Apple Crisp Oatmeal

Mmmmmm. Apple crisp.  There's something particularly comforting about a bowl of spiced apple goop topped off with biscuit-cookie-like crumble.  Especially when you wake up to snow at 6.45am and need be across campus in 50minutes for a Chem lab. Brrrrrrrr

The fact that there is a bowl of apple crisp waiting in my fridge to re-heat is plenty of motivation to clamber out of bed to power-up for a hike across campus and a morning of determining decay rates.

 To make the "crumble" topping I used graham crackers.  (Graham crackers--more specifically their flavor--have always remained a mystery to me.  How exactly does one describe it without using the word "graham"?  The closes approximations I can come to are: "biscuit-like" and "brown sugar with butter").  I found this breakfast an ideal way to use up those awkward graham crackers crumbs at the bottom of the wax paper liner.

Biscoff--or "Cookie Butter"--is another key ingredient in this recipe (although, you can substitute with nut-butter or earth balance and the oatmeal still tastes scrumptious!  I find almond butter makes the best alternative).  Biscoff adds that authentic brown-sugar-buttery crust flavor to the oatmeal.  It takes wholesome porridge to granola-cookie-ness.  You can purchase Biscoff in jars or mini-1-tablespoon-packets at foreign foods stores and online.  My parents purchased these packets at Sidecar for Pigs (a vegan supply store) in Seattle.

Ingredients:

1 medium/large apple (I used a Jonagold)

1/3 c. rolled oats

1 tsp vanilla butter nut flavor

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp clove

1/3 c. water + 1/3 c. water

1/3 c. non-dairymilch

1/2 to 1 tbsp Biscoff or nut-butter

1 tbsp vegan white chocolate chips (if you can find them! nuts, raisins or dark chocolate are tasty alternatives I have used before)

1 vegan graham cracker sheet, crumbled

(optional), sweetener to taste

Directions:

Pulverize half of the apple by whichever means you prefer (food processor, blender, grating etc).  It should look a bit like apple meal or chunky apple sauce.

Mix oats, apple bits, vanilla, spices, 1/3 cup water and non-dairy milch together in a microwave safe bowl with enough room for the mixture to double in size during the cooking process.  As stated before, I am guilty of over stuffing my oatmeal bowls and then bowling the contents all over my microwave.  A not fun, but yummy clean-up.

Microwave the whole mixture on HIGH for about 3 minutes.  For my microwave, this is the perfect length of time to not boil over the mixture and cook the oats to the right consistency for the next step.  Start out microwaving your oats for 2 minutes and then microwave the mixture in 30 second intervals until the oatmeal is, frankly, the overall consistency of snot.  If it can hold a spoon up in a hurricane, you're golden.

Mix the oatmeal to help release some of the steam and then stir in the Biscoff or nutbutter.  Allow the mixture to sit for about 2-5 minutes. 

Meanwhile, chop up the other half of the apple into moderate sized chunks.

Add the remaining 1/3 cup of water and then rather vigorously to fully incorporate the water. Mix in the apple chunks.  Stick the whole concoction in the fridge to settle up overnight.

In the morning, the oatmeal will have absorbed the remaining liquid and will look a bit like this *insert Psycho theme here *:

Add about 1-2tbsp of water or non-dairy milch to the oatmeal to add a bit more moisture back to the porridge.  Micowave on HIGH for about 2 minutes.  Stir in the white chocolate chips, crumble the graham cracker on top and sweeten (if needed--I find the Jonagold apple made this oatmeal sweet enough).

Dig in my fellow oatmeal fiends.

...then mourn its loss.

Cheers, kaite ;]