Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

Halloween. The pandemic version — fewer trick-or-treaters, candy left in bowls on porches, the holiday adapted to the times. I went to Angela's house in South Addition. James carved a pumpkin with engineering precision. Angela made hot cider. The neighborhood was quieter than usual — fewer kids, more distance — but the effort was there, the determination to celebrate despite the circumstances, the stubbornness of a city that refuses to let a virus cancel Halloween.

Angela is five months into trying to conceive. Nothing yet. She doesn't talk about it — not to me, not to Lourdes (who knows, because Lourdes always knows, because the auntie network is relentless). Angela's silence on the subject is itself a statement — the Santos women speak through silences as fluently as they speak through food, and Angela's silence says: I'm carrying this. Don't ask. I'll tell you when there's something to tell.

I stood on Angela's porch handing out candy and thought about children — not with the sharp ache of earlier years but with the dull awareness of a woman who is thirty-one and single and the window is not closed but it's not wide open either, the biology indifferent to the pandemic and the career and the recovery. The thoughts come at Halloween especially — the kid holiday, the costume holiday, the holiday that is for and about children. I handed a Snickers to Spider-Man in Sorels and felt the thought and let it pass. Let it pass. The thought is not the answer. The thought is just the question. The question can wait.

I made champorado at home — the chocolate rice porridge, the warm-sweet comfort food, the food that says: the world is cold and dark and here is chocolate and here is rice and here is warmth. The champorado was thick and sweet and I ate it on the couch watching a movie I don't remember because the movie was not the point. The warmth was the point.

Champorado was what I actually made that night — it’s the chocolate rice porridge of my childhood, and it’s exactly what the cold and the quiet called for. But if you don’t have glutinous rice and tablea on hand, this pumpkin pie oatmeal gets you to the same place: something warm, something sweet, something that says the world outside can wait. The pumpkin felt right too, given James’s perfectly engineered jack-o’-lantern still glowing on Angela’s porch in my mind. Make this on the couch. The movie is not the point.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 2

Ingredients

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups whole milk (or oat milk)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 tablespoons maple syrup, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
2 tablespoons chopped toasted pecans, for serving
Whipped cream or a splash of cream, for serving

Instructions

Warm the base. Combine oats and milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring to combine. Bring to a gentle simmer.
Add the pumpkin. Stir in the pumpkin puree, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and salt. Reduce heat to medium-low.
Cook until creamy. Cook, stirring frequently, for 6–8 minutes until the oats are tender and the porridge has thickened to your liking. Add a splash more milk if it gets too thick.
Finish with vanilla. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Taste and adjust sweetness with additional maple syrup if needed.
Serve warm. Divide between two bowls. Top with toasted pecans, a small pour of cream or a dollop of whipped cream, and a light dusting of cinnamon.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal — The Warmth You Make for Yourself When the Night Goes Quiet