The past couple months, I’ve been obsessed with OATMEAL. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe it’s got something to do with avoiding it for YEARS because I was eating a paleo diet. Whatever the reason may be, I’ve tried to include it in multiple different ways in the kitchen.
First, I started by making an oatmeal bake with frozen cranberries (mostly because I didn’t have blueberries on hand, but also because I LOVE cranberries). It was very tasty and I loved the contrast of the tart cranberries with the sweet oatmeal. I couldn’t tell you the specific recipe I used at this point because it was over a month ago, but they’re all very similar if you compare various recipes. The key to fluffy baked oatmeal treats: allowing them to soak in the liquid of the recipe for at least ten minutes. TRUST ME.
After my first attempt, I tried the banana bread baked oatmeal recipe from a fantastic site called Nourished By Nutrition. I love several of her recipes and I highly suggest you check them out! Banana bread with oatmeal… what’s not to love? It turned out delicious, especially with peanut or almond butter drizzled on top.
However, as with anything baked, I wanted something more portable and already portioned. So, naturally, I decided to make muffins. [Note to self: try the banana bread baked oatmeal recipe with a muffin pan.]
This recipe for muffins turned out great! They were fluffy and not at all dense. My favorite combination is cranberry orange, so of course I made more of those. The rest were chocolate chunk. I really liked that they were so customizable.
After a couple batches of muffins, I found a recipe for oatmeal pancakes that sounded like a match made in heaven. I can eat breakfast food for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, especially pancakes and bacon. Before trying these, I hadn’t had good pancakes in a LONG time (since going paleo), so I thought these were long overdue.
I originally got the recipe from this site, but since it calls for ingredients I can’t have, I tweaked it and made my own version, which can be found below:
Oatmeal Pancakes (vegan & gluten free)
- 1 cup old-fashioned gluten free rolled oats
- ½ cup full fat coconut milk
- ½ cup water
- 2 flax eggs (flax egg = 1 Tbsp ground flax + 3 Tbsp water)
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil/palm shortening, melted
- 1 tablespoon coconut sugar
- ¼ cup coconut flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ cup chocolate chips (optional and feel free to add more)
- Grind oats with blender or food processor until it has a flour consistency. I like a couple bigger pieces in mine, so I don’t grind mine quite that fine.
- Whisk ground rolled oats, coconut milk, and water together in a large bowl. Let stand for 10 minutes for the oats to soften and absorb the liquid.
- In another small bowl, allow flax eggs to do their thing for about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, melt the coconut oil or palm shortening and set aside.
- After 10 minutes, mix all the ingredients together and allow the batter to sit another 5 minutes.
- While batter is resting, heat up your cast iron pan just below medium and coat with palm shortening.
- When pan is hot, use a 1½ Tbsp cookie scoop to drop batter into the pan. Don’t over crowd the pan, or flipping them becomes difficult.
- Cook until bubbles appear on the surface and edges begin to look dry (about 3 minutes). Flip the pancakes – the bottoms should be golden brown. Cook other side for another 3 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Wipe pan with palm shortening between batches, and repeat the process with the remaining batter.
I’ve made these pancakes weekly for the past month and still haven’t gotten sick of them. Even Charles likes them and has started eating them for breakfast in the mornings. Because of this, I’ve started doubling the recipe and keeping them in the fridge for faster and easier mornings.
If you make any of the recipes above, please let me know what you think! Happy cooking!
Who's That Jess? 