Thanksgiving and Oatmeal

It's another lovely, sunny fall day on PEI. In the last three falls I've been here, all I can remember about fall is rain and wind and cold. Although I did have to scrap the frost off my car for the first time this morning, something that I hate doing, especially at 5am. On the bright side, today is one of those days where I have a ton I could be doing, but nothing that HAS to get done. Which means I can afford to chill out for a bit before being productive.

Thanksgiving weekend was awesome! After apple picking on Saturday, I made my very first apple pie with the apples. Pie making was a little bit terrifying. Not because pies are so hard to make, but because I happen to come from a long line of superstar pie makers and living up to the family reputation was daunting to say the least. I ended up using a recipe from Michael Smith's Chef at Home cookbook. I haven't used this book a whole lot, but I've heard nothing but good things about it. Speaking of Micheal Smith, I won the first ever Micheal Smith Scholarship this year, and was really hoping he'd show up to present it to me at the awards night but unfortunately he must have had better things to do.

On Sunday, Sam and I went to Amherst to have dinner with Nannie, Grampi, Alex, Dave and Carole. We didn't have turkey but there was no shortage of food! Ham, turnip (my fav!), potatoes, peas, carrots, squash, coleslaw (I had to fight Alex so she wouldn't eat it ALL), lemon meringue pie and apple pie. My pie couldn't have been too terrible because everyone had a slice and seem to be still alive. Either that or they were all choking it down and were just to nice to say anything. I'm not sure I would use that recipe again. Personally I wasn't a huge fan of the crust; I found it a bit to chewy and not flaky enough. Not bad for a first try though! I ended up buying a pie plate since I didn't have one before so now I have incentive to bake more pies.

My First Pie!

For lunch today, I decided to take a break from pie and made up some Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal. I've run into this recipe a couple times online in the last few weeks so I figured I should try it. I love oatmeal, so I was pretty pumped about it and have been meaning to whip some up for over a week now. It was delicious, but very filling! I didn't follow the recipe exactly, and I'm not sure I would add as much peanut butter next time. The peanut butter I used was the all natural kind so it has to be kept in the fridge. As a result, I had to dollop it on the top which meant getting big chunks in one bite and none in the next. I would make it again for sure though, it's especially great to pack in my lunch bag for a quick breakfast in between swim practice and class.

The recipe:

In a baking dish, throw together the following ingredients and then bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed
• 1 tbsp shredded coconut
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 3 heaping tbsp pumpkin puree
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• Pecans as topping