Recipe Monday: Baked Oatmeal

   
     Well, blogging isn't as easy as I thought. No, scratch that. Blogging is easy. Remembering to sit down every day and write a post is the hard part.
      I am going to pretend that I have good reasons though. I had the flu about two weeks ago, and was sick for a good 8 days. That was awful. What was even more awful was the catching up after having the flu. Homework piles up. My room could have been mistaken for a war zone.  Blogging gets pushed aside. On top of that, my dad has been out of town on business for awhile. In the past three weeks, he's been home about four days. We are just thankful he has a job :) While I was in bed with the flu, my fourteen year old brother, Willis, got his third football concussion. My poor mother was all by herself with two convalescent children.  Well if you want to believe that we had our fill of sickness and injury in our household, think again. After taking my dad to the airport on Tuesday to leave on business, she came home with a kidney stone, and was out of commission for a couple of days.
     In the words of my dad, "I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I don't think it's the headlight of an incoming train." Ha! I am ready to get into cooking, blogging, teaching, and the various other things that make me happy.
     How's that for a happy blog post? Well, it's about to get much better. With the temperatures in the low 60s during the day, changing colors of the leaves, and the bringing out of scarves and boots, I have been craving all things warm and delicious.

     Here is something that fills all the aforementioned criteria. Baked oatmeal.  I got the basic idea and proportions of this recipe from the fabulous Moroccan food blog Dinners and Dreams.  I made a few modifications based on what I had in my pantry. The original recipe called for raspberries and apples. I (shamefully) didn't have either, so I used plums instead. I didn't go to culinary school, but to me, plums taste like the children of an apple and a raspberry. They are sweet and tart and meaty and delicious.
     As much as I would love to believe that I am, in fact, an excellent photographer, I'm not. It also didn't help that my camera wasn't working, I don't know how to properly take pictures of food, and I couldn't find my tripod that I usually use for stuff like this. Oh and I had troubles with my cappuccino. A half-charged milk frother doesn't do much.