No-Bowl Oatmeal for Hungry Cyclists (and you, too)

Breakfast has long been argued to be the most important meal of the day. I won't argue that it isn't; it probably is. However, it's also the most difficult meal of the day, for me, because a) I don't like most traditional breakfast foods, b) getting out of bed early enough to cook/eat breakfast sucks in general and REALLY sucks in the winter, and c) I'm a cyclist, so eating a big meal and then riding to work makes me want to throw up, and packing up and carting most breakfast foods is either a pain in my ass or impossible.

Furthermore, oatmeal with fruit is the perfect breakfast, but it's also oatmeal, which is disgusting, so I don't make it and don't like eating it when I DO make it, so there's that. Pretty much failure all around.

This recipe came about because I had half a carton of strawberries and 3/4 of a carton of blueberries threatening to spoil in my 'fridge, but I was too lazy to bother making muffins. It's kind of kissing cousins with my mother-in-law's sweet-bread/pound-cake thing, but not really so let's move on.

No Bowl Oatmeal for Hungry Cyclists

(and you, too)

Ingredients

1 2/3 cups whole oats, which you are going to pulverize into meal

1 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup sugar

Couple'a shakes cinnamon

~15 strawberries

1 egg

2/3 cup milk or soy milk

2/3 cup blueberries

Oil to grease your baking pan

Instructions

- Preheat oven to 350*F.

- In a food processor, pulverize the daylights out of your oats.

- Transfer that to a small mixing bowl and add in the baking powder, sugar, and cinnamon.
- Mix to combine, then set it aside so you can make a mess elsewhere.

- Wash and core the strawberries.

- Dump them into the food processor with the egg and milk.

- Pulverize that shit.

- Dump the strawberry mix into the oatmeal mix. Stir until just combined.

- Add the blueberries. This will all be terribly liquidy at this point. Feel free to panic that you've done something wrong or measured wrong or made all the wrong life choices, etc.

- Grease a 9" round cake pan.

- Dump the liquidy mess from the mixing bowl into it.

- Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes (I think mine baked 42 minutes; nevermind)

- Allow to cool completely. It'll pull away from the sides that way.

The finished product is a little gooey and a little sproingy - very much what you'd think baked oatmeal would be like. The blueberries all sink to the bottom and make this really nice tangy wet crust thing. It serves neatly, and travels well, doesn't leak or anything. We tasted some warm from the oven and it was nice, then I had some cold for breakfast and it was just as nice.

Seriously, this recipe. Right here. It's good. Or not - but it's better, at least, than oatmeal. I like it lots and lots.