Baked Oatmeal and Early Mornings and a New Dinner Time
Ever since our new school year has started, I have been getting up at about 6:30 AM. I make breakfast for me and Rich and we eat together with the silence of our home for just a few minutes before everyone else gets up. Sometimes our 17 year old is up before us, but he is pretty quiet in the morning anyway, so Rich and I still get to enjoy a quiet breakfast together.
Rich just started a new schedule which means he doesn't have to leave the house until 7-7:15 AM. But that also means he doesn't get home until 5:45-6PM. That is an hour later on both ends of the day. I was pretty sad to hear about him having to get home later in the day. I am having to work around our already scheduled school year to make it possible for all of us to eat dinner together. There were some things I would have schedule differently if I knew sooner about Rich's schedule change. I try my best to schedule outside activities around our dinner time. Or I move our dinner time for activities that are already scheduled. Dinner time with all of us is the most important time of our family's day. Even when Rich and I go out on a date, the kids fix a meal and sit at the dining table together as if all of us were there.
To help me feel better about Rich's later days, I have been thinking positively (which is rare for me, I am a "glass half empty" kind of person) and looking forward to his later mornings and the time we can spend together before our day starts. Before last week Rich would leave the house at 6 AM. Getting up before that time was out of the question for me!
This morning I made us Baked Oatmeal with Plums. I got the recipe from https://mividaenguete.blogspot.com/2011/09/baked-oatmeal-with-plums.html#!/2011/09/baked-oatmeal-with-plums.html. I needed to use up some plums before they went bad, and Rich said last night he wanted oatmeal for breakfast after I asked him what he wanted. It was delicious! I think plums are my new favorite fruit in oatmeal. I usually add pears or apples. I only used 1 TBS of the honey called for in the recipe. We then added more milk and some Splenda to our bowls just before eating. Yum!
So far I have made us oatmeal with sauteed apples, fried eggs and bacon, blueberry waffles, blueberry oatmeal pancakes, cheesy scrambled eggs and bacon, and the baked oatmeal with plums. I am now on a quest for new and fun breakfast meals. Me making breakfast at our house is a treat. I usually leave that up to each individual unless they are too young to work in the kitchen. Usually around the age of six my kids have asked to start making their own breakfasts and lunches. They just like being in the kitchen like their mom and dad. I do enjoy making homemade sausage biscuits, breakfast burritos, sausage gravy and buttermilk biscuits, and pancakes of all kinds, but most of those are things I make at dinner time (Rich does the biscuits because he is better than me at them), or for a special occasion. I am learning to be a morning person. Being with my husband and trying new foods will be my motivation to get up in the morning.
Crystal