Oatmeal Enthusiasts: Meet Jade!

Happy December! I know I’ve been MIA for so long now but I’m ready to get back in the kitchen. Thank you for your patience. In the mean time, I am pleased to introduce you to Jade, who has consistently been a part of the #oatmealartist community on Instagram. I frequently see people come and go, so it is astonishing for me to see those of you who have been following my blog for actual years. Jade is one of those followers, and their story makes me a little emotional. 🙂

Hello everyone! My name is Jade and I am honored to be this month’s Oatmeal Enthusiast! I am a 20 year old college student on leave until January, so I’ve been using my time off to take advantage of the brand new kitchen in my parents’ house! I live in the Bay Area and am currently working for Whole Foods, and I’m very aware of how spoiled that makes me when it comes to produce. I go to college in Chicago, which is not exactly my favorite place for food, especially being vegetarian, so I’m very happy to be the Oatmeal Enthusiast while at home.

Do you want to hear how oatmeal saved my life? I used to eat oatmeal on occasion growing up, but always the same kind of thing – raisins, walnuts, brown sugar – not that it was bad, but it got boring. I rediscovered it when I found this blog in May of 2014, whilst sitting in the hospital bed I was confined to during my first eating disorder hospitalization. I must have read the entire blog while there – I’d never thought of making oatmeal the way Lauren made it! Cooking it on the stovetop? With milk? Absurd! The morning after I was discharged, I made Lauren’s Almond Joy Oatmeal, and I was entranced. Since then I’ve eaten oatmeal almost every single morning, and it’s remained my constant through the ups and downs of my eating disorder. Even on my worst days, oatmeal usually felt safe enough for me to eat, and I was able to give my body a small amount of food to survive on. But now that I’ve mostly recovered, I’m able to truly enjoy oatmeal and all of the creative ways to make it!

I talk a lot about my eating disorder on my instagram, but I’m just going to leave it at that for now because I want to move on to sharing my week’s oatmeal creations!

Sunday:

To start off the week, I made Lauren’s Fudgy Banana & Peanut Butter oatmeal, which I probably make at least once a week. [TOA: Same 😉 ]

Monday:

We have a small lime tree that gave us two limes this week, so I used one to create this really bright raspberry-lime oatmeal. I added almonds as well to start off my day with some healthy fats.

Tuesday:

Even though apples don’t work the best with my stomach, I wanted to make this apple crisp baked oatmeal. It’s fall. I do what I want.

Wednesday:

I can’t understand how someone could not like pears (coughs pointedly). This recipe is inspired by my mom’s pear-ginger-cranberry sauce. I love the way fresh cranberries burst when you cook them!

Thursday:

This definitely didn’t come out as pretty as I was hoping it would; I should have added some dried cranberries or something for color. Anyway, it’s a pumpkin pie baked oatmeal topped with peanut butter and it was okay. I don’t know why, but I haven’t had a pumpkin craving since July or something, but I feel obliged to use pumpkin at this time of the year.

Friday:

I had extra pumpkin from yesterday, and I was determined to enjoy pumpkin season, so I made a pumpkin banana oatmeal and added chocolate chips. It was good, but I feel like it tasted better to me in the past.

Saturday:

We were running low on food by this day, but there was still a pear left so I could top off my week with a pear-maple-pecan oatmeal. Pears are so good.