Quaker Oat Flour

Hi blog fans! I live another day! Just to close the loop on my allergy testing: it was horrible; I don't recommend it to anyone who already knows they have severe allergies and I surely regret doing it. But, as noted, I live to blog on. 

And I'm not allergic to oat (not that they tested it), so this is perfect for baking. But what's this? My local grocery store stopped carrying it, even though they used to stock it, so I had to order it online!? Ew, gross, etc. But order it online I did, because life is short.  This is pricy stuff, at least compared to wheat flour, although if you can't do wheat (luckily I can -- not that they tested it) it might be cheaper than other gluten free flours. But in terms of its utility, it's right there (and it has more protein/fiber which is always good). It must be stated that it tastes like oats. So I used this to make a pretty tasty zucchini oat bar, and I've used it for buckle/cobbler like sweetbreads, and that seems to be the right kind of use case. I also like oats even though I eat them for brekkie every day, so I might not be a neutral oat flour judger. But this is a good product for oat-likers. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10 (6$/bag)
Taste: 6/10 

Quaker Avena Instantanea - Canela

Who knew that switching from a morning bagel to morning oatmeal would eventually lead me to this stressful, exciting, nearly expired cinnamon oat experience from the DR? Scary because: the Dominican Republic is one of like, 8 countries that has literally no allergy labelling law. (Those poor allergy kiddos.) But this has only oats, cinnamon, and sugar, and it has a contiene trazas de trigo, leche, soja disclaimer! Notably, no nuts there. So, even though I'm not super familiar with the ~labelling landscape~, a quaker product with a non-obligatory label seems like a safe enough bet. More mysteriously, although these are supposedly instantanea, the cooking time is 4-6 minutes (whereas the US instant oats has a cook time of 1 (un) minute). Accordingly it also suggests twice as much water(!!) as the US version, which is already way too much. I never use the full amount of water, so I did my usual 2:1 ratio here. And that was a huge mistake. Lol. It was the most extreme shinkydink pasty crust you ever saw. It also tasted so good. Like burnt applesauce, but oats. Like grits but not gritty. The kiddos who don't die from allergies must be living on cloud nine with this stuff. An oatmeal that doesn't feel like a chore? Maybe it was just the slight fear-based adrenaline making me jolly, but I don't think so. These nearly expired Dominican oats are fire. Now how on earth am I gonna get them up here??! 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 8/10