Baked Oatmeal and a Shout Out to the Patel Brothers

Like many of the other contributors, we love oatmeal at our house. It can be really fun and energy saving to prepare baked oatmeal the night before so that in the morning all you need to do is turn on the oven and take a shower while breakfast bakes. You can't really mess this up as long as you have a lot of liquid (apple sauce, soy milk, bananas are all good options) . I grease my baking dish with either Earth Balance or coconut oil and mix (in our case) gluten free oats, flax meal (or hemp or chia seeds), cinnamon, a dash of sea salt, a bit of maple syrup, goji berries or raisins (or apricots, figs or dates) and a handful of whatever nuts we have. I have also added frozen berries to this.

I try to make sure we have something raw at every meal for the nutrition, enzymes and deliciousness. These days its papaya and mango. We have been buying delicious Indian Mangos (the opposite of local food, but so ripe with childhood memories for my husband) by the case at Patel Brothers in Hicksville.

*This market is worth visiting for the spices, nuts and grains. They have very little by way of organics but some interesting and very special products including unusual Asian produce like lotus root and strange squashes. Their prices are insanely low on nuts, grains and oils. If you do visit make sure you eat at the Dosa Hut across the street we are addicts.