I love breakfast.

I know, who doesn’t, right? But all through high school and most of college, breakfast definitely didn’t get much love from me, except on the weekends when my dad might make a big batch of pancakes. I wasn’t much of a morning person, and in high school I was guilty of breaking my fast on whatever I could shove down my gob in the least amount of time, much to my disapproving mom’s chagrin. Actually, I usually brought my food to school and downed a bagel during my Academic Decathlon homeroom (nerd alert!) before classes started in earnest. In college, I rarely ate breakfast at all until last year, when I lived in a townhouse and had my own kitchen. Not having to get up, get dressed, and trek to the dining hall changed the way I approached breakfast, especially during the frigid Minnesota winter! I have grown to love and appreciate breakfast, and now I never skip it. From pancakes to potato-laden brekkie burritos, I love me my mornin’ eats.

I especially love all things oatmeal, and that’s one reason I’ve always had a soft spot for [Chocolate Covered] Katie and her blog, even back in the days when I was blogging over at Blogspot. Her oatmeal creations are inspired and inspirational! When you can have Brownie Batter for breakfast, who wouldn’t?! Especially when your breakfast creations look like this:

My unfortunate lack of an immersion blender means I can’t quite pull off her blended grains technique, but whatever, man – my Bob’s Red Mill oat bran tasted scrumptious enough without being blended! Plus, my Brownie Batter Oat Bran was super brain food for my daily GRE study session.

But I didn’t stop there. Oh no, my love for dessert-for-breakfast fueled me to greater heights of sweet breakfast euphoria when I made Snickerdoodle Oat Bran, a variation of Katie’sSnickerdoodle Hot Cereal!

Cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla gave this bowl a flavor totally reminiscent of the snickerdoodles I made a few days ago.

This morning, I ended my trifecta of CCK-inspired breakfasts by coming up with one of my own. I call it… Apple Pie Oat Bran! This “recipe” is super easy and involves one of my favorite ways of eating apples, even those banged-up, bruised, sad-looking ones that sit dolefully in your fruit bowl for days waiting to be used. I’m kind of guesstimating on the measurements here, because I really don’t measure much except my oat bran and milk.

Apple Pie Oat Bran
Ingredients:
1 apple + cinnamon and sugar to taste
1 cup water or your favorite nondairy milk (I mix half water with half soy or almond milk)
1/3 cup oat bran (I use Bob’s Red Mill)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg

First, chop up your apple into small cubes and put ’em in a small bowl. Liberally douse the suckers with sugar and cinnamon and let the apples sit and macerate for a while until they become nice and juicy. Then start making your oat bran. Start heating your liquid of choice along with the vanilla, and once it’s boiling add the oat bran. Keep a bonny eye on your oa tbran, stirring fairly often, for one minute. Add about 3/4 of your macerated apple mixture and keep on cookin’ for another minute. Then turn off the heat, add the cinnamon and nutmeg, and remove your pot from the heat. Unless you’re impatient like me, you probably want to let your oat bran cool a for a couple of minutes before pouring it into a bowl, but once you’ve done that, top the oat bran with the rest of your apple mixture, give it all another sprinkle of cinnamon, and you’re good to go! (Also, feel free to sub oat bran with your breakfast cereal of choice.)

Oh, helpful tip – I like to keep a premade cinnamon sugar mixture in a repurposed spice jar so I have it ready at all times; it’s quite convenient. ;)

Now, while these breakfasts are completely worthy of a devotional post such as this one, I also have an ulterior motive in baring my love for dessert-like breakfasts to the world. Katie is
giving away a spiralizer, and she’s generously offering up six extra entries to anyone who blogs about one of her recipes. But even if you don’t have a blog, you can still enter by checking out her contest. Thanks, Katie!