Of The Field : May 2012

Sometimes, I don't go to sleep too well. I'll get in bed at a good time, drink some tea, read, the usual stuff, but instead of drifting off to sleep I lay there not able to go to sleep. Anyway, the other night I couldn't get to sleep, so I opened up my laptop to do some blogging stuff or something, and I had a hankering (does anyone my age say that any more?) for baked oatmeal. My aunt makes some delicious baked oatmeal. So I decided to get out of bed, since I wasn't sleeping or anything, and go make some baked oatmeal. It's perfect because it sits in the fridge overnight to bake in the morning. By this time, I was excited, instead of laying in bed doing nothing I was going to sneak downstairs quietly and make oatmeal. And miracles of miracles, I was even able to do it without waking my mother. So without (much) further noise on my part, Insomniac's Oatmeal, perfect for when you can't sleep // want to cook // know that this deliciousness will be a perfect way to start your day.

First, Measure out some oats. These are steel cut oats, so tiny, but I was too lazy to find normal oats. Right here is two cups. I'm mixing it in the pan because a. I'm lazy b. I don't like washing dishes and c. it's just about midnight, so what the hey.

flour. baking powder.

brown sugar, and a blurry photo.

mix it all up. decide that there's not enough, add another cup of oats and bit of flour. mix again.

take picture of self. this is not an optional step.

mix together (almond) milk and vanilla and whisk up some eggs.

pour it in. mix it up.

decide that you need more oats. search for another container of oats. find a bag of oat-looking stuff in cupboard and sniff it.

mix in another cup of oats. hope that it's not too much now. worry that maybe you should have looked at the recipe instead of "remembering" it.

stir it together though, and drizzle some honey over the top, that sounds like a good idea.

pour yourself a mug of almond milk and honey.

warm it up in your appropriately labeled microwave. (did you know you can draw on your microwave with dry erase markers? Pretty handy. no joke.)(It is now labeled in french.)

M O R N I N G . . . Hopefully you wrapped up the oatmeal and put it in the fridge for the night, rather than say, leaving it all out and falling asleep on the floor. Now you can take it out.

Take your milk or half & half or almond milk and lightly flood the top of your oatmeal. Mine turned out a little dry in the morning so this is a bit excessive, usually I just drizzle a bit of half and half.

Place in oven.

timer. heat.

post baking. you should have a scrumptious oatmeal with a slightly-cake-ish-ness to it. mine was more granola-y and I ended up cooking it for nearly an hour, but I didn't follow a recipe. don't be like me.

But do be like me, because this stuff is delicious. I eat it hot, warm, cold, with milk, fruit, syrup, yogurt, dried fruit, plain, nuts, or basically anything. yum.

But here's a real recipe. Feel free to go back to the pictures and marvel at how drastically different my memory and the actual recipe is. But really, you can't go wrong, and if you do, you probably still haven't gone wrong.