The title says it short, this says it all, I want hot cereals! Breakfast, lunch, dinner, sweet, savory, wheat, oats, rice, you name it I want it! Give me your best cereal grain recipes!
I’ll start with a old family classic! cracked wheat cooked with brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, golden raisins and chopped pecans!
I usually just toss stuff together till it tastes good but roughly it’s one cup cracked wheat to three cups boiling water and a pinch of salt. simmer in a saucepan for about 20 minutes adding cinnamon, vanilla, golden raisins, pecans, brown sugar, and milk about 5 minutes before the end to let things heat up and soften and blend. I like golden raisins but craisins, regular raisins, dried dates, dried apricots or whatever fruits you want, it’s all good. Awesome on a cold morning with a nice hot chai.
I guess polenta counts, right? Three or four parts of liquid for one of maize meal. Low fire, stirring constantly. I typically season it near the end, depending on purpose.
And when I say “depending on purpose” I mean it. It’s extremely versatile; you can eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner, as a side or the main carb, savoury or sweet. After cooked you can also deep-fry it. And while traditionalists don’t use anything but water as the liquid, you could use broth or milk instead. (I often use chicken broth.)
White or yellow is up to preferences; I eat both but prefer white. And there’s also the instant/pre-cooked version of polenta, I don’t know the English name but people call it “polentina” in Portuguese. While polentina isn’t as tasty as “true” polenta IMO, it’s still tasty enough and really practical; for example, when living on my own I used to cook it and add two eggs near the end, then season it (salt and pepper) and my dinner was almost done. (“Almost” because I had to prepare a salad with it, for my guilty conscience.)
But the best way to eat it IMO is alongside chicken and tomato sauce. It isn’t anything fancy, but it’s comforting (specially as I grew with it) - dice and brown some seasoned chicken on veg oil, add diced onions, let them cook alongside the chicken until transparent, add a buttload of tomato paste and a bit of water, fix the seasoning if necessary. Then serve it alongside the polenta.