Steel Cut Oats

Week: 14
Ingredient: Steel Cut Oats
From: Martin's, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Oatmeal

I am not in to health food. At least, not in the I’m going to eat this food that doesn’t taste good because it provides such and such health benefit sense. That’s why I was a little skeptical of steel cut oats at first. My impression was that they were just another health food fad. However, several of my friends have told me how great steel cut oats are, so I figured it was time to give them a try. An oatmeal taste test, steel cut versus rolled oats, seemed appropriate.

I bought some steel cut oats, and to my surprise, the nutritional information was identical to the nutritional information for the rolled oats I already had at home. Health food? Ha! At least not any more than regular rolled oats (which really are quite good for you). Wikipedia did say that “steel-cut oats may have a lower glycemic index than instant oatmeal,” but I was comparing them to old fashioned oats, not instant, so I’m not sure if that still holds true or not.

I made both oatmeals according to package directions. The only notable difference in the cooking directions was that the steel cut oats needed 10-20 minutes to cook while the rolled oats needed only 5. (Do old fashioned oats really only take 5 minutes to cook? Or is it possible my oats were mislabeled and really were quick oats? Sometimes you can’t be sure when you buy the store brand ...)

Conclusion: It seems to me that the differences between steel cut oats and rolled oats are kind of like the differences between brown rice and white rice: nutrition, cooking time, flavor, and texture. Only, with the oats the variations are smaller than with brown and white rice. The one exception is the texture. While I didn’t note much difference in flavor between the steel cut and rolled oats, the difference in texture was significant. The rolled oats made oatmeal that was ... like oatmeal. (How else can I describe it?) The steel cut oatmeal had a little more bite to it; it could almost be called chewy. It kind of reminded me of buckwheat. Anyway, I liked it. I won’t be replacing all my rolled oats with steel cut oats, but they will find a place in my pantry. And, like brown and white rice, I will find uses for both kinds of oats at different times.

Chipped Beef

Week: 1
Ingredient: Esskay Chipped Beef
From: Red Front Supermarket, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Creamed Chipped Beef (from the package)

I made a quick stop at Red Front this week to pick up a few ingredients for a salad I was supposed to take to a dinner the next evening. While I was there, I decided to see what unusual things Red Front carried. Certainly there would be something interesting in the small grocery store I have always thought was very ... Mennonite. The first thing that caught my eye was a small jar of “Dried Beef.” Immediately, I was reminded of my grandmother—not the Mennonite one, but the the Baptist one. I had seen such a jar in her kitchen many times. I always thought the little rounds of red-brown meat in an otherwise-empty jar were funny. Seriously, who buys meat that way?

Nonetheless, it seemed perfect. The weather was so cold outside, exactly the kind of weather that makes one want to sit down to a hot, fattening, oh-so-comforting meal. And chipped beef gravy, the only thing I knew to do with dried beef, was all of these things. I added the little jar to my cart and continued through the store.

When I passed through the refrigerated meat section, I noticed a small, plastic package labeled “Chipped Beef.” But if that was chipped beef, what was this dried beef I had found amongst the SPAM and Vienna sausages? I was anxious to get home, out of the cold, so I added the similar-looking, but sooner-expiring, thinly-sliced beef to my cart, and hurried through the rest of my shopping trip.

Back at home, with the groceries unloaded, I set out to find out the difference between dried beef and chipped beef. Food Lover's Companion did not let me down: “Chipped beef is also referred to simply as dried beef.”¹ It was not surprising that the two dried beef products I purchased varied only in packaging. “Dried Beef” had a longer shelf life because it was sealed in a jar; “Chipped Beef” was packaged more like a fresh lunch meat and would spoil without refrigeration. Oh well. One can never have too much dried meat, right? (Yeah ... right.)

On Saturday I made chipped beef gravy. Butter + dried beef + flour + milk + pepper. That is really all there is to it—so easy! And just as comforting as I expected it would be. I had no bread at home, so I made biscuits to go with it. Unnecessary richness! In the future, I will serve it on toast. Also, chipped beef is quite salty, so next time I may start by parboiling the meat and draining the water. I can always add salt, if needed.

Conclusion: Chipped beef is pretty much what I expected: dry, salty meat. But not so very long ago dry, salty meat was a staple, right? I should probably branch out and try something else with chipped beef sometime. But I will always know that a classic like chipped beef gravy—with toast—is an excellent comfort food for a cold, winter morning.

¹Sharon Tyler Herbst, Food Lover's Companion, 3rd ed. (Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 2001), 133.