A few weeks ago, I splurged on pistachios. It felt irresponsible at the time, but then I tasted one.
It’s not like I had never had a pistachio before. However, I think I’ve only ever had it in mixes of nuts, and the individual varieties kind of lose their distinct flavors.
It’s been difficult for me to save these pistachios for oatmeal only (I often crave just snacking on them), but this recipe received the prestigious honor.
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As I type this, my eyelids are drooping. I don’t often talk about my work life on here, but times like this make it difficult to contemplate anything else. I spent the weekend redecorating my classroom, and on Saturday I was at school from 10 AM to 10 PM. ON THE WEEKEND, you guys! Today, I worked a similar length, but at least I was able to spend a portion of those hours working in my favorite coffee shop.
When I made this oatmeal on Sunday morning, I struggled to stay motivated. After working 12 hours a day, 8 days in a row, baking an oatmeal seems incredibly undesirable. However, this is what I scheduled to prepare over the weekend, and I had all the ingredients to do so. I knew the results would be worth it.
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I’ve learned the secret. If you ever make oatmeal that doesn’t turn out as spectacular as you’d hoped, just add SALT. Salt that sucker! Mix in salt, and sprinkle some more on top!
Much to my grief last week, I discovered that chocolate and pear just wasn’t doing anything for me. To be honest, I was just super annoyed at the pears. I’m so over pears! They are potentially my least favorite fruit. I’m done with them.
But then I salted it, and everything changed.
I’m not positive about this one, but this is probably another crazy Midwestern thing. We just LOVE take fruit, stirring in cream cheese, and calling it a salad. Hey, at least this one doesn’t have marshmallows!
Grape salad was first introduced to me by my godparents. They brought it to some celebration we were having at my house (perhaps my sister’s confirmation or something??). Cripes, this stuff is good. It consists of red and green grapes coated in a mixture made of cream cheese, sour cream, and a little brown sugar. It sounds pretty terrible written out like that (especially to someone like me who hates sour cream), but it’s truly divine.
Yeah, I finally made another baked oatmeal recipe. What can I say? The stove has my heart!
However, grapes in oatmeal fascinate me, and I’ve also been interested in what happens to grapes when they’re baked. If you couldn’t guess, this oatmeal is inspired by PB&J; the grapes take the place of grape jelly. (I grew up eating grape jelly, and it wasn’t until last year that I finally accepted strawberry as another option. Still, grape is the best.)
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I’ve given up coffee. It was tough for me. Really tough. I’ve spent the last year sampling soy lattes at every coffee shop in New York City, but the past few months have been trying. Within hours of licking the last bits of froth off my mug, I would always find myself feeling woozy and having cold sweats. Every. Single. Time.
Instead, I’ve had to reinvest in my love for tea.
I really wish I could order chai more often at all my favorite coffee shops. Sadly, most places make theirs from a concentrate or powdered mix that already includes dairy. Bumsville.
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I am all about the muesli lately. It all happened when I discovered that pomegranate seeds make the best friggin’ muesli ever. Why?! Because they can make the bulk of your muesli instead of nuts and dried fruit, which are wonderful and nutrient-dense, but they’re also crazy filling and dried fruit is a ton of sugar. So using pomegranates? Brilliant.
Pomegranates are crunchy like a nut or seed, but sweet like dried fruit. They have the added bonus of being absolutely beautiful to look at.
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My grandma makes a killer apple pie. The apple filling reaches the perfect point between firm slices and mush. I don’t want to have to chew my apples when I’m eating pie, but I don’t want to slurp them like applesauce, either. She nails this balance every time.
The extra special twist is that her apples come from her backyard. An apple tree was planted in her yard each time a new grandkid was born. This means my brother, sister, cousins, and I each have our own apple tree. We take great pride in the apples that grow from them. Each time my grandma makes a pie, someone asks, “Whose apples are these?” There was a stretch of time when my tree was the champion, pumping out dozens of apples throughout the harvesting season. My apple tree is a boss. Continue reading
I hope nobody is getting impatient at my lack of baked and overnight recipes. My preference has always been for stove-top oats, so I will continue that trend most of the time. It also doesn’t help that I do not have a microwave (for realz), so when I heat up my oatmeal in the morning, I just throw it on the stove to warm while I do my hair and make up. That definitely wouldn’t work with a baked oatmeal!
However, I feel like I’ve pumped out some pretty fantastic recipes lately, so I will not apologize. This one uses just five ingredients and a pinch of salt–hurray for simplicity! As it turns, one orange is all it take to add a special brightness to a simple sweet potato porridge.
Pumpkin. How can I make more pumpkin recipes? What else can be done with pumpkin? These are the questions I ask myself twice a day.What spices and herbs go well with pumpkin? What fruits pair well with pumpkin? What different forms of oatmeal have I not tried with pumpkin?!
The result of this never-ending search is today’s recipe. Seeing how well apples paired with sweet potatoes, I knew they’d be smashing with pumpkin. Of course, cranberries are my go-to dried fruit for autumn recipes, so I threw those in as well. Aaaand bam, cue the world’s coziest breakfast.
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