Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

 

 

(He let my mother sleep in because this was always on a Sunday morning before Sunday school.)

 My father was a cook in the army, we were often reminded.

I remember him telling us about the SOS dinner. He called it shit on a shingle. I am quoting here.

It was, I believe dried shaved corn beef in white gravy over toast.

Luckily I never had to partake in that.

But now that I’m thinking of it we did eat a lot of those Buddig shaved meats that come in plastic packages.

I think I might have had those on toast, too.

But back to oatmeal. I was not a fan of it growing up.

I remember my brother eating oatmeal. It never looked good to me.

It was soupy and lumpy and tan. It was not this healthy oatmeal bake!

He sprinkled poured sugar over the top, salted it, put on lots of butter, no it wasn’t butter because I don’t remember butter in my house, only margarine, or that stuff that was in a tub, (which was
probably margarine, too) and then he poured milk over it.

No fruit or nuts so no oatmeal bananas thing going on.

Just soupy, lumpy oatmeal topped with sugar and salt and that yucky margarine that always for some weird reason had a coconut taste to me.

And guess what?  I discovered I liked it.

Maybe it was because granola was popular and I was getting use to eating toasted oats that I then decided I could cook them. Whatever.

I am now very happy to eat oatmeal.

Recently I spotted a baked oatmeal recipe.

I thought it sounded good but more complicated than I wanted to do first thing in the morning. So I simplified it.

My husband eats oatmeal every day and I don’t like his version.

It is thick and gloppy and tasteless.

And when he is kind and makes it for me, I try to be polite, but I know when my daughter says to me, “Dad made you oatmeal” and she hasn’t put her spoon in it first, well, you get the picture, don’t you?

Maybe next time when he wakes up before me he’ll pop some of this into the oven.

Because that is what it is good for.

Get your dish out. Mix it up in a bowl. Put it in your greased dish to bake while you shower.

Get dressed. Walk back to the kitchen where you are greeted with this sensuous smell of bananas and cinnamon.

Whether you made it or he made it won’t matter.

You will just be glad that you have a great way to start your day!