Make It From Scratch: Instant Oatmeal

One of the best ways to save money is make from scratch items you would purchase for convienence. It may seem like something that is difficult and perhaps more expensive at times but I assure you it is not.
I have put off making instant oatmeal for many reasons but the truth is making things from scratch can be intimidating. It's really easy just to pick it up from the store and I don't mind the generic versions of instant oatmeal. However, I'm kind of picky about the flavor and I would really like to be able to buy the higher quality versions but if I made my own then I could determine the flavor and what is in it. Homemade is so much better because there are less additives, maybe none. Organic/all natural instant oatmeal is expensive and doesn't always taste that good.
So, was instant oatmeal hard to make? NO! The hardest part was grinding up some oatmeal in my bullet-type blender. The rest of the work was dumping ingredients into a zip-lock bag. How did it taste? The flavor was actually pretty good. I think I'll still play with it but I planned on this when I made it. I made a fairly plan oatmeal with the idea that I could add apple butter or dried bananas at my leisure.
The only "problem" was figuring out how much water to oatmeal and whether or not I should have used less whole oats. My oatmeal this morning was a little on the tough side but I actually liked that. It wasn't the pasty texture of store-bought instant oatmeal. If you like that, then grind up more of the oatmeal.

Instant Oatmeal
4 cups rolled oats, blend 1 cup in blender until a fairly fine powder
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup powdered milk
1/3 cup flax meal (opt)
Mix in large zip-lock bag. 1/3 cup of dry mix makes 1 serving of oatmeal. Add up hot water and serve.
I didn't put the amount of water due to personal preference. The recommended amount is 3/4 cup hot water and I thought that sounded like too much.
This recipe is based on the following single serve recipe I found online but forgot to note where.

1/4 cup rolled oats
2 TB powdered oats
1 teas powdered milk
1 teas sugar
1/8 teas salt
Mix and add 3/4 cup hot water. Serve.