Food on Friday 1: Blueberry-Coconut Baked Oatmeal

Thinking of making this a “thing.”  Like every Friday I will have a post about Food (I love alliteration).  Foodie Friday sounds better but I’m not really a foodie (so that would be misleading point 1) and it would be a super-honorific over-glorification of the food I actually am able to cook to call it Foodie-worthy.  (No doubt about it, my food is GOOD – but not fancy.  I’d like to challenge Rachael Ray as the queen of 30-minute meals.  I’m a super slapdash kinda cook but I’m really good at what I do).

For the first/inaugural post, I thought we’d try the only food process I have somewhat documented.  As noted in a previous post about apples – my mom is good at buying food.  But she’s not as good at using it up.  Sometimes it’s not her fault.  Like when I bought a pound of shredded coconut for my homemade granola and then moved out before eating it all.

A few months ago we were cleaning out the pantry/fridge when I noticed the shredded coconut.  It had been frozen and still smelled and tasted good to use.  We also had some blueberries on the verge of going bad so I looked up recipes using coconut and blueberries and came across a recipe for Blueberry-Coconut Baked Oatmeal.  It was adapted from another recipe and we adapted it further.  We used fresh instead of frozen or dried blueberries and no matter what type of oats a recipe calls for I always use the Quaker Oats we have in our house for oatmeal.  Honestly, I can’t even say if they’re the old-fashioned or quick-cooking kind.  I also did not use pumpkin seeds (and I’m iffy on whether or not I used ginger).

Because this is the first (and so far only) time that I’ve actually managed to take pictures whilst cooking, I’ll add the directions with photos.  I think my sister took a lot/most of the pics during the putting things together stage and I took pics of the baking and post-baking stages.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly coat an 8-inch square or round baking dish with cooking spray. Layer the banana slices over the bottom of the dish and top with the frozen blueberries. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together the oats, coconut flakes, dried blueberries, brown sugar, pepitas, baking powder, and spices. Set aside.

 

3. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, 1 Tbsp of the margarine, vanilla extract, and maple syrup. Set aside.  (Oops, no picture – but I mean, how exciting does this step sound? Imagine a slightly tan colored liquidy mixture).

4. Spoon the oat mixture on top of the bananas and blueberries. Pour the milk mixture over the oat mixture, and drizzle with the remaining 1/2 Tbsp melted margarine.

5. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the top layer is lightly browned and crisp. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

As I’ve previously mentioned, our oven is a little wonky so I actually just popped this into the toaster oven (I trust its temperature gauge to be more accurate) and it fit right in there and turned out beautifully.

Finished product – TA DAAAAA!!!

And since no one in our family can eat a pie’s worth of oatmeal in a few sittings – I carved it up and froze individual portions in Ziploc baggies.  Pull one out in the morning – throw it in the microwave for 1-2 minutes with a little more syrup on top for good measure and you have a convenient and easy homemade breakfast (none of that cheapo Eggo stuff).

Also – ours turned out quite chewy – so you can just leave it out to defrost overnight and actually just eat it out of the bag if you’re an on-the-run-in-the-morning type (it had the consistency of chewy waffle).