Hey, good morning! I have a recipe for you! It’s from a couple of months ago, as are these photos. We have so much to catch up on. Honestly, I’m feeling a little stressed about that. You know what I’d really, really like? How about, rather than hanging around the ol’ blog today, you all just come on over for breakfast? It’s early still. You could totally make it. Our table is really quite large, and it’s square, not long and skinny, so we’d all be able to see each other as we chat, and eat, and catch up. Mia will be there, so you could see for yourselves how she counts to 15, and eats more blueberries in a single sitting than most humans I know. You would also see hair! On her head! (Finally.) She’s a grown-up baby now.
This kid turned twenty-two months last week. Let me tell you something about life with a twenty-two month old: It is wonderful. No offense to floppy little newborn Mia, or squishywishy six-to-twelve-month-old Mia, but talky, toddle-y, twenty-two-month-old Mia, who narrates aloud her every move, takes her ice crushed, her socks purple, and won’t, under any circumstance, let the pigeon drive the bus… You guys: I LOVE THIS GIRL. (“Yeah,” she said, when I told her so this morning. “So much.” I could slurp her through a straw.)
I think sometimes about what I felt towards this creature during the first few months of her life. Between you and me – and I can’t believe I’m about to type this – I’m not exactly sure it was love. It was more an intense awareness of her presence, an adrenaline-fueled concern for her well-being that kept me checking: that she was breathing, that she was comfortable, that she was continuing to exist and hadn't, in her tininess and near-translucence, spontaneously evaporated into the atmosphere. It was a kind of proto-love, I guess, or potential love, a bow with strings stretched back and an arrow resting just so.
Anyhow, love shmove. Best of all, these days, is how much I like her.
You’ve seen this photo before, a couple of weeks ago, when I posted about writing and the space travel it requires. It was not, in fact, taken on the moon (whaaat?), but on Cape Cod, in a small, white room overlooking the bay. This was the view from our bed. (Which nearly filled the room. It was a very small room.) Above me was a skylight, behind me a window, and to my right, the glass door and the window you see here. I’d selected the room from a photo online because it was the whitest, lightest one I could find. A cross between a boat cabin and a tree house, you might say, and our home base for a 30-hour micro-vacation, just Eli and me.
We left on a Thursday morning and came home Friday before dark. It was the longest I’d ever been away from Mia, the first time since Mia was born that “the two of us” meant Jess and Eli again, not just one of us and her.
It was rad.
Thirty hours may not have been long enough to vacation our way through the two books, one crossword puzzle, and sack of Bananagrams we zealously stuffed into our bag, but we did find time for ice cream. Twice.
Above: A very happy Jess and her Lewis Brothers’ cookies and cream.
Not pictured: An even happier Jess and the black raspberry soft serve that allows me to say, at last, that I get it. I understand soft serve now. It only took me 33 years. Thank you, PJ’s.
All right. Shall we eat? How about something I first made back in May, shortly after our trip, when apricots turned up at the market? You already know how I feel about apricots (good), and in particular baked apricots (very good). Well, I’m back at it this year, only this time, I’m baking them into oatmeal.
The recipe I’ve adapted is from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day, which I bet a lot of you already know. In Molly’s post about it last March, she mentioned that I’d made a batch for her and Brandon once upon a time. What she was too kind to mention is the fact that I butchered it. As in, little bits of cooked egg clinging to the oats. Any takers? No? The problem, I’m fairly certain, is that I used the low-fat milk I’d bought for Eli – it’s his favorite cereal milk – so technically, the blame rests with him, yes?
Prepared properly, with whole milk, Heidi’s baked oatmeal is a lovely dish. I went on to make it half a dozen times to rave reviews. Still, I couldn’t shake the mild disappointment that came with each round. Turns out, I had some unfair expectations of what baked oatmeal was supposed to be: crisp on top, creamy, even custardy, inside. Baked oatmeal is the first of these things a little bit, and the last one not at all. I might as well have been mad at a cupcake for not being a cookie.
I have since realized that baked oatmeal is actually more like kugel, the faintly sweet kind, only with oats instead of noodles and fresh fruit instead of raisins. I see some of you giving me the crazy eye, but think about it: It’s on the sweet side of savory, just like a kugel, crisp here, chewy there, good hot and cold and everything in between. It sets up like a kugel, half-slices, half-scoops like a kugel. So much like a kugel!
The point is, I’ve come around. And, with the addition of apricots, around and around and AROUND. Apricot baked oatmeal is something special, the apricots doing their thing, going bold in the oven as they do – jammy, soft, sweet – splaying into the milky oats. Apricots are still going strong (Blenheims!), so you’ve got time yet to give this one a go. But only a little. So do it! Enjoy! I really think you will.
p.s. I’m a guest over at habit this month. Come visit!
Apricot Baked Oatmeal
Adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day
I’ve made a few tweaks here to the spices and nuts to suit the apricots. (A bit of nutmeg in with the cinnamon, pecans instead of walnuts, brown sugar.) Speaking of the nuts, I sprinkle all of them on at the end, rather than mixing half in with the oats. This keeps them crisp and tasting toasty, and gives the top a crumble-like feel. I like to pack the baking dish with apricots, squeeze them in shoulder to shoulder, as many as I can fit. If you want your baked oatmeal more oatmeal-y, feel free to dial back the fruit.
6 fresh, ripe apricots, halved, stones removed
2 cups (200 g) rolled oats
½ cup (60 g) pecans, toasted and chopped
1/3 cup (65 g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups (475 ml) whole milk
1 large egg
3 tablespoons (45 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Heat the oven to 375 degrees with a rack in the top third of the oven. Generously butter an 8-inch square baking dish (I use a 2½-quart casserole dish) and place the apricot halves, skin side down, inside in a single layer.
In a bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients: the oats, toasted pecans, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients: the milk, egg, half of the melted butter, and vanilla. Sprinkle the oats over the apricots, then slowly drizzle in the milk mixture. (Don’t worry if you end up with a few dry spots on top. Those patches will just be slightly crisper, which I happen to think is great.) Tap the baking dish on the counter a few times to ease the liquid all the way through the oats and fruit. Scatter the toasted, chopped pecans across the top.
Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the top is golden – even lightly brown – and the oats have set up. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Drizzle the remaining melted butter on top (you may need to rewarm the butter to make it pourable again) and serve.
Makes enough for six.