Baked Apple Oatmeal

Up until a few months ago, I never bothered with breakfast. But in the interest of losing weight and getting healthy, I've been trying to make it a part of my day. Most mornings consist of a granola bar, a piece of fruit, and some chocolate soy milk. It's good and keeps me going until lunch, but on weekends I like to experiment with different things. I've also been on a quest to find things that will keep well and give me variety for the coming week.

I decided to try Baked Apple Oatmeal from the Betty Crocker website.

Apples were on sale this week and the rest of the stuff we either had or was really cheap, so already, I can consider this to be a value meal.

It was also extremely easy. The only part I didn't so much like was chopping the apples. We do have a small chopper, but with everyone else in the house still sleeping, I thought it would be rude to try to run any kitchen gadgets (I'll be so glad when we have our own place...just a couple more months).

Everything mixed well in the dish. Two medium granny smith apples yielded alot of chunks, but they were tasty so it was okay. Here's the before pic:

And the after pic with some chunks already taken out:

The recipe calls for whatever toppings you prefer. The taste of the oatmeal without any toppings was a little bland and could have probably used more of something in the cooking process. I think I might like to try it with vanilla soy milk and a different fruit. To add some flavor to this batch, I just mixed some extra raisins into some brown sugar.

It's amazing the difference it made. This ended up being really tasty and pretty filling (go fiber!). After the bf and I finished ours, I packed the rest of it in tupperware. He's not a big breakfast eater, so I know have at least four breakfasts to get me through the rest of the week.

It'll be interesting to see if it makes good leftovers!