBS of chopped almonds for the peanut butter.
Omit the raisins and peanut butter and substitute chopped peaches during cooking and then drizzle honey and yogurt over the oatmeal at the end.

You get the idea.

Don't forget to donate to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund!