Recipe: Herbal-Tea-Flavored Hot Cereal

Here's another bachelor-style recipe that I invented, though I think even non-bachelors may appreciate it.

Ingredients

• 1 serving (usually about 1/2 cup) dry hot cereal. I typically use oat bran, but you can use oatmeal, or anything else you like.
  
• Milk or soy milk, quantity determined by cereal directions (usually about 1 cup). I like to use unsweetened soy milk, but you can do what you like.
• 1 ripe banana.
  
• 1 bag of herbal tea.*  I usually use something fruit-flavored: blueberry, pomegranate, apple-cinnamon or some such.
• (Optional) 1 teaspoon of flax oil.
  

Directions

• Mix the cereal and milk, then cook according to the cereal's directions. I usually find the 90 seconds in our microwave suffices.
• Cut or tear open the bag of herbal tea, then mix its contents into the cereal.
• Slice the banana into the cereal.
  
• (Optional) mix the flax oil into the cereal.

This recipe may sound strange, but I find that the herbal teas usually have a melange of spices that work together to complement the cereal. I encourage you to try it.

I'm certain that the flax oil seems odd to most of you in the readership. I like to use it to provide a solvent for the oil-soluble spices in the tea and to add some essential fatty acids to the dish. It also produces a bit of an odd flavor, which some may not enjoy.

* I feel compelled to point out that "herbal tea" is a misleading name, since this bevearges does not contain leaves of Camellia sinensis.  Instead, it should be called a tisane.