baked oatmeal

I've recently developed an addiction to breakfast foods.

I guess it's a better addiction than one to desserts which is where I was, oh, about two months ago.

Now I feel like I can get away with delicious things as long as they're for breakfast which naturally gives me a chance to work them off throughout the day (mmm clever).

I've been going through batches of granola, nectarine smothered french toast, nutella stuffed french toast, egg-in-a-holes, plain puffed rice cereal with yogurt and honey, and I even bought some milk and had real live cereal which I haven't had in years! (I really should have capitalized on that and crossed one of the items off my list. Damn.) And don't even get me started on brinner! Heavenly scrambled eggs, bacon and egg cups with roasted cherry tomatoes, pancakes with chocolate chips and bananas! I think I might need to buy a waffle iron...

Today, for a change, and because it's all chilly outside, I decided to make some baked oatmeal. Actually, what I really wanted was the true, blue, glue oatmeal, but I couldn't remember the water ratios. Ah well, next time.

Anyhoo, I whipped it up, stuck it in the toaster oven, then completely ignored it while it cooked.

And of course, I totally burnt it. It's pretty black, actually. I'm going to go ahead and blame the toaster oven. My new toaster oven which is almost the most awesome toaster oven ever conceived ever.

Let me count the ways:

1. you can fit two (2) racks in it. That's right. If you wanna bake up some amazing chicken fingers and damn, you also want to make garlic sweet potato fries and of course the damn things won't fit on the same pan; it totally doesn't matter cuz you can and you still don't have to turn on the oven.
2. apparently, it's really hot and cooks things in half the time. Case in point: my baked oatmeal.
3. it's also a -- dramatic pause -- rotisserie. Yes. It rotisserizes things! I've never needed this function so much as after I had Idle Husband's dad's fireplace meat. Meat, on a skewer, slowly rotating on an open flame = the best meat I've ever had -- in my life. But we don't have an open fire and I've just been getting by on the spices and rotating them every 10 minutes by hand. Now we are the proud owners of a rotisserie and it's awesome. I used it last night for the first time. I also burnt our fireplace meat last night for the first time, because I had no idea what temperature the oven should have been at or how long it'd take. I thought it was done, oh about 20 minutes or so before IH got home. But he wanted to see it turning, in action, so I just let it go until he could see it.  So refer back to #2.
4. it's got knobs. I don't know if you know how important old-fashioned knobs are, but once you've had some stupid digital display, you really realize the convenience of a knob. Stupid having to stand there and push the up and down buttons forever to get to a temperature because it thinks it's being awesome by always remembering the last temperature you used even though you only used 450 that one time in a whole month; then stupidly having to cancel to change the temperature because you got it wrong and if you don't cancel and redo all of that button pushing, you have to wait for it to heat up to the desired temperature so you can change it; and then, after all of that, stupidly forgetting to push start and then walking away and having a shower thinking it's going to be on for an hour, but it's not and oh yay, you get to eat dinner at 9 now, good for you; oh and don't forget about the lack of an automatic on. Wanna cook something longer than 2 hours? Better remember to reset the damn thing; and why are all the button functions explained with a picture? Is this for the illiterate? Well, good luck, nonreaders. I don't even know what half of those pictures are. Cookies? A potato? Why do I even need a potato button? -- eh hem, all of these problems and more are solved with a simple knob.

Anyway, I digress.

The baked oatmeal is still really delicious despite its burnt state. I just had two bowls of it (it's been scientifically proven that a good, hearty breakfast is important). I like to have it with a drizzle of honey and a couple good sized dollops of plain yogurt (not that fancy flavoured yogurt. Why bother with that runny stuff when you can add some jam to this marvelous as-thick-as-I'm-going-to-find-it-in-Canada yogurt and make it any flavour you want?).

The recipe I use I (naturally) found on the internets somewhere, but it's been so long (because I was on a baked oatmeal kick last winter), I can't give you a link. Instead, I'll painstakingly type it out for you. Cuz I like you like that.

Baked Oatmeal
1/3 cup vegetable oil (canola or olive or maybe applesauce would work...I should try that)
1/2 cup sugar (brown would probably be nice,too)
2 eggs (ostrich...no; I'm kidding)
2 1/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats (that's important. I'm not talking about the quick cook kind)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk (I've run out of clever things to amuse you with so you don't have to be bored reading an ingredient list)
Special add ins! raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, bananas, vanilla, walnuts, almonds, coconut, sliced apples or other fruits -- you know, use your tastes, judgement, brain, and add how much you want of what you want. But, like, don't get too crazy.

Whisk the oil, sugar, and eggs together until well mixed and slightly glossy. To this, add everything else (dramatic!). Pour into a baking dish (I use a glass one, 11 x 7 x 1.5 in or 2 QT or 2 L if you want to get all technical. But the only reason I chose this smaller dish is cuz it fits in my toaster oven perfectly) and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes (maybe not 30. I definitely should have checked mine at 20 due to my resulting burnage). I like to let it cool ever so slightly before digging in, but hey, that's me. I don't like burning my tongue. Maybe you do, I don't know.