Baked Oatmeal Goodness

Joining the Wagner Family has been wonderful in so many ways!  One of my favorites has been the new culinary experiences I've had which have included but are not limited to pickled beets, homemade pizza, squash, sweet potatoes, oven pancakes, homemade granola, and probably my favorite (after the pizza of course): baked oatmeal!

Now I enjoy oatmeal as much as the next person and had it often enough growing up but it wasn't "the most amazing breakfast ever!"  I never woke up and craved oatmeal.  So when I was presented with this for breakfast at Will's parents one morning I was happy to eat it but wasn't expecting anything amazing.

I was wrong and am happy to say so!  This was SO delicious and I loved everything about it.  The texture was soft gooey goodness in the center with crispy outer edges.  I think the first time I had it there were apples in it and the sweet, slightly spicy taste was phenomenal.  I was encouraged to pour milk over it and that made the experience even better.  I'm pretty sure I ate a couple helpings because it was just THAT good (as is everything my mother-in-law makes, though I'm still not sure about pickled beets).

At my bridal shower on Will's side of the family I received a wonderful gift that I use frequently:

It's a cookbook of recipes from Will's mom's side of the family.  There are so many wonderful recipes in here that I've tried and loved but hands down I was most excited about the granola and baked oatmeal recipes. 

Some time ago I got an idea from Pinterest (Personal Sized Baked Oatmeal with Individual Toppings: Gluten Free & Diabetic Friendly - as you will see, the recipe I have is not gluten or diabetic friendly...) about baking and freezing single serving sizes of baked oatmeal in muffin wrappers.   I really liked this idea and thought it would be a great supplement to our usual morning fare of cereal and granola.  Plus I just bought 10 small canisters of old fashioned oats for like $0.25/canister at Meijer so I had plenty of oats!

I love this recipe because it can be personalized in so many ways!  You can add strawberries, apples, nuts, bananas, chocolate chips, sprinkles, and on and on the list goes.  I had also just gotten some pumpkin from Meijer so I decided that would be a nice addition!  The basic recipe is as follows:

Baked Oatmeal:
4 eggs
5 cups old fashioned oats
1 tbs baking powder, plus 1 tsp
2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 cups milk

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs slightly.  Add oats, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, oil, sugars, and milk.  Mix well.  Put mixture into 9x13 pan.  Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.  Serve warm with milk, if desired.  Nuts, chocolate chips, and/or raisins may be added.  1/2 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup oil may be substituted for 1 cup oil.  Makes 10 servings

I actually just made a half recipe for each of my flavors because I don't have that much room in my freezer but each half recipe yielded 6 extra large sized "muffins" and 3 normal sized "muffins".  I also made a few changes:

Pumpkin Spice Baked Oatmeal Changes (remember this was for a half recipe):
I used 2 tbs vegetable oil and 6 tbs pumpkin puree because I wanted a stronger pumpkin flavor.  If you were doing a full sized batch you would use 1/4 cup vegetable oil and 3/4 cup pumpkin.  I also added 1/4 tsp nutmeg and reduced the sugars by 2 tbs each.  Lastly I added 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts.

Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal Changes (remember this was for a half recipe):
I used 1/4 cup of oil and 1/4 cup homemade cinnamon applesauce which would be 1/2 cup of oil and 1/2 cup of applesauce for a full sized recipe.  I chopped half a medium sized apple into small pieces and mixed that in with 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts.  I also reduced each of the sugars by 2 tbs each in this recipe too.

Pumpkin Spice Baked Oatmeal

Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal

I love my "Muffinaire" :-)  These are the normal sized "muffins".

This is also a pretty budget friendly meal.  I estimated it out to be about $0.35 per serving!

So this morning it was cold and windy and rainy and just plain yucky out so I decided that some baked oatmeal was just the thing I needed.  I unwrapped a Pumpkin Spice muffin cup, stuck (I initially wrote struck instead of stuck because as I'm writing this blog post I'm listening to the Tigers in Game 4 of the ALCS and Max Scherzer just struck out his 4th batter!!!!) stuck the oatmeal in the microwave for 2 minutes, liberally doused it with milk and ENJOYED!!!  It was so good that I almost pulled another one out of the freezer...  

