Baked oatmeal

Instead of our usual Sunday-morning popovers, this morning I made baked oatmeal. (I also found a pumpkin baked oatmeal recipe, which sounds even better, but I didn't want to open a whole can of pumpkin and only use half of it.) It was delicious, and not that much worse for you than regular oatmeal. The only bad-for-you ingredients are 1.5T butter, which isn't bad -- only about a teaspoon per serving -- and 1/3 cup of brown sugar, which I would reduce by half next time. The Quaker Oats recipe has you sprinkle brown sugar on top and broil for 1-2 minutes for a bruleed top, which I'll do next time. I substituted pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, used a mix of raisins and dried cranberries, and added pecans. If K weren't so opposed to any kind of cooked fruit, I'd use apples or pears and walnuts or pecans next time -- since he is, I'd just ditch the raisins and stick to the cranberries and pecans.

The other nice thing about this recipe is that it dirties so few dishes. I melted the butter, warmed the milk, and mixed the rest of the wet ingredients in my big Pyrex measuring cup. I toasted the oats in my 8x8 baking pan while preparing the wet ingredients, and then took the oats out, put the other dry ingredients on top, and poured the wet mixture over. So the only dirty dishes were the baking pan, the Pyrex cup, the whisk, and a few measuring spoons.

It took under ten minutes of prep and 20 minutes in the oven, which is slightly less time than popovers (about the same prep, but 36 minutes in the oven). I think this would make a good side dish when we have guests for brunch. It would be even better with some whipped cream, or maybe some strained yogurt to keep it breakfasty.