"What would Laura Ingalls Wilder Do?"

So in response to my baby book boycott I'm taking a friends advice and reading whatever I want starting with The Little House on the Prairie books.

I do not care that it may or may not be the 27th time I have read these books, nor do I care that they were written for children, because they are wonderful, plain and simple. I have loved these books since I was 5 years old and my Mom started reading Little House on the Big Woods to me. I loved them so much that one year my God Mother made me a Little House dress, a calico dress with a real petticoat just like Laura's. I loved them so much that we used to play wagon with our bunk beds and pack a wagon to travel west like Laura and her family. And at some point a friend of mine used to tease me by posing the question "What would Laura Ingalls Wilder Do?". Even Chris loves them, although he hasn't read them, but he likes it when I'm reading them and I stop to show him the chapter on how Pa smoked his meat for winter or how he cleaned his gun and made bullets or how they survived the Big Winter.

These books teach you really interesting things. My favorite parts are when she describes how Ma cooked, canned or preserved something. I get so hungry reading these books and I want to go make pickled green tomatoes, baked Hubbard squash with molasses, fresh maple candies, or a giant pot of baked beans. One time Ma even made blackbird pie and it sounded Delicious!

So this morning, in answering the question (what would Laura Ingalls Wilder do?), we had molasses in our breakfast cereal. Last night I read about how they sweetened things with molasses and even ate bread and molasses for dinner on the trail. I realized that this was obvious and brilliant. Molasses is cheap and packed with Iron. It's much better for you than sugar but much less expensive than honey or maple syrup (what we normally sweeten our hot cereal with). Also molasses has such a wonderful rich flavor. Breakfast was perfect, wholesome and delicious.

Breakfast Cereal Sweetened with Molasses (for 2)

Cook according to package instructions 1 cup dried oatmeal (longer cooking is better) or other grain based hot cereal then divide into 2 bowls. To each bowl add the following:
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1 Tb flax seed
1 Tb cinnamon (I use canela, a Latin American cinnamon, if using regular cut this amount down)
1 Tb butter
1/4 cup of whole milk or cream
1 Tb molasses

Molasses has a very strong flavor and if you aren't sure you like it I would start with 1 tsp of molasses and 1 tsp maple syrup or brown sugar then you can up the amount of molasses as you like.