Oatmeal Bar

BSB and I were assigned to prepare one of the breakfasts at our family reunion last month. It had to be easy, it needed to be yummy, I wanted it to be pretty, and it had to feed nearly 50 people!!

We tossed around a lot of ideas before the kids and I decided that an oatmeal bar would be lots of fun. With twenty-some kids in the mix, it is impossible to find something that everyone will eat, but that is the beauty of a bar set up! Everyone can take just the toppings they like. And some yummy toppings go a long way to take oatmeal from blah and boring to fun and exciting!

We cooked up a giant pot of plain steel cut oatmeal, and had the following options for toppings:

• salt
• cinnamon
• raisins
• pecans
• almonds
• bananas
• green apples
• blueberries (dried)
• raspberries
• chocolate chips

And for the pretty part, which others may not have thought was necessary, it was actually super-simple. I just brought some inexpensive (dollar store?) paper doilies and wooden clothespins. I hand-wrote the labels on the doilies. Then I clipped on a clothes pin and turned it upside down–the ends of the clothes pin straddling the sides of the bowl. Easy set-up and take down! I taped the doily labels on to the containers of salt and cinnamon.

Had I had time, I would have taken the whole thing to the next level, with some vintage linens (pilfered from my mom’s collection) and a doily garland as a backdrop.

I was fortunate to find some cool serving dishes at the house we were renting–like this old metal pitcher for milk and this vintage silver platter for the hard-boiled eggs.

We boiled a bunch of eggs to have on hand for those–like me–who require a little extra protein in the morning.

I was happy how this turned out! Prep wasn’t too stressful, we had plenty of food, lots of people wanting seconds, and I got a little pretty into the mix at the same time! Maybe you’d like to give it a try the next time you have an occasion to feed breakfast to the masses!