Calpat, Somewhere in the distant past I remember hearing something about oatmeal in planting holes. I have no idea if oatmeal has any properties that would resist bugs or disease in plants. But, it is high in iron. Perhaps this might be the reason for using it. I will give it a try in potted plants to see what happens. It sounds as though we are going to need a Kitchen Cupboard Forum. Just think of all the products we organic gardeners pull off the kitchen shelf for garden use. Cornmeal, baking soda, hot pepper, garlic, vinegar, molassess, milk,....etc. All very effective treatments for garden problems. My DH is grumbling that I feed the garden better than the family!

You can make ghee easily at home. How to make Ghee Ghee is essentially clarified butter. I use organic cultured(European style)UNSALTED butter as the end product tastes richer than with regular butter. Bring the cubes of butter to room temperature so they melt evenly when you start to cook them. Use a heavy bottomed saucepan that has enough height as the ghee will foam during cooking. Make sure the pan and the spoon are thoroughly dry. Add the butter to the pan and cook on medium low heat. In the beginning you want to stir well to prevent over cooking the ghee and burning it. Once the butter is all melted, continue cooking the ghee. It will foam and rise. Keep stirring to prevent burning. The ghee is cooked and done when the foaming subsides and the color is a pale caramel color. Be careful. It is very very hot. Take it off the heat immediately. Due to the retained heat in the pot, the ghee will continue to darken a bit more. Decant when it has cooled but still liquid to a clean glass or metal jar with a tight fitting lid. Use sparingly as this is high in fat. Ghee is highly aromatic and is amazing in omlets, for toasting nuts etc. Keeps forever in the fridge. It will be solid like butter but you can scrape a spoonful as needed. and will melt like butter. If the ghee is very pale and whitish, it needs to be cooked a bit more. If you have dregs in the bottom of the pan, just drain the liquid and use the dregs immediately. This is how my grandmother taught me to cook ghee the traditional Indian way. Ghee and unfiltered unrefined cold pressed coconut oil and raw sesame oil were pretty much the only fats used in cooking then.

I don't love oatmeal, but the steel cut ones are not bad. My Grandmother used to make me eat oatmeal and hers was always glue-y and sticky, and my texture issue just had....well....an issue, LOL. Couldn't eat them without gagging, no matter how much milk and sugar went into/on top of. Now I eat steel cut oats and find them acceptable. I use the Cook's Illustrated overnight method, which calls for boiling the oats for 1 minute, then covering and letting them sit overnight. Next morning turn on the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes and they are ready to eat. I use 3/4 cup of oats and 3 cups of water, and leftover oats can be refrigerated and they warm up OK in the microwave. Mine never have any milk of any kind, I just drizzle a bit of maple syrup and sprinkle with chopped nuts or add some brown sugar and raisins. I don't care for the uncooked overnight oats, we're back to that texture thing. I'm not sure how something can be chewy and mushy at the same time, but they are. Oh, and the shelf stable almond milk is available in sizes from 8 ounces to 32 ounces on Amazon. It's not available here but I don't have access to large grocery stores. Annie

I have a funny story to share re instapot. Two years ago we started a massive kitchen renovation - I got my 6 burner Bluestar range, a walk in pantry, wall ovens - heaven ! Well, in the midst of it, DH discovers IP and started testing out Asian Indian cooking in it. Since we were kitchen-less for a longgg time and his engineering sense of precision to cooking naturally lent to IP cooking, I went along. Well here we are two years later and now we have 2 IPs (and threatening to buy a third small one ... for "those times when you we might need one ! LOL ".DH is turning into a IP-dictator whereby he automatically assumes that any cooking I do can be done faster and taste better in IP. It doesnt help that HIS instapot recipes are really yummy and a great hit with our boys and with friends ! I was half joking to him that instead of upgrading to bluestar rangetop, we should have bought 6 IPs for a fraction of the cost :) If anyone wants to try good IP dishes for Asian Indian cooking I highly recommend https://ministryofcurry.com/top-10-instant-pot-recipes/ Note: No relation to the author, just a blog DH swears by for his IP recipes. HTH