Adventures in Soaking Breakfast Cereals

When I say breakfast cereals I mean hot cereals; I've gotten to the point that I forget about cold cereal as an option.  I wish I could say the reason for this is because I know that cold cereals are bad for me, but the actual reason is that I can't have milk on account of the little one's tummy disagreeing with it.

Why soak grains?
I could explain it to you, but Dyno-mom has a wonderful, detailed post about it that says it better than I think I could say it.  Also, I'm feeling lazy today.

The above linked post also explains how to soak your grains properly.

How I soak my breakfast cereals:
I like love hot cereal.  During the last trimester of pregnancy, all I wanted to eat was malt-o-meal.  I knew it probably wasn't the best, but I couldn't get enough of the deliciously creamy, comforting goodness.  I was eating double servings sometimes twice a day (midnight snacks, if I felt inclined).  After having the little one, my cravings for it dropped, but didn't discontinue altogether.  The difference was that now I was somehow more conscious of buying a higher quality version of malt-o-meal which I perceived to be low quality because it's produced by a ginormo corporation.
I decided that Bob's Red Mill (BRM) was a better company for me to support.  Mainly because some of their cereals are USDA organic, and for some reason I trust this company to not be using GMOs.
Anyway, thus began my search for a BRM equivalent to malt-o-meal.  What I found is called wheat farina, or creamy wheat.  Not exactly the same, but delicious nonetheless.  Then I tried oat bran (which I originally purchased with the dumb idea that oatnut bread required it - before I actually looked for a recipe) and that was delicious.  Then came rice farina, or creamy rice, in an attempt to lower my gluten intake.
I never soaked the oat bran.

The wheat farina soaks nicely with whey, but I found I had to tinker with the amount of water I used.
The rice farina is super delicious soaked with whey, but again, I had to tinker with the water.
The proper way to prepare these cereals is by boiling the water and then slowly adding the cereal to the boiling water.  Somehow they turn out a lot thicker that way than if you soak them in warm water overnight, bring to a boil and then simmer.
The wheat farina needed considerably less water while the rice farina only needed about 1/4 cup less.  I never got around to fine-tuning the wheat farina because hubby and I are trying to cut down our grain consumption and I ran out of wheat farina after soaking it once.  Maybe some other day.

A double portion (what I eat) calls for a 1/2 cup of rice farina to 1 and 1/2 cup water.  So, that means I put the 1/2 cup of cereal into the bowl, mix with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of whey (or acid of some other kind, like lemon juice) and then pour in 1 and 1/4 cup warm water.  I generally do this around 7 p.m. the day before, so the cereal soaks roughly 12 hours.

I've been soaking my oats for some time now.  I usually use lemon juice for them, but whey works very nicely also.
 If you soak with lemon juice, be prepared to use a lot of honey or some other sweetener or spice.  Unless you like the bitter flavor the lemon gives to whatever it is you're soaking.
I tried soaking with apple cider vinegar once, but once was enough for me to decide that vinegar was not a good match for my taste-buds.

What is whey?
I didn't know what whey was for a long time, which is why I soaked my oats with lemon juice.  I got this idea that I would walk into Vitamin Cottage and ask, because they're a health store, they should know, right?  Well, the guy I asked looked confused and said, "you mean whey protein isolate?"  To which I said, "no, I mean whey..."  So he didn't know either.  Consulting the mighty google wasn't terribly helpful as the results I got all had to do with the protein powder as well.
Finally I discovered from my mother-in-law exactly what whey is, and how to get it.  I'm not sure why I didn't ask my sister-in-law or Dyno-mom.
Whey is the clear liquid that collects on the top of things like yoghurt and sour cream.  Also, had I actually searched the right combination of words, I would have found this page.