Mrs. Seifferlein's Baked Oatmeal {Deliciousness}

A couple of months ago, my kind husband told me that Sunday brunch is his favorite meal of the week. Naturally, I took his compliment as a reason to full-on panic.

MUST. MAKE. EVERY. BRUNCH. BETTER. THAN. THE. WEEK. BEFORE.

Of course, what he actually meant was, "I love Sunday brunch because it's the one mid-day meal of the week where I'm not answering 42 phone calls and text messages and having to shovel food in to rush back to the dairy."

But in my people-pleasing panic, I kind of missed that part.

Sunday brunch challenge: accepted.

It took me a couple of weeks of making sweet rolls and frying bacon while giving the baby a bottle and appeasing the toddler with Goldfish before I finally said, "Ok, I give. We have two little kids. I can't make a gourmet brunch and get them fed before 2 in the afternoon."

And in his usual calm way, he said, "Ok."

He's good like that.

So now, instead of trying to make cheesy grits with scallions and spinach/mushroom/ricotta omelets, I'm aiming for two goals: (1) getting lunch on the table quickly so my children don't act like they're about to starve and (2) making it tasty so that it's special for my husband.

That usually works out to scrambled eggs in tortillas (with peppers and sausage and taco sauce and cheese for toppings) or coffee cake and fruit and granola parfaits or 11 pieces of Great Harvest bread delivered from Minnesota to Missouri thanks to my parents.

But this week, we hit the jackpot with my friend Erin's baked oatmeal.

Except she's not your friend. She's my friend. So she's still Mrs. Seifferlein to you.

This met criteria #1 -- I made it the night before and baked it while making the rest of brunch and getting the kids changed out of church clothes -- and #2 because Chris ate three servings.

#winning

Now that we can add another healthy and quick staple to our Sunday brunch, I'm looking for your help.  What are your go-to brunch meals? Bonus points if they make your taste buds happy and your kids don't have to stare longingly out the window wondering where their next meal is.

Baked Oatmeal

2 c. oats
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. raisins (I omitted these because I don’t like raisins. What did grapes ever do to you, people?!)
1 T. chopped walnuts (I also omit because if I wanted to eat tree bark, I'd go gnaw on my maple in the front yard.)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. applesauce
2 T. melted butter
1 egg, beaten 

(I added a splash of vanilla and some cinnamon as well.)

Preheat oven to 375. Combine ingredients. Spray an 8 inch square pan with cooking spray. Pour into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with milk -- because hello! -- and fruit.

bring on the sprinkles: cake donuts

Merry fifth day of Christmas! While Wal-Mart is busy setting up its Valentine's Day displays, we're still Christmasing over here . . . all the way to Epiphany on January 6. 

But seriously. Wal-Mart employees were putting out Valentine's Day candy ON CHRISTMAS EVE. What the what? 

We're celebrating Christmas with donuts . . . delicious, carby donuts . . . which are at the very core of all my family holds dear.  Every now and then, on the way home from church, my dad would stop at Casey's, give one of us girls money and send us inside to get everyone a donut.

The only hitch was that we had to count the leftover change back to my dad before we could eat our delicious, sprinkled, glazed, cakey donuts. And for someone who stunk at math, that could mean the difference between the amount of seconds it took to shove a piece of a donut in my mouth and minutes. 

  

It was usually minutes. 

Sigh. 

You know me and math. 

Thanks to the kind Christmas gift of a donut pan from my mom, however, I can now eat donuts any time of the day or night. I don't have to wait until Sunday. Or even share with my sisters!

Unless it's National Donut Day. Then maybe. For old times' sake. 

While donuts from Casey's on Sundays after church will always taste special for a reason, these glazed cake donuts come pretty darn close.

No change counting required! 

Cake Donuts

2 cups flour

3/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

3/4 c. milk

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

1 T. shortening

Icing 

1 c. powdered sugar

2 T. hot water

1/2 tsp. almond extract 

1. Set oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a donut pan. 

2. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. Stir in milk, eggs, vanilla and shortening, and beat until well blended. 

3. Fill your donuts cups 3/4 of the way with batter. Bake donuts for 8-10 minutes or until the donuts spring back when touched. 

4. Allow donuts to cool before removing from the pan. 

5. To make the icing/glaze, blend together powdered sugar, almond extract and hot water. Dip donuts into glaze, and serve. 

** I'd recommend using 1/4 tsp. almond extract. Using 1/2 tsp. was almost a little overpowering! 

bread inside of a cake

Being the baby of the family has its advantages. Your parents aren't as strict with you as they were with your siblings. Your bedtime is a little more flexible. 

And you don't have to cook the Thanksgiving turkey, no matter what age you are, because you're the baby, and babies just don't know how to do that very important adult-ish stuff.

Clearly.

What we CAN handle, however, is bread. 

Or cake. Or bread cake. Or brake. Or ca-ad. Kind of like turducken but more carby.

The instructions are super difficult, so you have to follow closely.

(1) Bake pumpkin bread. (2) Cut out said bread in the shape of pumpkin. (3) Bake the shapes inside a pound cake. (4) Eat. 

But don't be deterred. It's totally do-able. Maybe even more do-able than roasting a turkey. 

Plus, you get to load up on the scraps of the bread that don't get cut into the shape of pumpkins. 

I also cut turkey legs out of pumpkin bread, so I'm pretty sure that almost counts as making my own turkey, right, Mom?

Mom? 

You can use pound cake and pumpkin bread mixes or make your own from scratch. I do recommend adding a little pound cake mix to the bottom of the pan before stacking your cut-out bread inside it. 

Otherwise the bottom of your pumpkins/turkey legs get a little cut off, and if you're showing up to Thanksgiving with something as awesome as this, you can't afford one little flub-up. 

Older siblings are all over that nonsense. 

Once your bread-cake-combo-of-deliciousness has cooled, slice that beauty up and impress the turkey legs off the rest of your family. 

But mostly your older brothers and sisters. 

They can brine and roast and fry their birds. But only YOU can show up with a pumpkin inside a cake. See? Being the baby really does have its advantages!

brunchy goodness + giveaway

I love brunch. I also love French toast. So when French toast is part of brunch, I'm pretty much in my happiest place possible. 

Wait. I forgot the chocolate milk. Yep. Now we're set.

This week, I made a new recipe after church on Sunday: Fresh Berry-Stuffed French Toast with Vanilla Yogurt Sauce. 

It was a keeper, the kind of recipe that makes you turn the corner of the page over so you don't forget it. (Unless you're opposed to that sort of thing because you're a book snob. Then just shove a bookmark in it.)

Best news of all: I found it in the Dairy Good cookbook, which could be yours, thanks to a giveaway hosted by Midwest Dairy!

are you hungry yet?

I am a big fan of the meal plan. Without sitting down and plotting out what my farmer and I will be eating each week, he'd probably end up chewing on raw noodles while I ate Fruit Loops. 

It wouldn't be a pretty picture. 

If you're in the same boat as me, you're in luck. 

Enter The Dairy Good Cookbook.

homemade granola

You might think this post is about granola and how delicious and crunchy and wonderfully brunchy it is. 

peach blueberry greek yogurt breakfast cake - dairy good!

It seems to me most people are either good at baking or good at cooking. 

Or, in my case, good at eating what other people bake and cook. 

I digress.