Cream of Wheat Recipe Time: No Fork Required!

I went out to dinner last week with Mr. B (43), Little B (12), and The Precocious One (6) – one of our first ventures to a restaurant since the dreaded COVID LOCKDOWN last spring. Was that only last spring? It feels like we’ve been more or less confined to our house for the better part of a decade! Doesn’t Tiger King seem like it happened at least two years ago? Anyway, I digress.

When I talk to other moms, they usually have hilarious stories about how their kids misbehave in public. They regale me with tales of indecency, awful manners, and annoyed servers, all of whom are aghast at the way their children are being raised. While I sometimes wonder why mothers are so eager to tell me about their motherly failures (and I have a few theories about that), I mostly just smile with chagrin. I guess I have some stories of my own to tell, but that’s not where my shame comes from. I smile because, in our family, I’M usually the one being called out for my terrible manners. It happened again last week, when, just as I was just finishing up my lobster ravioli, Mr. B cleared his throat and asked, “Do you really have to do that at the table?”

“Do what?” I asked innocently.

“Pick your teeth with the fork!”

“Oh,” I said, gently putting the fork back on my plate. “I didn’t even realize.”

Okay, okay, so I’m a public fork-picker! March me down the town square naked, why don’t you!

Anyway, my misadventures with forks have left me with no choice but to look for meals that require only a spoon, which is why I’m debuting this NO FORK REQUIRED Cream of Wheat Recipe, just for you, my adoring readers.

On with the recipe.

Now, I’m not above serving my kids pre-packaged, microwavable oatmeal and cream of wheat, so don’t get the wrong idea. Still, I do like to spread my wings in the kitchen, which is why I decided to branch out and grind my own wheat berries with a lovely grain mill I picked up recently. If you don’t have fresh wheat berries, you can always get some packaged wheat cereal from your local health food store.

Here’s what you’ll need:

– A half-cup of wheat berries, freshly ground

– 2 cups of milk

– A little bit of salt

– 2 tablespoons of butter

– 2 tablespoons of maple syrup

– Any fresh fruit you might want to use as a topping

Once you have your ingredients in place, making cream of wheat is a cinch! You add the wheat cereal, the milk, and a pinch of the salt to a saucepan, turn the stove up to medium, and stir the mixture until it begins to bubble and thicken in the pan. Take the pan off the heat, throw in your butter and syrup, stir it all up, and you’re done. Top the cereal with fresh blueberries, strawberries, or any other fruit that catches your fancy!

Best of all, you don’t have to use a fork to eat it, which significantly reduces the chances you’ll be caught picking your teeth after breakfast.

Not that you were probably concerned about that…