Oatmeal To Go!

We're late sleepers at our house, and by late, I mean like 7:00am. Typically Addison wakes between 6:00 and 7:00 and we have some quiet time with her while we give her a drink of milk, change her diaper, maybe get her dressed, etc. We lay in bed while she crawls all over us and climbs on and off the bed a thousand times until we finally give in and get up (around 7:00). Then we shower and dress before waking up Gavin around 7:30. This sounds reasonable until you factor in that we need to be out the door and in the car by 8:15 with lunches packed, backpack and diaper bag in hand, breakfast eaten, etc. Typically one of us heads in to work at a reasonable time and the other brings the kids to school and daycare since school doesn't start until 8:45. Then whoever went in to work "early" is the one to pick the kids up so that the one who brought the kids in the morning and got to work a little late, can stay and work a little later to be sure to get a full day in at the office!

In the morning we have to ensure Gavin is in his school uniform or school appropriate clothes (no jeans, no characters or text on his shirt, etc). This is typically pretty easy as we do set out his clothes the night before, but he sometimes changes his mind in the morning and we're never sure what he'll try to pull off! In the winter we also have to have snowpants, boots, hat & mittens, etc packed for each kid. It seems like a lot to account for when we're also getting ourselves ready. We try to set out clothes and pack bags the night before, which helps a lot. One other lifesaver is a breakfast to go! It doesn't mean we eat it in the car, although these oatmeal-to-gos work great for that too, it just means it's already made and ready to eat and you don't have to think about it. If we're not having oatmeal to go, then its ususally a piece of bread with peanut butter and a piece of fruit like a banana, clementine, or apple and sometimes it's just a bowl of cereal, but usually half the bowl of cereal doesn't get eaten. We love making personalized Oatmeal To Go because we can add whatever each of us likes best!

Gavin likes peanut butter and chocolate chips. He loves plain dried cranberries, but he doesn't like them IN anything. He can eat a whole bag on its own but he won't eat muffins, scones, cookies, or oatmeal with dried cranberries IN them.

Cliff prefers cranberries, white chocolate, and macadamia nuts.

I like any combination, but I love cranberries with dark chocolate chips!

Some of our other combinations are apple cinnamon, raisin, and coconut and macadamia, but our coconut was pretty dried out, so the coconut macadamia ones weren't the best.

Here is our recipe!

Oatmeal to Go!

 

Note: This recipe makes about 36 muffin-sized oatmeal cups, so cut the recipe in half if that's too many for your household.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 - 2 c applesauce (we use our home-canned applesauce, but anything works!)
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 mashed banana
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 1/4 c honey (lucky for us, we get honey from my sister who has bees as well as some friends of ours! We use a lot of honey!)
• 3 c  rolled oats 
• 2 c steel cut oats (you can use any oats you have - all rolled, or any combination of rolled and steel cut)
• ¼ cup ground flaxseed (you can buy flax seed meal at the store or you can grind your seeds in a clean coffee grinder)
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon (plus more if you are doing apple cinnamon oatmeal)
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2¾ cups milk (I use 1%, but use whatever your family drinks!)
• Optional toppings/additions: raisins, walnuts, dark chocolate chips, coconut, cranberries, coconut, almonds, blueberries, walnuts

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350*.
2. Fill three full muffin tins with 36 cup-cake liners or spray with cooking spray.
3. In a bowl mix first six ingredients. I use my kitchenaid stand mixer for this part. 
4. Add in oats, ground flax, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt and mix well with the wet ingredients.
5. Pour in 2¾ c milk and stir.
6. Scoop about ¼ cup of batter into each cup of your muffin tins, filling each about 2/3 full. Remember to mark your different topping / flavor combinations if you have picky eaters.
7. If using toppings add them to each muffin cup now. Use a skewer or a fork (or your finger) to push most of the toppings down into batter, but leave a little on top so you can identify what it is later!  
8. Bake 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
9. Allow to cool before refrigerating or freezing. We freeze or refrigerate each different kind in a labeled quart-size freezer bag with the "flavors" and the person's name on it. This way, Gavin can find the bag with his name on it and know that those don't have cranberries! You can enjoy these cold from the fridge or warmed in the mircrowave for 20 seconds if refrigerated or 45 seconds if frozen. Note: If you warm them in the microwave, grab a napkin. The chocolate chips and peanut butter DO get melty and messy!

 

Enjoy your (relatively) healthy, fiber-filled, antioxidant-rich, potassium infused breakfast on the go!