More than happy to oblige, dearest Jilly!
Savoury oatmeal - the perfect winter's breakfast! I shall post the ten minute method!
1/4 c steel-cut oats
1 tbsp butter
6-8 oz of broth (I usually use chicken, sometimes beef)
1 egg
Optional: 2-3 oz of ground/shredded/diced pre-cooked meat
Soak 1/4 cup of steel-cut oats in 3/4 cup of water overnight; it does not need to be refrigerated, but I would cover it. (Yes, you must use steel-cut oats and not rolled oats, because rolled oats are inferior and if someone tries to deny this, they are wrong.) In the morning, use your small saucepan or even a small non-stick skillet and melt a tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Drain your oats as well as you can, then toss 'em in the melted butter, and let 'em toast up. In about a minute, they'll have absorbed the butter, and started to brown slightly; if they smell smokey and you see some oats turning black, your heat was too high, but you're not dead yet, just add the stock. If after a minute or two, you've toasted the oats to a nice light brown, boost the heat and quickly add the stock. (If you're adding meat, now's the time to do that, too.) Bring it to a boil quickly (usually about a minute or two), crank the heat to low and cover. Let it simmer for five minutes. (Pack your lunch for the day at this time.) After the five minutes, take it off the heat, take off the lid, wait 30 seconds, then crack one glorious egg on top. Stir it gently; the yolk will blend with the broth to make it rich and silky (and will cook just right without curdling into scrambled eggs), while the white will become tiny flecks of texture amongst the oats. Add black pepper and/or hot sauce and/or sriracha, if so inclined. Either consume once it will no longer burn your tongue, or pour into a thermos like I do, to eat at work.
Since I'm a protein-fiend, the egg isn't quite enough, which is why I add meat. Shredded chicken works wonderfully, as does crumbled up breakfast sausage (I get the turkey stuff), and diced bacon. Even plain ol' ground beef works.
I pretty much have to prep it this way, since I ate two packets of Quaker oats almost every day sophomore and junior years in high school. Burned my tastebuds out on sweet oatmeal as a result (Apples and Cinnamon USED to be my favorite, followed by the various fruit-and-creme variations). No longer; savoury is the only way I can take it now.
Music theory! How delightful! I shall begin my ten-sentences-or-less with this quote by composer Paul Hindemith:
"There are only twelve tones, treat them carefully."
Those twelve tones can be combined, typically in groups of three or four (or more!), to form chords. There are a fantastic number of chords we can build (in varying qualities: major, minor, diminished, and a whole lot more), but we find that specific sets of chords, particularly seven chords built using the seven same tones, sound best when used together. This set of tones and set of chords derived from said tones creates a specific tonality or key; hence you'll hear people specify, "the key of B-flat, please" or "let's do this in G-minor," as they are designating the particular set of tones and chords that they will be using. Those seven chords, when utilized in particular patterns, create tension and release (termed "dissonance" and "consonance," respectively, in musical parlance) in a continuous manner that gives the harmonic flow of the music a forward motion, if you will; a drive towards a conclusion (through tension and release) that eventually resolves (hopefully!) with a final, conclusive moment of consonance on the final chord. You can demonstrate this by singing Amazing Grace to yourself, and you'll find tiny crests of dissonance resolving to small moments of release (creating small musical phrases), as well a large build to a moment of high tension, and a slow release to consonance (a large, overarching harmonic phrase, or complete musical thought.
Six sentences! But now I will show you how to demonstrate this yourself, how the concept of consonance and dissonance build harmonic motion, which in turn, creates phrases.
Sing the first verse, and note how the tones build and release for short phrases:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found / Was blind, but now I see.
Overall consonance
Slight dissonance
Slight consonance
Highest point of dissonance
So, the pattern in which the melody and the chords are placed creates forward motion. Hopefully that example makes the theory-in-ten-sentences-or-less make sense. (I mean, you did ask me to boil down a topic that is typically taught over the course of four to five semesters in college, and the last time I served as a music theory professor, at Western New Mexico University, was in 2005. I can't believe I just came up with all of that after 8 years of teaching Mary Had A Little Lamb. ^_^ )
My argument was that he didn't tell us it couldn't sound horrid. From that point on he always added, "And it must be auditorially pleasing!" in a thick Spanish accent. When he found out I was a bruja he got a little nicer.
