A Meal Fit for a King

     Nutritionists have long advocated that to be your best all day long you need to begin the day with a healthy meal that fuels both body and mind.  An easy way to remember mealtime intake is to "eat like a king at breakfast, like a prince at lunch and like a pauper at dinner."  Breakfast is by far the most important meal of the day.  But unfortunately for many of us it is the meal most likely to be skipped, or short changed by a quick cup of coffee and some sort of energy bar.

     Recently my fellow gourmand and culinary traveling companion e-mailed me a fantastic breakfast recipe to fire up the engines and get your motor running right out of the chute in the morning.  It's for homemade baked oatmeal.  Oatmeal you say?   Boring!  But not this recipe.  It provides for some options that gives a routine bowl of oatmeal some personality and pizazz. 

     It does take some time to prepare and cook but it can be mixed together the night before and refrigerated in a covered bowl.  Then once your oven reaches 325F it can cook while you jump in and out of the shower and pick out your wardrobe for the day and put it on.  The following recipe claims it will make 4 servings, but yesterday I cut the quantities in half and still had more than enough for 2.

Kingly Baked Oatmeal

2 cups oatmeal (old fashioned)                   2 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 tsp baking powder                             1/2 cup applesauce or apple butter

1/2 tsp salt                                                    1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup whole milk                                           1 cup vanilla yogurt, for topping

Now here's the fun part:  add whatever you find interesting into the mix.  Raisins, nuts, dried cranberries, blueberries, cut up strawberries, and/or sliced bananas.  Nothing's off limits!

1. Preheat oven to 325F.

2. In a large bowl combine the oatmeal, baking powder and salt.

3. Mix in milk, eggs, applesauce (I used apple butter), and brown sugar.

4. Pour into a greased casserole dish.

5. Bake for 45 minutes.

6. Serve hot, topped with the yogurt. 

Start your day off with a regal meal!