Blueberry Baked Steel-Cut Oatmeal (AKA - Blueberry Breakfast CAKE!)

 

Today, I took a break from our usual Sunday Pancakes and made baked oatmeal instead.  Oats are a grain, so I still try to be careful about my portions so I do not cause a spike in insulin.  Since the whole insulin resistance thing, I've started buying steel-cut oats, also known as Irish or Scottish oats.  Steel cut oats consist of entire whole grain groats, the inner portion of oat kernels, and they're cut into 2 or 3 small pieces.  They are processed less that other types of oats so they retain more fiber and protein.  The glycemic index of steel cut oats is 42, compared to 50 for old-fashioned rolled oats.  (Anything below 50 is considered low glycemic.)

I'd never made baked oatmeal from steel cut oats before, so I based my recipe on a baked steel cut oats recipe from Nourished Kitchen.   The pictures of the oatmeal over at Nourished Kitchen look amazing, however I had to change the recipe to decrease the amount of egg (my husband is allergic) and dried fruit due to the sugar.  Amazingly, my first go at it came out quite good!

Blueberry Baked Steel Cut Oats
2 cups steel cut oats
2 TB apple cider vinegar
2 flax eggs (2 Tb. ground flax meal + 6 Tb. warm water, left to sit and thicken for a few minutes)
1 egg  (If you want, I think you could do a third flax egg instead!)
1/4 cup butter (or substitute coconut oil)
1/4 unsweetened apple sauce
30 drops vanilla stevia
1 heaping Tb. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup blueberries

The night before making the baked oatmeal, place the oats in a dish or Tupperware that has a lid.  Cover the oats with water, apple cider vinegar, and a pinch of salt.  Let them sit on your counter top to soak.

1. In the morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Then, place a paper towel in your strainer and drain the water from your oats.
3. While water is draining, melt the butter.  Then mix together the butter, apple sauce, vanilla stevia drops, flax eggs, and regular egg.  
4. Add the cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.
5. Stir in drained oats.
6. Finally, gently mix in the fresh blueberries.  (Or whatever other mix-ins you want to use: almonds, dried cherries or apricots, peaches, etc.)
7. Grease baking pan with butter.  Add the oat mixture.  Bake for 45 minutes.

Now I wanted to make sure I got some protein along with these oats, so I made an almond butter sauce inspired by this one by Amanda at Running with Spoons.  I made only a few small changes because I wanted it to have a bit more protein and I wanted a bigger batch.  Also, I added more cinnamon, which helps reduce insulin resistance.  So I used:

Vanilla Almond Butter Sauce
1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder
5 Tb. unsweetened almond milk
3 heaping Tb. almond butter (no sugar added)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

I mixed the whey protein, almond milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon in my blender bottle.  (I use Jay Robb protein or Tera's whey, because they are both sweetened with stevia.) Poured it in a bowl, and used a mini whisk to mix in the almond butter until I had a nice creamy sauce.

It wasn't long at all before the dish looked like this!  Though I did manage to put some leftovers in the fridge for easy breakfast on Monday...

The whole batch as I made it had about 240g of carbohydrates, 73g of fat, and 43g of protein.  I figured about 8 generous servings, so each serving has about 30g carbs, 9g fat, and 5.5 g protein.  The vanilla almond butter sauce brings all of these values up, most notably the protein.

Speaking of sauce, I bet these would both be great on this baked oatmeal:
Maple Mystery Butter from Healthful Pursuits
Chocolate Coconut Butter from Heather Eats Almond Butter

I am posting this to Wellness Weekend on Diet, Dessert, and Dogs!