Chocolate-Chip Banana Bread Oatmeal

Most of the year I am OBSESSED with cereal for breakfast. Mostly Trader Joe's maple frosted wheat squares and any kind of Granola. Mixed. With raisins and walnuts and unsweetened almond milk. I go crazy for this breakfast-- ask my husband. Ask my old roommates. But now that the weather is colder, I'm craving something a touch more warm and hearty. Enter oatmeal. By itself, I think oatmeal is a little boring and blase. As a child I fixed this problem by DROWNING it in butter and brown sugar (maybe that was why I was on the chunky side?) but as an adult, I have found more creative ways of sprucing it up. Not that I eschew sugar. Don't make me laugh. I love sugar like Lupe loves finding deer bones in the wood (so gross). But in moderation. Unless I'm eating a large peanut-butter-cup cookie because its cookie Friday. I wish it were cookie Friday.

Ingredients for Chocolate-Chip Banana Bread Oatmeal (for one)

1 cup water

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1 whole banana, mashed

1/8 cup unsweetened almond milk

2 tsp brown sugar

a hearty dash or two of cinnamon

1/4 of a chopped apple

a few raisins

a few chocolate chips

a few sunflower seeds

Mash the banana and chop up the apple-bit. Bring the water to a boil, and add the oats, following the directions on your oats-package. When the oatmeal has set, mix in the apple, cinnamon, banana, sugar, milk, and raisins. Cook on low until the whole thing is warmed through. Top it with a few chocolate chips, some sunflower seeds, and another dash of cinnamon. I also like to add a little bit more almond milk.

 So easy. So delicious. So nutritious, so ambitious. Well...not that ambitious, but it is all the other things. And its filling. A perfect morning meal an hour before a run. And even more perfect as a post-run breakfast.

I added another outfit to the what-am-I-wearing page. In case you are my sister, and like that sort of thing. 

Tomorrow I am getting my very own real piano. It will look perfect--beyond perfect-- in our little living room. And I cannot wait to fill the house with Christmas carols.