Pumpkin-Pecan Baked Oatmeal

Mid-October. Miya started kindergarten — sort of. The hybrid model means she goes in person two days a week and does remote learning three days. On in-person days, she wears a tiny mask and carries hand sanitizer and walks into the school with the confidence of a child who has already survived a pandemic and a parental separation and does not know that either of those things is remarkable. She is four and she is brave and the bravery is unconscious, which is the bravest kind.

On remote days, we sit at the kitchen table together — Miya doing kindergarten on a tablet, me writing blog posts on my laptop. The arrangement is messy and intimate in a way I did not expect. We are two people working at the same table, in the same quiet apartment, doing our separate things side by side. She glances at my screen and asks, "What are you writing, mama?" and I say, "About food," and she says, "Always about food," and goes back to her tablet, and the exchange is domestic and perfect and I want to preserve it the way I preserve umeboshi: in salt, in patience, for years.

I made kuri gohan — chestnut rice — because it is October and chestnuts are at the market and Fumiko made chestnut rice every fall. The chestnuts are laborious: score, boil, peel, peel again (the inner skin is the difficult one), and then cook with the rice and a splash of sake and a pinch of salt. The result is subtle — the rice faintly sweet, the chestnuts tender, the whole thing a whisper rather than a shout. Fumiko said: "Kuri gohan is for people who know how to listen." I am learning to listen. The apartment is teaching me. The quiet is the classroom.

The blog has ten thousand readers. The milestone feels significant — five digits, a number that suggests an audience rather than a following, a readership rather than a group. I wrote about the milestone on the blog and the post was grateful and honest: I started writing about miso soup because I was a new mother who couldn't sleep. I kept writing because the writing was the only place I could be honest. I will keep writing because honesty is the only thing I know how to offer, and apparently ten thousand people want what I know how to offer.

The kuri gohan was Fumiko’s recipe, and I will keep making it every October as long as there are chestnuts at the market and a quiet apartment to come home to — but on the remote-learning mornings, the ones where Miya and I are both at the table before either of us is fully awake, I need something that can go into the oven and ask nothing of me while I find my footing. This pumpkin-pecan baked oatmeal is that recipe: fall in a pan, slow and a little sweet, the kind of thing that makes the apartment smell like a place worth staying. Miya calls it “the orange breakfast,” which is as good a name as any.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans, divided
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 3/4 cups milk (dairy or unsweetened oat milk)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup, plus more for serving

Instructions

Preheat. Heat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Lightly grease an 8x8-inch or similar 2-quart baking dish.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, stir together the rolled oats, 1/4 cup of the pecans, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
Whisk wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, milk, eggs, melted butter, vanilla extract, and maple syrup until smooth.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir gently until everything is just incorporated — do not overmix.
Transfer and top. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Scatter the remaining 1/4 cup pecans evenly over the top.
Bake. Bake uncovered for 33—38 minutes, until the center is just set and the edges are lightly golden. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out mostly clean.
Rest and serve. Let the oatmeal rest for 5 minutes before cutting into squares. Serve warm with a drizzle of maple syrup and, if you like, a spoonful of plain yogurt on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pumpkin-Pecan Baked Oatmeal — A Quiet October Morning at the Kitchen Table