Coconut Milk For The Win

I love chocolate-dipped frozen bananas. They're easy enough to make and a great summertime treat to have in the freezer. You can find plenty of recipes for them online, but it's basically adding some kind of fat (butter or cream) to melted chocolate, dipping the frozen banana in then sticking it back in the freezer until it's required for consumption. Today I used coconut milk in my melted chocolate instead of butter or cream. I tried this because my body isn't a huge fan of dairy products, and coconut milk is a great dairy substitute. I now wish I had done this from the beginning, because it worked out very well!

Another recent discovery that I must share is Purely Decadent coconut milk ice cream. I had heard of it before, but when I saw it on sale at Whole Foods last week I decided to finally give it a try. It is so lovely! I had some last night on top of my Blueberry Baked Oatmeal, and it was like blueberry cobbler a la mode. YUM!

Here is the recipe I used for Blueberry Baked Oatmeal. The original called for ginger, but I didn't have any so I substituted nutmeg. I was also supposed to add apples, but I didn't have any of those on hand either so I used all blueberries.

Blueberry Baked Oatmeal

2 cups quick-cooking oats

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

3 Tbsp flax meal

1/4 cup warm water

1 cup almond milk

1/3 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups blueberries (I LOVE blueberries, so it was probably more like 2 cups)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil or grease an 8" square baking pan.

In a large bowl, combine the quick-cooking oats, rolled oats, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside. In a small bowl, mix the flax meal with warm water and set aside. In another bowl whisk together the almond milk, maple syrup, and melted butter. Add this to the dry ingredients, followed by the flax mixture. Stir until just combined. Fold in the blueberries.

Spread evenly in the prepared pan and bake 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool before cutting into squares. Serves 8.