a twist on morning oats: pan fried oatmeal

Cold mornings loves a hot breakfast and oatmeal is pretty much our mainstay for the winter months. I make it straight up but will often bake it (two different ways), or mix things up a bit with steel cut oats or scottish oats. Yesterday I made oatmeal in my usual way. Cornelius topped his with bananas, almonds and brown sugar, while I added a dollop of sour cherry jam. It's hearty, filling and perfect. But after making a potful of oats, I always seem to have some leftover. Usually, the next morning the leftovers go into the microwave and get rehydrated with a bit of milk. But not today.


I wanted to try something different. When I was in Vilnius, we ate breakfast at a little place called Cozy. I ordered oatmeal and it was served not only with a dollop of sour cherry jam, but with a sumptious pool of melting butter. It was utterly delicious. While I have yet to add butter to my oatmeal at home, I decided that maybe butter was the key to a new breakfast discovery. And that's how this butter pan fried oatmeal was born.


pan-fried oatmeal
The key to this "recipe" is using leftover oatmeal that still retains that leftover flattened slab-ish quality that results from leaving the oatmeal in the pot overnight (kept in the fridge, of course). Then, you can slice it up, melt up some butter, add the slab to the bubbling butter, flip it when it gets golden on both sides and serve. It's really delicious topped with yogurt and maple syrup. It takes leftovers to a whole new level of goodness.