French Silk Pie Oatmeal

Sometimes, I toss my nose in the air at French Silk Pie. I think it's because it's my brother's favorite kind of pie, and (more often than not) if my brother thinks something is good, it's actually lame. He's the pickiest eater in the world, and most of his food choices are safe and dull. Or maybe that's just me being pretentious.

At the end of the day, how can you turn it down, though? It has a nostalgic appeal to it, probably because it's just a fancy way to eat pudding...with fabulous curls of chocolate on top!

Some versions of this pie are just chocolate all the way through, but others have a thick layer of whipped cream on top. To mimic this, I separated my porridge into two layers: one with cocoa powder and one without. If you find this tedious, feel free to skip the separating and just make the whole thing one big chocolate heaven. :)

French Silk Pie Oatmeal

Required Ingredients

1/2 cup regular rolled oats

1 cup liquid (water and/or milk of choice)
1 pitted date, chopped, OR 1 tsp maple syrup
1/3 cup nondairy yogurt*

1/4 tsp vanilla extract (optional if using vanilla yogurt)

pinch of salt
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
handful of chocolate chips

1. Add liquid (I use an equal mixture of almond milk and water) to a medium-sized saucepan and add chopped date. Bring to a boil, add oats, and reduce heat to medium. (If you'd like to add flax or chia seeds, do so now.) 
2. Once more of the liquid has dissolved, add yogurt, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir.
3. Take out one third of the oatmeal and set aside. Add cocoa powder to the remaining oatmeal in the saucepan and stir. You may need to add more milk or yogurt if it's too dry.
4. Transfer the chocolate porridge to a bowl to serve. Top with the vanilla oatmeal. If you'd like you could also add a dollop of more yogurt above that. Finally, finish the dish with the chocolate chips. If you want to be fancy, shave or chop the chocolate first, like I did for the pictures. 

*I used almond. It has the most pleasant taste, in my opinion. Coconut milk yogurt would also work pretty well. I highly caution against using soy yogurt...because it tastes atrocious. 

**You can also find hundreds of other oatmeal recipes (as well as tons of other meatless recipes) on my Pinterest account!  Thanks!