Baked oatmeal + persimmons, toasted coconut, and vanilla
Here I am, the day before Thanksgiving, not talking about Thanksgiving food. This would be a perfect breakfast for an otherwise long weekend full of heavy dishes and indulging, and it would be particularly great to serve if you have guests in the house, but that’s just a coincidence. The main point is that this is a wonderful breakfast for when you have a bit of time in the morning – partially because it needs some time in the oven, but mostly because its very nature seems to most fit a slow, cozy, restorative sort of start to the day.
It’s rare, these days, that we have those sorts of mornings at home – between working, house guests, and out-of-town weekend plans, only once or twice since we’ve been in Madison have we had a morning with nowhere to be. So, when two weekends ago we had a cold, gray day with nothing on the schedule until the afternoon, I knew immediately that I’d turn to this recipe. Oatmeal, baked slowly with spices, maple syrup, milk, and an egg, plus fruit and/or nuts and/or any other toppings you might think to add. I knew going in exactly what I wanted to add – cubes of persimmon, toasted coconut, pumpkin and flax seeds, and vanilla. I’d been adding those things to my regular, everyday oatmeal in the mornings, and I couldn’t get over how well they all went together.
