Pear, Date & Cardamom Baked Oatmeal

When I decided to start this blog, I knew that baked oatmeal would be the first recipe I wrote about. Over two years ago, when Easton began eating and we were knee deep into keeping ourselves afloat in the kitchen, I came across a recipe for baked oatmeal and had an instant aha moment. I had made a couple pans of this one years before when hosting my family for an easy breakfast. We had loved it.

My baked oatmeal rediscovery came in August. It was not really turn-on-the-oven, heat-up-the-house weather, but I knew that this would be the answer to one of our cooking dilemmas. I made a tray that weekend, and realized that not only did I have enough to send my 14-month-old to school with breakfast every day that week – my mornings were covered until Wednesday, too.

And so began the weekly Baked Oatmeal, the one dish we made without fail. Some weeks it was apple and raisin oatmeal, others carrots and spices or blueberries and bananas, or whatever else I dreamed up as I tried to fall asleep. As time went on, I increased the quantity so that all of us could eat breakfast from the one batch, most of the week. At this point, the only thing I measure are the oats and the liquid – everything else I usually eyeball.

What I noticed, repeatedly – in conversations with friends, or coworkers who saw my little containers day after day or Easton’s teachers who heated it up every morning – was that everyone wanted to know more about the Baked Oatmeal. Some people asked for the recipe, but others asked how. Just how do you do it?

I wish I could say, oh, you know. But truthfully, the answer wasn’t pretty. We often spent Sundays cooking. All day. We’d get into bed on Sunday night, more exhausted than after any day working, our feet tired and our minds nearly blank. But, on Monday morning, when I opened the fridge door and saw a sea of tiny colorful containers all labeled, it was like I was living my best self. It was so easy to forget the day before, when a full week of meals was staring back at me.

I think my second pregnancy slowed us down. While my daughter napped, I abandoned the hustle, halfheartedly attempting dinner, before my husband would instruct me to just sit. Eventually, I wrote down the recipe for baked oatmeal and without fail, each week, if nothing else, we would eat breakfast.

Now, with two children – one who cannot yet sit without falling and loses her mind between 6pm-8pm nightly – we’ve found a better balance. We’re still cooking on Sundays, though not zealously. We still shop with a plan and I still love to prep, but we get out of the house, too. This summer, I took a break from weekly Baked Oatmeal, first working our way through the stash in the freezer, and then turning to yogurt with fruit and granola for the majority of Easton’s breakfast.

But, it’s fall and a warm breakfast just feels more appropriate. We’re still leaving the house on Sundays. I want my kids to have memories of breakfasts out, farmers markets and apple picking, not just running circles around us while we push ourselves to break our own record in the kitchen. They’ll grow up with the memory and knowledge that we cook. The other day Easton asked me if we could bake muffins and I loved so much that she knows that baking is something that you do, that muffins are created, not just found in the store. So we will continue to cook and we will rediscover how to live. But, no matter how much time we spend just enjoying our weekends, come Monday, containers of Baked Oatmeal will be in the fridge.