PB&J Oatmeal.

PB&J Oatmeal

This oatmeal was lovely and light.  It was comprised of what has become the base recipe, (1 cup oats + 1 cup milk + 1 cup water, add banana and flaxseed meal/wheat germ when it begins to simmer.  Add vanilla, and sugar, if desired. Serve) topped with a dollop of both peanut butter and my favorite, strawberry preserves.  It was a refreshing breakfast after the fiasco that was the apple fritter oatmeal pancakes.  We made these the day before, and were sorely disappointed.  You had to almost burn the outsides of the pancakes to get the insides almost cooked, and the flavor was very bland.  I wouldn't recommend them.  Have a free day, and make up your own oatmeal concoction instead.

Baked French Toast

While I am editing the backlog of oatmeal photos, I thought I would leave you this lovely recipe for baked french toast. My cousins, Tony and Alex, (great guys who will forever be kids in my book, even though Tony is 16 and Alex is 12(I think)) gave me this recipe for my wedding shower.  I should explain.

My mom was wonderful enough to petition all the people we know, (and some we don't), for recipes to give me for my wedding in a recipe box, to get me started cooking for two. Tony and Alex submitted this recipe for that.

Anyway...I hadn't tried it yet because it's a huge recipe for two people. For some reason, it never occured to me to halve the recipe, but I tried that this week, and it worked wonderfully. We had it for dinner, but it could be served for breakfast, brunch, lunch....you get the idea.

Baked French Toast

Ingredients:

6 T. butter

1/2 c. maple syrup

1/4 c. brown sugar

8 slices bread (or texas toast)

7 eggs

4 T. milk

1/2 t. vanilla

fresh fruit (optional)

Directions:

Combine butter, sugar, and syrup in a 9x13" pan.  Set in a 375° oven to melt.  Add one layer of bread, pushing bread together tightly.  Beat eggs, milk and vanilla, pour over bread.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes at 375° (or until bread is firm).  Remove toast onto plate by flipping over so glazed side is up.

Serve with fresh fruit.

Above the full recipe is listed. From the pictures above you can see I halved this and used an 8x8 pan, and it worked fine, though I did have to really wedge the bread in.  I used 4 eggs, and frozen fruit, thawed, but otherwise, the recipe halved 'as is'.

Note: Torn up bread works wonderfully for this recipe, and fits better in the pan. Just be sure that it is in single layer, as anything piled atop will be dry.

Oatmeal, Five Ways.

My apologies to my readers for again delaying on posting. Yesterday was my day for catching up a bit, as I forgot to buy pumpkin for yesterday's oatmeal, and so we had pancakes instead. We'll resume the oatmeal challenge today, but in the meantime....
Maple Trail Mix Oatmeal

I did end up adding cranberries to my trail mix, but the type that I'd purchased already had some dried fruit, so it was quite fruity. With the additional mixed nuts, it was a wonderful topping for oatmeal.  I did forget, however, and stirred the maple syrup into the oatmeal while cooking instead of drizzling it on top.  I usually stir in all the toppings on my oatmeal before eating anyway, so it wasn't a big deal for me. 

Berry Yummy Oats with Honey

This was a bit sweet for my tastes, though that's probably due to the fact that I mixed the honey into the oatmeal while cooking, and then Hubby drizzled some on top for the photo, so I got a double dose.  I couldn't find good fresh berries at are grocery store this past week, so I used frozen berries thawed in the fridge overnight instead.  They worked very well, as they weren't frozen with a sauce, and so thawed only slightly mushy. The slight tartness of the berries helped balance the sweetness, so breakfast was quite good, and I'd probably make this again, sans extra honey.

Honey Nut Oatmeal

This was good.  It didn't taste too far off from plain oatmeal, (with bananas mixed in, of course) with just a slight touch of peanut butter and honey flavor.  I liked the simpleness of it, and, as my Hubby said, the only thing that could improve it would be to actually put some honey nut cheerios on top.

Peaches and Cream Oatmeal, second variety

I love the peaches and cream recipes.  Part of this is that there is NO BANANA, which is great, but frankly, peaches and oatmeal just go together so well.  This one is slightly better than the last peaches and cream recipe. I liked the additional volume that the yogurt added, but for this one I would use regular yogurt, as the tang of the greek yogurt pulled a bit too much attention from the peaches, in my opinion.

S'mores Oatmeal

I am not fond of bacon.  My Hubby doesn't eat bacon.  Because of this, we decided to use the bonus recipe at the end of the month in this place.  This did not disappoint.  It was amazingly delicious. The greek yogurt offered a bit of tang, which, if you so choose, you could get away with using a plain 'american' yogurt instead. However, I liked the tang, and my only edit would be that I'll be putting more graham cracker in next time.

Enjoy!

Apple Crumble Oatmeal, German Chocolate Oatmeal, & Strawberry Dumpling Oatmeal.

Up next, Apple Crumble Oatmeal, German Chocolate Oatmeal, and Strawberry Dumpling Oatmeal. All three were delicious, but I'd have to say my favorite so far, of any that we've had, is the Apple Crumble Oatmeal. It was more like eating dessert, with no extra sugar actually added other than the natural sugar in the apple. It was a healthy indulgence that I'm tempted to sub in for some other day later this month if the planned one doesn't sound as good. We'll see...

The german chocolate oatmeal was good, if not outstanding. There was nothing really wrong with the recipe, it just wasn't stellar. You may find it's your favorite. Come to think of it, if you like german chocolate cake, you'll probably love this.

The strawberry dumpling oatmeal was originally supposed to be blueberry dumpling, but I decided to use the preserves I already had in stock rather than buy another jar just for this occasion. This recipe tasted surprisingly similar to, though better than, the strawberries and cream instant oatmeal you can buy. Yum!

Banana Flax Oatmeal with Pecans.

Mmm. Oatmeal.
Ok, this isn't something I'd usually say. I do like oatmeal, but only on the occasional, 'can't think of anything else to have for breakfast' day. Besides this, I'm not accustomed to having a regular breakfast time, and often breakfast becomes brunch, or is simply missed. As I said previously, one of my resolutions this year is to actually eat breakfast on a daily basis. To cement this as a habit in my life, I've begun the 30 Day Oatmeal Challenge, found on the Live Well 360° Blog.
As my family and I were at dear friend s' home for New Year's, overnight, I am beginning my challenge today. (Though I did have breakfast there! MMM...cinnamon rolls!)
I changed all stevia references in the original recipe to sugar, and added a bit of extra flaxseed meal, on account of my grinding too much.  I also was out of walnuts, and so used pecans, but other than that, it's not really too different from the original. Delicious!