Double-Chocolate Mango Oatmeal with Toasted Coconut

What kind of recipe-creator would I be if I didn't take some risks? Chocolate and mango are not often paired together, but it has been done. For example, there's chocolate-covered mango, this chocolate-mango loaf cake, this coconut mango cashew chocolate bark, or Oatgasm's Chocolate Chili Mango Baked Oatmeal.

I was in the mood for peanut butter when I made this, so I found a way to include that as well. I actually made Happy Herbivore's Nutty Spread, but instead of adding cinnamon, I added cocoa powder. I love Nutty Spread because it gives me less of a tummy ache than pure peanut butter, and it can be supped in for peanut butter in most situations.

Mango-Coconut Overnight Oatmeal with Puffed Wild Rice

Before I share the beautiful recipe pictured below, let me just declare my love and commitment to New York City. I love you, NYC, and there's nobody else for me than you. Please don't be jealous at what I'm about to say. At the end of the day, my rent money goes to you, and it's your beautiful bridges and skylines I drool over.

That being said, there's another city I adore: MSP, better known to the rest of the world as "Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota."

Tropical Oatmeal

This recipe is so obvious that it's almost embarrassing that I haven't posted it yet. I have so many tropical-themed recipes, but why not combine them all into one fabulous breakfast?

Mango, pineapple, and coconut were obvious choices, but my decision to include banana was a last-minute addition. I don't know about you, but I always forget bananas are a tropical fruit.

Banana Mango Overnight Oatmeal

Readers, this one is for you. (I mean, I suppose all my recipes are for you...but this one is really, really for you.)

You guys are always ragging on me to post more overnight recipes. To be honest, I make overnight oatmeal pretty frequently, but only when I'm too lazy on the weekend to prepare enough oatmeal ahead of time for the week. In other words, when I'm making overnight oatmeal, it's at 10 pm, and when I'm eating it, it's 5 am. If you think I'm going to take pictures during these hours, you're crazy. :)

Salted Mango Coconut Oatmeal

I may crave peanut butter and bananas hardcore during the fall and winter months, but during the spring and summer, I definitely crave a different flavor. I've noticed that everyone's cravings change with the seasons*, and my oatmeal is no exception. These tropical, fruity, and citrusy porridge recipes I've been craving are lighter and more refreshing than my usual cozy bowls.

*But let's be honest, peanut butter is appropriate 365 days a year.

For this recipe, I was inspired by these popsicles. I never would have considered salting a tropical recipe like this, but these popsicles were so visually appealing that I wanted to grab one from the screen and try it out. However, I'm perpetually cold (just ask the students who sweat to death in my classroom), so I had no desire to make popsicles. Then I thought, why not try it as oatmeal? So I did.

Spicy Mango Oatmeal

Mango chutney--that's the inspiration for this recipe.

Believe it or not, the first time I had chutney was in Ireland. I remember asking the waitress what "chutney" was because it came on the sandwich I wanted. She tried to explain it, but it sounded like nothing I had ever heard of, so I requested it on the side.

It was life-changing.

Mango Coconut Cardamom Oatmeal

Mangoes are one of my favorite fruits, yet you rarely see one in my kitchen. They're so expensive! I used to buy frozen mango, but for some reason I stopped doing that... (I know what I'm adding to my grocery list this week!!)

My local produce market has reasonably priced produce, especially for New York. I noticed that their mangoes were one for a dollar, which is how much I pay for my oranges, too. Since I buy an orange for every day of the week, I could not justify NOT buying a mango at that price! ^_^

Fruit-on-the-Bottom Oatmeal

I'll be honest right from the start: I have never had (nor do I have the desire to try) fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt. First of all, it's not available in nondairy varieties, so that's an obvious deterrent. Moreso, the "fruit" on the bottom has been heavily processed and coated with sickeningly sweet high fructose corn syrup. Um, no.

Like most of my recipes, I've been eager to try this one for a while. It required me to have yogurt on hand, which I usually lack. Whenever I have it, I end up demolishing it before I can even attempt this or the other yogurt-demanding recipes.

Strawberry Mango Baked Oatmeal

You guys! A hurricane is coming straight at me! For someone who has lived her entire life in landlocked South Dakota, this weekend has been both exciting and nervewracking. At first, I was thrilled to experience the weak "leftovers" of the hurricane that the Northeast usually experiences (just so I could say I've been through a hurricane). However, the news quickly broke that we're not getting leftovers: we're getting the real deal.

Well, we're still waiting for the rain to start. It's windy and cloudy (it has been for days), but no storm yet. I was feeling kind of lazy today and didn't feel like putting this post together, but I finally decided I should give you one last recipe before the Frankenstorm. (It's possible you won't see another oatmeal recipe from me this week!)

Mango Raspberry Oatmeal

Dude. Teaching is hard.

I'm sure all jobs are difficult. That's why they're called jobs, and they're for adults, and we spend our first twenty years of life preparing for them. But the learning curve for teaching is just intense. You'd think after observing teachers for my entire life up to this point, I'd be a master at it, but it seems the opposite is true. After being a student my whole life, teaching just seems foreign and terrifying.

But I'm taking it one day at a time. Yesterday morning, I was stressing out about...everything, and I came upon this tweet:

Coconut Mango Oatmeal

I used to call myself a locavore, which is the new trendy term that means one sources all of his or her food from local farmers and all that jazz. I still strongly believe in the moment. However...

Being a locavore in South Dakota is nearly impossible. It would mean eating virtually nothing nine months out of the year. It would mean having very little variety in my diet. It would mean never having a mango, pineapple, banana, peach, orange, grapefruit, kiwi, avocado, grapes, or any other fruit that only grows in the tropics/subtropics.

Sorry, but that's not the life I want to live. Seriously: if I let myself survive solely off local agriculture right now, I'd only be able to eat asparagus and rhubarb. We don't even have strawberries yet.