Gluten and Sugar Free Banana Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

It’s been a while since I’ve felt the capacity to create any sort of recipe that can be shared — there’s been lots of cooking and baking as I navigate this new land — but not a huge bandwidth for my brain to make, photograph, write a blog, and share the recipe (I mean, the last one I shared was when we were still in the US, over 2 months ago!) Our kitchen is fairly large for South Asian standards, but like everyone else here, it has no AC. And when you’re cooking in a 105 degree kitchen, it kind of loses all its appeal as you can imagine. But today, we were surprised with cooler temperatures upon waking, and a small little thunderstorm that provided just enough wind to make it all enjoyable. Plus, I’ve found that this is one small way that I can serve my family while here — making a hearty, healthy breakfast! I have a couple other ideas of things we’ve made consistently that our family likes, but here’s the first one I’ve actually photographed and written down. So, here' goes nothing!

This recipe was born out of the fact that I had some bananas that were about to go bad, but I didn’t want to make 4 loaves of banana bread. Plus the fact that we found some frozen blueberries — yay! AND the fact that I had made some jam with some plums that were about to go bad last week — I thought, “What could go wrong?” And I’m glad I did because it’s not only sugar free — but gluten free too! It would also be super easy to make it dairy free — I’ll include substitutions below!

Gluten & Sugar Free Banana Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

45 minutes - serves 6

1.5 cups rolled oats

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

3 medium mashed bananas (about 2/3 cup)

1/2 cup honey (or maple syrup)

3/4 cup milk (can use any alternative milk — almond, oat, soy)

1/4 cup melted butter (i used ghee, but you could also use melted coconut oil)

1.5 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

1/2 cup blueberry plum jam (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (or 175 degrees celsius).

2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl.

3. Mix together wet ingredients (minus the blueberries and jam). Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir to combine.

4. Fold in the blueberries and pour into an 11x7 or 9x9 pan. Add dollops of jam to the top and swirl before baking for 35-40 minutes.

5. Let sit for 10 minutes before eating. Serve with maple butter/milk/yogurt or your favorite oatmeal topping!