Snow Day!

Another snow day hits southeastern Pennsylvania. If you’ve got less than an hour of time at home and are looking for a delicious and nutritious treat to make, try this Baked Oatmeal To Go recipe found on http://www.sugarfreemom.com

I’m not a baker, but I am learning to be a food detective through my half marathon coaching program. We are working on finding ways to modify recipes to make them even more healthy. I’m also trying to figure out how to keep healthy and satisfying snacks/foods around so when hunger strikes, I can eat and not feel guilty (or sluggish). The transition to healthier habits hasn’t been too difficult, but there are so many hidden chemicals and sneaky sugars in so many of our foods – finding those and swapping them out with something more nutrient dense has been the tricky part. Getting the kids into healthier habits is also a must. So with this recipe I updated some of the ingredients (i.e. using almond milk instead of regular milk, using the honey instead of Stevia or sugar, using coconut oil to grease the pan instead of Pam or butter). Feel free to play around with it. This has turned out to be my new “go to” breakfast or snack. And because all you have to do is throw these ingredients together in a bowl, I really give this two thumbs up.

Baked Oatmeal To Go – use this recipe to make delicious granola bars to grab when you’re on the run (or on the couch)!

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 cups applesauce, unsweetened
1 ripe banana, mashed
½ cup of honey
5 cups old fashion rolled oats
¼ – ½ cup of ground flaxseed (you decide how much flax you want)
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 ¾ cups of unsweetened almond or coconut milk (I accidentally only used 2 ¼ cups of milk and it turned out okay – I used vanilla almond milk which adds sugar, but I couldn’t help myself – it’s so good!)
Optional toppings: raisins, walnuts, pecans, dark chocolate chips or nibs (70% cacao or higher)
Coconut oil

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix eggs, vanilla, applesauce, banana, and honey together in a bowl.
Add in oats, flax, cinnamon, baking powder, salt; mix well with wet ingredients.
Pour in the milk and combine.
Use a solidified chunk of coconut oil to grease the bottom and sides of a large baking pan (maybe 9×12” – like I said, I’m not a baker so I don’t know pan sizes) or use cupcake liners in a cupcake tin to make muffins.
Pour mixture into the baking pan and spread out evenly.
If adding fruit or toppings, drop them on top of the mixture now.
Bake 30-32 minutes, until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.
Cool and enjoy or freeze them in gallon freezer bags.
REPEAT! So yummy!

Obviously it was so good I couldn’t even wait to take the picture before eating a good bit of it! The bottom half has pecans sprinkled on top and I left the top half plain for the kids. I like drizzling an extra little bit of honey on top of a plain piece.