Raspberry baked oatmeal

Call it the summer blahs, call it the back-to-school blues—whatever the cause, I have not been in my regular writing routine the past two weeks. It’s mildly distressing. Here I am, wasting away my youth by, like, relaxing and shit and not working hard on my bestselling novels and eloquent, wildly popular blog posts! A tragedy!

It’s also the reason why I haven’t been blogging too much as of late. I have literally a dozen (delicious, ingenious, inventive, etc.) recipes in the queue, all lined up and ready to publish—save for their conspicuous lack of writing beyond the title and the recipe. No musings about my love of farting or blueberry casserole memes...just a big, white, blank space—OH FUCK I just reminded myself of a Taylor Swift song—between my carefully Photoshopped photos and haphazardly-written, lowkey-plagiarized recipes.

I’ve been tempted to just straight-up put out a couple of photos and a recipe with no introduction. Or maybe some pithy statement like “This recipe needs no introduction,” followed by—wait for it—no introduction. It would be super hilarious right? You’re laughing already, aren’t you?

June...no... source

But anyway. I wouldn’t do that to you.

As a matter of fact, I am going to take the opportunity to blame all of this writer’s block (more accurately, writer’s lack-of-motivation) on the back-to-school blues. And I hate saying that, because it makes me feel like I’m eight years old and nervous about heading into third grade, where I hear you have to learn how to write in cursive and you get ten hours of homework every night! No, it’s just...

I've never seen a more accurate, relatable gif. source

It’s just, as you end your high school career, classes get harder, you know? And it takes, like, time and effort and work? And you can’t spend your days making layer cakes and listening to music and writing silly little stories and reading Cracked articles, because you have this little thing called homework and not to mention after-school sports and clubs and—

Excuse me, I’m getting a little emotional.

I hate to complain, but—fuck it I’m gonna complain. I may or may not have a little anxiety over the fact that I’m taking my first AP course this year. It’s biology. Biology is my jam, yeah. Whenever biology comes on the radio, I’m like, turn that shit up, woot woot! But AP bio is notorious for being...thorough. Which will be interesting. And hopefully I won’t regret my decision to take on the challenge by, say, Christmastime. That’ll be a good barometer.

I may also be a little bitter over the fact that my parents didn’t give me the okay to drop out and become a hobo. Apparently the astute reasoning of Pink Floyd—We don’t need no education / We don’t need no thought control—didn’t ring true enough for them.

Ah, shut up with your filthy prescriptivist blather! source

And this goes out to all the high school / university / generic school-going peeps out there. Wishing you all the best of luck too.

Apparently so. source

And for peeps who have jobs / lives to attend to that don’t involve being formally educated. I don’t want to discriminate.

In the meantime, let’s take a peek at today’s recipe. 

Hmm. Very interesting.

This is another super easy breakfast recipe perfect for not only lazy weekends but busy weekdays as well (school days, anyone?). The recipe serves about four, depending on how hungry you are, but it can easily be doubled to produce leftovers for subsequent days. Just stick a bowl of the stuff in the microwave, drizzle with milk, and boom—breakfast.

And unlike typical microwave-and-serve oatmeal, this baked oatmeal is very rich and delicious, with the chewy texture of an oatmeal cookie and all the sweetness of one of those instant packets we all used to eat when we were kids. Not joking. In Seriously Delish, where I got the recipe, the author talks about basing her baked oatmeal on the flavor of those little flavored packets with all the sugar and preservatives. Further proof that with food, nostalgia is everything and what we ate as children is of utmost importance.

I mean, it’s not like my brother still eats those things, anyway. Come on. He’s waaaay too old for that.

I will, however, admit that I used to love chomping down that instant oatmeal with the little dried fruit chunks and powdered sugar granules as a kid; and yes, the flavor is spot-on with this baked oatmeal. You could easily lessen the brown sugar in here by at least a quarter cup, if not more, and it would still be perfectly edible. But that would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?

But it’s not all sugar and empty calories. The coconut oil, the protein-rich tofu (no you can’t taste it okay, it’s just there as an egg substitute), and the fresh, antioxidant-rich, not to mention delicious raspberries take this oatmeal to another level. And of course, you could easily substitute your favorite berry in here. I just used raspberries because, well, they’re awesome.

Can't argue with that flawless logic.

Anyway. Here’s the recipe.

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Raspberry baked oatmeal

Adapted from Seriously Delish by Jessica Merchant

Serves about 4

Ingredients

240 grams • rolled oats • 3 cups

165 grams • light brown sugar • ¾ cup

8 grams • baking powder • 2 teaspoons

2 grams • cinnamon • 1 teaspoon

3 grams • salt • ½ teaspoon

244 grams • light coconut milk • 1 cup

122 grams • applesauce • ½ cup

28 grams • coconut oil, melted • 2 tablespoons

110 grams • silken tofu • ½ cup

8 grams • vanilla extract • 2 teaspoons

164 grams • raspberries • 1 1/3 cups

Direction

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 10-inch square baking dish and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together oats, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

Place milk, applesauce, coconut oil, tofu, and vanilla in a blender. Blend until smooth. Pour into bowl with oat mixture and stir to combine. Gently fold in raspberries.

Pour batter into baking dish and spread out into an even layer. If desired, press a few raspberries on top for decoration. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, until the oatmeal is set and lightly browned on the top. The longer you bake the oatmeal, the drier it will get; so you may want to adjust baking time according to your tastes. Let cool for about 2 minutes before serving with a drizzle of coconut milk.

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I was tempted to arrange the raspberries into a hammer and sickle, but then I remembered I'm not a communist.

For more fabulous recipes along this line, check out these links.

Leftover pumpkin pie baked oatmeal. You may need to make pumpkin pie for the express purpose of making this.

Oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip scones. Like eating a giant oatmeal cookie for breakfast.

Vanilla mug cake with raspberry and chocolate. Who says mug cakes aren’t a good breakfast?

Raspberry curd. Would be great on toast.