Swiss Mushroom Oatmeal

I just took a wonderful trip to Wisconsin with my mother. It was good.

We went to the zoo (yes we're children at heart) and we ate a lot of good food.

Fav. animals at the zoo: beautiful lions. The King and Queen!

We checked out some delicious Madison restaurants, which I would recommend. One of those is Fraboni's deli. If you want a quick, inexpensive and delicious sandwich with lots of meat, this is the place in Madison.

I also recommend Michael's Frozen Custard (also in Madison), and I don't recommend much topping. I got strawberry banana on vanilla custard, and the custard was SO good that I just wanted to skip it and go straight for the good stuff. So I would maybe just recommend one or no topping. No need to get fancy--but I'm a big fan of simple vanilla anyway (which is odd considering all the other strange things I eat). Unfortunately this nice little treat gave us a nice taste of something that we don't need to be craving all the time. Thankfully we have a few Culver's restaurants nearby and we might be giving them a little bit more business after this nice little trip to the frozen-custard-loving state.

We also spent the night in Wausau, which was a much more happening place than we expected it to be. While in Wausau, we woke up to a not-so-appitizing "hot" breakfast at our hotel, consisting of bread, waffles, coffee, 2 cereal choices, a big pot of oatmeal, and some pre-made fake-looking cheese omlettes. It sounds better than it looks. We decided to venture out for breakfast to a great little diner called Mint Cafe that has been around for a while. There we had some very real-looking omelettes and gobbled them down (I had a pesto tomato feta one and my mom had something with spinach and artichokes). It wasn't too much food--the prices were pretty low so we got what we paid for in our opinion.

All in all, a good trip.

But all this Wisconsin stuff and I don't  even mention CHEESE. Which, of course, I knew I needed to get before returning home. Well, guess what? We ended up buying about 7 lb. of cheese. And so far, so good. I recommend Mullins for a cheese factory store near the Wausau area.

Speaking of cheese, I've got a recipe for some oatmeal that would be great with some delicious Wisconsin swiss cheese (or nearly any other kind of cheese I'm sure). Mmm. Here's the savory recipe:

Swiss Mushroom Oatmeal

Makes 1 big serving or two side servings (would go well with eggs of some sort!)

Ingredients:
1/2 c old fashioned oats

1 c. water

2-3 baby portebella mushrooms, sliced

1 1/2 tbs chopped onion

1/4 tsp minced garlic

1/8 tsp basil

1/8 tsp oregano

1/8 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp worcestershire sauce

salt to taste

1 slice of swiss cheese

Combine worcestershire, water, oats, and herbs and let soak for at least 10 minutes. Cook the mushrooms, onion and garlic in a small skillet (might want some olive oil in there first). When they become limp take them off the heat. Then cook oatmeal in microwave for about a minute. Add mushrooms onions and garlic to the oatmeal and cook for another minute or two. When the oatmeal appears to be done, top it with swiss cheese and stir. Then let set for a few minutes (no burnt tongues!!) and enjoy.

Notes:
-The longer the oatmeal is soaked, the less it needs to be cooked. 
-This might be good if you pour the oatmeal into an oven-safe dish before topping it with cheese, then popping it in the broiler for a bit to get a nice cooked cheese effect! 

-This idea came from this recipe for "oat burgers" from food.com! I've never tried the burgers though--let me know if you have!