Mmmm, this was SERIOUSLY good!

A Happy Accident

Tuesdays are my crazy day.  That's not really saying a lot since I have a 7 1/2 month old who is a wiggly, giggly little guy but still...  On Tuesdays I do some volunteering from 12:30pm-4:30pm  and usually don't get home until 5:30.  Plus I also give a piano lesson from 6:00 until 6:30.  So on Tuesdays I like to go the "easy dinner" route. 

I had some leftover cooked chicken that I decided to use in a Mexican Rice Bake.  I've made this dish a million times in a variety of manners (rice cooker vs skillet, from scratch vs pre-packaged, etc) and all with great success.   Tonight I decided to use up a pre-packaged rice/spice mixture that I had gotten free at Meijer.  I started getting the rice going around 7:00 and figured, based on experience, that it would be ready for consumption around 7:30.  Not bad, all things considered!

Fast forward 20 minutes and I heard the tell-tale click of the switch on my rice cooker ticking up to "Keep Warm" from "Cooking".   I walked into the kitchen, lifted the lid and immediately knew there was something wrong.  The rice still looked small and when I gave it a taste test, sure enough it was still hard.  I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, added more water, and flipped the switch back down to "Cooking".  Fast forward another 20 minutes and the rice was still small and still hard and I was annoyed because it was 7:40 and all I had to show for my (minimal) effort was a rice cooker full of food that could potentially crack a tooth. Sigh...

The Offending Rice

Trying to quickly flip through my mental cookbook and check the results against what I knew I had in my cupboards and fridge I decided that I would fry up some bacon and we would have BLT's instead.  I was pretty excited by this prospect because I do love BLT's.  But just then (Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles!  Anyone?)  I happened to glance over to where I store my produce and realized to my immense excitement that I had the makings of one of our most favorite meals: chicken, bacon, avocado quesadillas (courtesy of this blog)!!  Sweet goodness I was excited!  I went out to the garden, pulled some green onions to cook with the chicken and got to work. 

I added some ranch dressing to combat the lack of sour cream, it was pretty tasty!

I also added some garlic to the bacon grease when I fried the quesadillas, mmmmm!

Regrettably this meal isn't for the faint of heart clogged of artery because you're supposed to cook the chicken and onion in the bacon grease.  You also use it to fry up the quesadillas.  I'm sure there are healthier alternatives, but I haven't explored them yet because these are SO good as is!  So needless to say around 8:15 we finally sat down to dinner.  Despite the fact that I actually ended up making two dinners I was quite pleased with the delicious result!  Unfortunately I now have to go clean up my kitchen which looks a little like a disaster zone...

No-Bake Cookies? Yes please!

Growing up my favorite type of cookie besides the quintessential Chocolate Chip were No-Bakes.  My mom made THE BEST no-bake cookies!  I considered these a very special treat because they were so fudgey and yummy.  Unfortunately they never lasted very long (like any cookie in our house) and before I knew it they were gone. 

It wasn't until high school when I was excited to see a no-bake in the cafeteria that I realized that my mom's no-bakes weren't quite like the ones everyone else made.   There were two key differences.  Everyone else made their no-bakes with peanut butter but my mom did not.  A travesty, you declare! I think not because my mom's recipe had something the "normal" ones didn't.  What could that be you ask?  Coconut.  Yes, I said coconut!  You seriously need to give these a try, it's worth it, especially if you have a loved one with a peanut allergy!

No worries, I'll share the recipe after you look at my pictures :-)

Combine in 3-4 qt sauce pan the following:

2 c. sugar

5 tblsp. cocoa

1/4 lb butter

1/2 c. milk

Mix and bring to a boil.

Stirring constantly, boil one minute (longer if you double the batch), remove from heat and stir in:

3 1/2 c. quick oatmeal

1 c. coconut

1 tsp. vanilla

Drop by teaspoon on waxed paper and chill.

Makes approximately 4 dozen small or 3 dozen large.

From the moment you gather your ingredients to the moment you put the pans in the fridge they only take about 25 minutes so you get to the good part (eating them) quickly!