Your Morning Oatmeal

• You can prepare and cook regular oats, also called old-fashioned oats, almost exactly the same way you would quick oats. Both types take one part of oats for every two parts of either water or milk. In other words, for each 1/2 cup of oats, add 1 cup of liquid. The only change you'll need to make in the morning is giving regular oatmeal more cooking time than quick-cooking oats, about 30 more seconds in the microwave or about four more minutes on the stovetop.

Favorite Desserts

• Cookies and crisps take the same amount of regular or quick oats, but expect a slightly chewier cookie with the regular variety than with quick oats. Manufacturers roll quick oats into thinner flakes than regular oats, so they are less chewy to begin with. The thin texture allows quick-cooking oats to meld or disappear into your cookie dough or into apple crisp topping, becoming less distinct and giving you less nutty oatmeal flavor than regular oats.

Oatmeal Bread

• Oatmeal bread typically contains a ratio of one part oats to three parts flour, but it doesn't matter which type of oats you use, regular or quick-cooking. As with cookies, breads will be slightly more chewy and have a slightly more nutty, oatmeal flavor if you use regular oats instead of quick-cooking ones, but the difference is small.

Meat Loaf, Meatballs and Burgers

• Cooks have long used oats as one of the ingredients in meatloaf, meatballs and even in hamburgers to stretch the meat or give it a finer, lighter texture than you get from using ground beef or ground turkey alone. Whether you go gourmet-style and add a combination of veal and pork to your ground beef, or follow an old-fashioned route with Worcestershire and ketchup, you can use regular and quick-cooking oats interchangeably.