Microwave porridge - how?

[vkone]

This may seem really dumb, but has anyone got a foolproof method for making small quanities of porridge in the microwave? My son is 7 months and I'd like to give hin just plain porridge with a fruit puree rather than buying a "ready- fruited" variety and have the oatmeal already, but everytime I try I get left with gunk that sticks to everything!

When I used to make it for myself I prefered using water and then adding a little milk to cool, the problem is that the packets say "500 mls" of this and "a pint of that" rather than a ratio of oats to fluid. Any advice gratefully received.

I have the same experience as you using just oat and water/milk. Can you just do it in a casserole in the over instead? That's what I do and it doesn't take long.

Not IN,I mean ON the over. Sorry, too early and in bf-fog.....

Use ready brek-its only got added vits and things, no sugar, salt and you can make small amounts (1tbsp to 3tbsp milk I think) and cook for about 45secs to 1min. If its a bit stodgy just whisk in some more milk. Otherwise the oats so simple (plain) or supermarket equiv give specific measures and micro times. Maybe you could eat the half that ds doesnt. Its v good for you too!!

Readybrek has wheat in it as well as oats. DD at that age seemed to prefer porridge oats.

I put 1 part oats to 2 parts water in a cereal bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Take out and stir, then microwave again for 1 minute.

Add milk to cool.

A bit of trial and error - but my method was similar to Gingerbear's in terms of quantities. I tried the same technique on both oats and quinoa porridge. I used milk as the liquid and did find it had a tendency to boil over in the microwave, in the end I went back to boiling in a little pan on the stove because I made less mess, and it didn't seem to take much longer than microwaving! I found I needed more liquid when cooking on the stove than in the microwave.

I use the Oats So Simple satchets and don't follow their instructions. DS prefers it made with water and I've discovered with water it takes 1 minute to cook rather than the 2 for milk. I just put the oats in the bowl, cover them with water and put it in the microwave, then after a minutes cooking, add cold milk to the consistancy I want.

1 part oats to 2 parts liquid (milk and/or water) in a casserole, zap for 2 mins or 3-4 mins for larger quantities. If you are using a glass casserole dish, you wait until you can see it seething up and open the door before it reaches the lid!

Remember if you do end up with a sticky mess, you can always add more milk and it's still porridge!

Add the fruit puree after it has been zapped in the microwave.

One part oats to 3 parts milk, zap for 1 min. I used to process the normal porridge oats when dry to get them to about 1/5th size, found it easier to cook and for dd to eat. Then add puree - if you add the puree as a frozen cube it melts in the porridge and cools it down quickly

Isnt wheat ok after 6months? But fair point, I'd forgotten it did contain wheat. I'm with prufrock on the processing porridge oats to get a finer texture... I did that with both of mine and they did prefer it.

Just what I do:
1 part porridge, 2 parts water (roughly) into any ceramic bowl, put microwave on a defrost setting (VERY IMPORTANT, or it overflows & makes a mess), and zap for 2 minutes if adult-size portion, more like 1-1.5 minutes for a child portion.

Seems to turn out perfect, to me.

Thank you all for the advice, will try this tomorrow, I'm using fine oatmeal rather than complete oats so should be v similiar consistency to Hipp's. I was definitely too sparing with the water/milk. Also thanks Pidge for the tip with quinoa - i've wanted to try this too - BTW have you tryied similar with millet or maize flour?

vkone, sounds daft I know but it works a trooper for us. Our ds has porridge every morning and loves it. We measure everything out of an egg cup and it makes the perfect amount for a little mouth put one egg-cup scoop, one milk and one water into a bowl (tommee tippee size) and cook in microwave for a couple of minutes. When you see it boiling over (usually every day for me as I am always to pre-occupied to take notice!) then it's done. Ds loves mashed banana in his! Happy porridge making.

meant to say one egg-cup scoop of oats