Baked Oatmeal

To continue with our newly-formed tradition of "Sunday breakfast, post-workout/pre-church," I thought I'd try this recipe for baked oatmeal I found a while ago.  As you probably know, I'm a sucker for oatmeal...it's just great and healthy.  I've even converted Peter to enjoying a bowl now and then (yay, HDL!)  It was super yummy, and really versatile!  You could do this with any combo of fruits/nuts you like.  I saw someone using banana and putting them on the bottom of the baking dish.  Good idea, if I didn't have an unrational aversion to bananas; oh well.  I had frozen raspberries and a handful of blueberries....good enough for me!

I don't think you should prepare this the night before, as the oats would suck up all the liquid before baking, but I'm not super sure on that.  Do what you'd like, but really, I stumbled out of bed, assembled this, ran 5 miles while it baked, and voila!  Breakfast.  (Oh, just FYI, don't work out on an empty stomach right out of bed...I always have a chocolate milk first...give your liver a break.  It doesn't need to be jolted awake in a hypoglycemic crisis as you forge ahead on the treadmill...thanks).

Unrelated, here's a pic from our "family field trip" to Lincoln Park today...a big park a few miles north of our apartment.  After a while of trolling around for a parking spot, we had a great time exploring the new area!  Well, Lady mostly went bezerk for all the ducks and squirrels she saw.  We tried to take a good picture, but as you can see, she spotted something that wasn't the camera...oh well, we tried :)

Baked Oatmeal
Adapted from Annie's Eats

1 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup chopped walnuts, divided
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch salt
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fruit, divided (raspberries and blueberries, apple/cranberry, banana/berry, etc)

Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly grease a 1 1/2 quart baking dish.  In a bowl combine oats, half of walnuts, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and sugar; mix lightly with a fork.   In a liquid measuring cup, combine maple syrup, milk, egg, and vanilla extract; combine.  Spread half of fruit in the bottom of the baking dish; top with all of oat mixture.  Add the milk mixture evenly over the top of the oats, and top with remaining fruit and nuts.  Bake uncovered for 40 minutes or until set and browned.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes before enjoying.  Leftovers are great!