The yogurt is best made the night before you want to use it. This gives the cardamom time to disperse its flavor throughout the yogurt. If you’re making it the morning of, though, you can add more cardamom so that it will have more flavor right away.

I usually make an entire large container of yogurt at a time and put it back into the fridge, making sure to clearly label that it’s cardamom yogurt, not plain. It’s great to put on top of all sorts of fruit, with or without oatmeal, and I find if I have it in the fridge, it always gets used. It helps, of course, that yogurt has an excellent shelf life.

Here is another part of the recipe that can be done the night ahead. I usually put the oatmeal in a sealable container and shake it up with the spices (and any dried fruit). It can be used right away, left on the counter overnight, or put away in the cupboard until you want to use it. Even if you’re going to make it right away, the advantage is that the spices are evenly distributed throughout the oatmeal from the start.

Here I’ve added a lot of cinnamon with smaller amounts of ginger, cardamom, and pumpkin pie spice (I was too lazy to grind cloves). Like I said, I like spiced things to taste like they have spices in them. In these photos I’m making a double batch of the oatmeal (I always do, for reasons that will become clear later), and I think this is about as much as I would’ve liked to have used on a single batch.

Everything up until this point can be done beforehand. (If you’re using the coconut flakes, you can also toast them ahead of time for about 2 minutes in a 350 degree oven, making sure only the very edges turn toasty and brown.) When the time comes to make the oatmeal, make sure the first thing you do is to get the water boiling. This saves you time, and worry over burning the oatmeal while you fiddle with your tea or electric kettle.

Ginger is the key to this entire recipe. I don’t remember when I first tried it in the oatmeal or why, only that it imparts a flavor to it that I now can’t separate from the taste of steel cut oatmeal. When I get steel cut oatmeal elsewhere, it’s never quite the same, and the crystallized ginger is the key.

Add the crystallized ginger and stir together, just until everything is mixed, then stop and turn the heat down to low. Because the oatmeal is hot and the water is boiling before they meet, you won’t have to wait for them to come to a boil. Leave it to simmer, uncovered. Set a timer for 25 minutes and don’t touch the oatmeal until it goes off.

While the oatmeal cooks, you’ll have time to cut up fruit and toast coconut flakes, if you haven’t already. If you have, then make yourself a cup of tea with any excess boiling water and relax.

After 25 minutes, add the buttermilk. Once again, stir only long enough to combine. Set the timer again, this time for 10 minutes, and leave it to simmer again, uncovered.

If you are making a large batch of oatmeal for a lot of people, and won’t be serving it all at once, you have another option. After the timer goes off, rather than adding the buttermilk, just cover the pot and turn off the heat. Then, make the oatmeal to order by scooping it into a second, smaller pan, adding a little of the buttermilk and cooking it until it starts to bubble.

One way to convince picky eaters (children or adults) to try the oatmeal is to cover it all up with the yogurt and a ton of fruit. (If they hate yogurt and fruit as well, I can’t help you.)

You know, I’ve been following too many bento blogs lately…sadly, though, I still couldn’t figure out how to give my tiger stripes with the fruit I had on hand.

I mentioned above that I always make a double batch of oatmeal, even if I’m eating alone. The reason is that this oatmeal makes fantastic leftovers, something I only figured out a few years ago. This is already getting awfully long, so next time I’ll demonstrate how to do that.