Baked Oatmeal with Apples & Pecans

It snowed last night. It's October. I hate the cold and snow, but I do love warming my house up with delicious cold weather food. My mom is visiting from Maine, so I thought I should make something special for breakfast. I grabbed my favorite new cookbook - Super Natural Every Day, which makes me drool and want to quit my job to cook all day - and found the perfect recipe. The author (Heidi Swanson) made hers with bananas and huckleberries, but I only had delicious, in-season macoun apples on hand. Here's my version of this perfect cold-weather breakfast bake.

I love that Swanson gives me the weights of the ingredients, as well as the standard baking measurements. I always use my food scale for recipes when I'm given the weights, so I am adding both measurements below.

Original inspiration: Super Natural Every Day (Swanson)

Servings: 6 main course portions or 12 portions if you are serving with other breakfast/brunch items

WW: 7 pointsplus

Ingredients:

2 cups (7oz) rolled oats

1/2 cup (2oz) chopped pecans, toasted

1/3 cup (2oz) maple syrup (brown sugar or agave would also be delicious), plus more for serving

1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

2 cups milk (I used skim)

1 large egg

1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups (7.5 ounces) apples, peeled and diced

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Generously butter the inside of an 8" square baking dish.

In a bowl, mix together the oats, half of the pecans, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

In a second bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, milk, egg, butter, and vanilla.

Arrange 2/3 of the apple on the bottom of the baking dish. Top with all the oat mixture. Then, slowly pour the milk mixture over the oats. Move the baking dish around on the counter a bit to make sure that the milk gets all the way through the oats. Top the dish with the rest of the apples and pecans. I pushed the apples and pecans down a bit with a spatula to make sure they are in the wet oat mixture.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until the dish is set and golden brown on top (mine only took 35 minutes, but my oven runs a bit hot). Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Serve with additional maple syrup for people to drizzle on their dish, if they prefer it a bit sweeter.