Strawberry Banana Bread Baked Oatmeal

Strawberries. Bananas. Bread-like Oatmeal?
Couldn’t get much better than that!
I know that those instant oatmeal packets may seem healthy, but think again! These little deceiving packets contain ingredients like caramel color (super bad!), artificial food coloring (also bad!), and loads and loads of added processed sugar. If you take just a few more minutes, you can have a way more delicious and a much healthier breakfast alternative.

This recipe is a baked oatmeal, so it will take longer to get the final product due to the cooking time. However, it’s perfect for those mornings you need to do something else before you eat. Just spend about 2 minutes prepping and let the oven do the rest of the work.

I have recently started to bake my oatmeal and have found that it really brings out the naturally sweet flavors of the fruit and gives it time to meld together deliciously.
As you may know by now, I love oatmeal. It’s very filling and tastes amazing.
When I bought the HUGE bulk pack from Sam’s Club (two 5 pound bags..) at the beginning of last school year, I thought I had made a big mistake. But, it actually forced me to come up with a variety of flavors in order to not get ridiculously bored with breakfast. Making those oatmeal recipes was so much fun! It kind of jump started my love for creating recipes of my own. I finally finished those bags by the end of the year..it was great timing and a whole lot of oat eating.

Almond rosemary crackers

Ever feel completely overwhelmed? No? It must just be me then..
I felt especially overwhelmed when I was told I might have a food sensitivity to gluten.
WHAT?!?
I eat bread every day of my life! For my sandwiches, for toast, crackers, muffins, pasta, pancakes, cereal, chips, cookies…as you can see, I eat a lot of gluten. I could see my life spiraling down into nothingness, my only sustenance consisting of bland meals of who knows what. However, there are so many gluten-free flours that it wasn’t hard at all..thank goodness.

Almond butter Pumpkin pie oatmeal

My dad really loves his breakfast routine. He literally eats the same thing every single day, for YEARS. For the past, ohhh, five years he has eaten a big bowl of Cheerios with a glass of orange juice for breakfast. He switches cereals around about every decade or so.
And, let me tell you, you would be hard pressed to get him to eat something else.
Well, I never fully understood how he could eat the same thing and never get tired of it..until I started my second year of college and really fell in love with oatmeal.
I ate oatmeal every morning for the entire year, with very few exceptions, and never got sick of it. I did, however, vary the type of oatmeal I ate… Be ready, this blog will soon be inundated with many, many oatmeal recipes.
We will begin with this very simple, yet oh so tasty Almond butter Pumpkin pie oatmeal recipe.
I know it’s no where near pumpkin season yet, but I had a can and decided to make lots of pumpkin inspired dishes. I had just a little pumpkin puree leftover from another recipe and had no idea how to use it..until I woke up the next day and voila!

My very first blog post! And a gluten-free pancake recipe:)

Well hello there all you friends, recipe enthusiasts, food blog lovers, or just bored internet explorers! I personally welcome you to my very first post as a food blogger.
So I will just come right out and say it. I am a hopeless pancake addict. I have not found a pancake I didn’t absolutely love, as of yet. I make pancakes almost every single week, at least once a week. I decided to try a very different recipe than my usual types and, my oh my, was it delicious!
Somehow, without any egg, they held together AND tasted slightly sweet without the tiniest pinch of sugar. Impossible you say? NO!
Granted they are not sky high fluffy, but I actually really like that about these pancakes. It makes them the perfect platform for pouring scrumptious toppings on top.