Butternut Squash Noatmeal

Ah, oatmeal. That good ol' stick to your ribs, totally not Paleo breakfast food. Best made by a parent on a stove on a cold Saturday morning, complete with hot chocolate and snow outside. Also highly enjoyed by children when it's the instant oatmeal with sugar eggs that dissolve into dinosaurs when hot water is added.

Instant oatmeal. I shudder slightly at those words (despite consuming plenty of it myself in the past). Society, you're doing it wrong.

Last week I started thinking about how delicious oatmeal is and that it's one of those meals I still miss occasionally. So when I went to the grocery store, I had to get some butternut squash. I know what you're thinking - those two things have nothing in common, what are you talking about, Jenna? I'm talking about noatmeal!

I first saw the idea on Mark's Daily Apple. His recipe calls for a banana, 3 eggs, a couple handfuls of nuts, nut butter, and a food processor. That sounds like a lot of work for someone who's looking for a quick and easy meal in the morning (and doesn't particularly want eggs - not blasphemy, it happens to the best of us). I liked the idea though, so I kept looking around. Most of the recipes called for bananas. I love bananas. Sounds perfect, right? Well, Super A just told me that bananas have something like 27 grams of carbs per 100 grams, and I know they're packed with sugar - a lot of recipes that call for bananas say adding more sugar is optional. Plus I like my sweet treats at the end of the day, which usually involve a mashed banana. Plus I'm trying to get more veggies as part of my daily food intake. Pumpkin noatmeal sounds good, but they don't have pumpkins (canned or regular) at my Trader Joe's yet.

But they have butternut squash. Already cut up butternut squash. Easy to cook butternut squash chunks.

It probably would have cooked quicker if I had cut the cubes smaller, but it worked pretty well. I sauteed my squash chunks in a frying pan over low-low medium heat for (accidentally) an hour. I believe they're supposed to be done after about 15 minutes, but I was cleaning up some stuff and forgot. Luckily they didn't burn, the heat was low enough. I dumped the chunks into a container, mashed them up, and put them in the fridge for the night. Cooking the squash is the main prep needed for this recipe.

Ingredients*:

• 1 cup butternut squash, cooked and mashed
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 "shakes" (1-2 tbsp) almond flour
• 2 eggs
• Handful of chopped walnuts
• Cinnamon (I used lots)

Put the squash, almond milk, and nuts/nut flour into a saucepan on medium heat and stir until combined and warm. Add the egg and stir until mixture is uniform and cooked (3-5 minutes). Remove from heat and add cinnamon and more nuts if desired. I sprinkled my noatmeal with cinnamon, stirred it in, and then sprinkled it again.

It's good hot (like regular oatmeal) or chilled in the fridge for a while (like pumpkin pie). Enjoy!

*This recipe could easily be halved or doubled. The amounts listed were sufficient to fill me up completely for a couple of hours. Also, I don't actually know exactly how much I used of each ingredient as I didn't measure. (Come on, when you're running around in the morning would you measure, or just say "Hmmm, this looks like a good amount of that" and move on?) This is more of a guideline, adjust as needed. Start with less almond milk and add if it looks too dry. With the cinnamon it was sweet enough that I didn't feel the need to add honey.