Baked Oatmeal Casserole

I love oatmeal.

I love regular oatmeal with brown sugar. I love oats with nuts and fresh berries or dried cranberries and a touch of honey. I love fancy, schmancy oatmeal combos, like baked pumpkin steel cut oatmeal.

I love cookies with oatmeal (particularly homemade Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies, in which the ground oats are a super-special secret ingredient, as well as these loaded oatmeal cookies). Not long ago, I discovered I also love no-bake energy balls which, naturally, contain oatmeal, too.

So it should come as no surprise that I have a whole list of must-make recipes that include oatmeal. One, which I tried a few weekends ago, is a baked oatmeal casserole.

I knew I'd love it because it has a lot of my favorite things in it: chocolate, bananas, raspberries, cinnamon, walnuts. And oats! (Of course.)

The result was so rich I almost felt guilty eating it for breakfast. Almost.

I ate it for days afterward, too, so it was a good thing I liked it.

(Conservative Hubby, on the other hand, wasn't a fan, but then again after I made him eat a piece he told me he hates oatmeal. I don't understand how you can hate oatmeal. It's delicious. But, alas, lesson learned on that one.)

I think next time I make this, I'll use fewer chocolate chips. And maybe try adding a bit more fruit. And a bit less sugar.

Gasp.

No, my blog wasn't just taken over by an alien from another planet posing as me. I really did just say I'd reduce the amount of chocolate and sugar. Don't worry. I'm feeling OK. It's just sometimes I like my breakfast a little healthier.

Unless, of course, there are Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies available to eat with my coffee. Or sugar cookies. Or snickerdoodles.

(See? It's still me!)