Saturday, September 27, 2008

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!

17 comments:

anno said...

Oh boy, this sounds delicious! I think peanut butter and oatmeal have a natural affinity for one another. I might be tempted to add chocolate chips, too. Or maybe just eat a handful of them afterwards...

Michelle | Bleeding Espresso said...

Oh I've never tried peanut butter in there...what a great way to add protein to breakfast! Thanks for participating Jen (and thanks so much for your donation as well) :)

Korie said...

Lately I've been doing cream of wheat made with skim milk and stirring in a spoonful of reduced sugar cherry preserves. It's really good.

Another good one is oatmeal with some sugar free maple syrup stirred in and some chopped walnuts.

Good stuff!

Unknown said...

Good, yummy, food AND a great cause!

Virtualsprite said...

This sounds good!

Grimm said...

It is sad that my mother passed away due to complications from ovarian cancer and I did not know that September was OCAM. I REALLY need to get with the program.

And I always took my oatmeal lumpy...with extra sugar.

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I had just come across something similar in a magazine I just purchased that I was goiong to try. Oatmeal was on our breakfast every morning in the winter months.Mom wanted us to have something that would "stick to our ribs":D

Thistlemoon said...

That looks like an oatmeal I might actually love! Thanks so much for this great recipe and your participation! :)

Jen said...

Anno... as much as I love chocolate, I'm not sure I could handle that first thing in the morning, but OTOH, why not? ;-)

Oh... Michelle, it's food of the gods, truly! (Unless you're my DH). And I'm glad I could help.

Lilac - see... it's the milk thing I can't do with oatmeal. Cherry preserves sound good, though. And I forgot to mention walnuts! I love those especially with bananas.

Greg, it's good, solid Midwest fare.

Thanks, Sarah.

Grimm - never too late! Just post it late or today. Post an orange. Who cares? The main point is to get the word out. And I'm so, so sorry that this is what your mom went through.

Val - this sure isn't one of my master recipes, but it's good and easy and allowed me to participate this week, which has been crazy!

Jenn - thanks to the three of you for putting out this great project!

thailandchani said...

That oatmeal looks great! One day I hope you will write about where you get all these good ideas. :)


~*

jennifer said...

Yum- I do the oatmeal thing every morning. I use dreid cherries, slivered almonds and raw sunflower seeds.
I love coming here.

Proud Italian Cook said...

Mmmmm, Nice and comfy for a cool fall morning. Love the crunchy peanut butter!

NĂºria said...

Hola Jen! A great choice for the O Foods!
It sounds delicious... too bad I don't have peanut butter here :(
I hope I can post my entry on time!

glamah16 said...

Im a fan of oatmeal, peanut butter not so much. But I love adding the raisins, berries, dried fruits etc. If only CS shared my love for this.

Momisodes said...

YUM! That sounds amazing :) I would love to try this.

Thank you for posting about Ovarian cancer awareness. This is such an important cause.

Judy@nofearentertaining said...

Great entry. That sounds so good. Hmmm...I wonder if the kids would like this???

peter said...

I'll be honest; my awareness of ovarian cancer is as complete as possible, given that I lost my Mom to it in 2003. But I did just unknowingly post some deviant Oshitashi, so I guess that qualifies.