Gluten Free Blueberry Breakfast Oatmeal Bake

Now I'm not usually a huge fan of sweet breakfasts - I like to start my day with smoothie, and/or eggs and avocado. I'm a savory over sweet kind of girl early in the morning. But when I saw an oatmeal type breakfast bake online, I got some inspiration to create my own. I also just bought some Monk Fruit sweetener that I've been dying to use, so thought, why not test it out in a new recipe?! 

Monk fruit is a newer sweetener that is becoming popular quite quickly. This is due to the fact that it's natural, has high antioxidant levels, is sweeter tasting than regular sugar, and yet it has no calories and no effect on blood sugar. Sounds pretty darn awesome, right? It also substitutes 1:1 with regular sugars in any recipe, so just use it in place of sugar. This is the first recipe I used it in, but I've got all kinds of ideas I plan to use it for in the future.

So I also take every opportunity I can to add extra protein to a recipe, especially breakfast. I try to get about 30 grams of protein in at every meal (about an average of 100 grams per day). Yes it sounds like a lot, but I'm super active and having protein in your diet is extremely important, but we'll save that discussion for another post. I added some collagen peptides to this recipe since they're tasteless and a great source of protein, plus they strengthen your hair, skin and nails. For more on that, visit my post here.

Check out the recipe below - hope you guys love it!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/4 cup almond meal (or flour)
• 3 scoops collagen peptides
• 2 tbsp ghee (or coconut oil)j
• 1/4 cup monk fruit sweetener (or coconut sugar)
• 2 cups cashew milk (or pretty much any kind of nut milk)
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 cups frozen blueberries (or any type of berry)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a large baking dish with ghee or coconut oil.
2. In one bowl, combine all the dry ingredients: oats, almond meal, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt, monk fruit, and collagen peptides.
3. Melt the ghee or coconut oil in a separate bowl. Once it's melted, add the milk to the ghee while whisking the mixture.
4. Add greek yogurt, eggs, and vanilla to the ghee/milk, and whisk until well combined.
5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
6. Fold the blueberries into the mixture and stir gently.
7. Pour into the greased baking pan and throw in the oven at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes (top of the oatmeal should look brown/crispy when it's done).
8. Serve warm with a little bit of syrup poured over it or just eat it alone!

Chicken Quinoa Casserole

This is my new go-to recipe for during the weeks. It's delicious, pretty healthy (make sure to check out the substitutes I use below), and the leftovers last literally all week for me. It reheats well for lunch and tastes just as good as when it first came out of the oven.

The recipe is pretty simple to make - just 11 ingredients (or less depending on what additions you add), and about an hour of your time. To begin, preheat the over to 400 degrees, and grease a 9x13 baking dish (I use coconut oil to do so). Bring the chicken broth and 1/2 cup of milk (I used almond milk) to a boil in a medium/large sized saucepan. In a separate bowl, whisk the other 1/2 cup of milk with flour (I used almond meal - see portions below) and poultry seasoning. Combine both together in saucepan and stir until the mixture is creamy.

Next, mix the sauce with 1 cup of water, quinoa, and bacon (I used turkey bacon, you can substitute pretty much anything you'd like though, like ham, or sausage) in a large bowl and stir. Pour this into the greased baking dish and add the chicken breasts (sliced thinly) on top of the mixture. Sprinkle the seasoning over the top and bake for 30 minutes.

While the casserole is baking, we cook the broccoli! To cook it, I chopped up the broccoli into very small pieces, put it in a bowl with a tiny bit of water, covered the bowl and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. You can also cook it by putting the broccoli in boiling water until it turns bright green.

Once the casserole is done cooking, remove it from the oven and stir. You can cook it an additional 10 minutes if it's too watery. Once the casserole is thickened, add the broccoli and a little bit of water (1 cup or less), and stir until the mixture is creamy and stirs easily. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and bake for an additional 3-5 minutes to melt the cheese. That's it!

Quinoa & Broccoli Chicken Casserole

• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup milk (option to substitute almond milk)
• 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• 1/2 cup flour (option to substitute pretty much any other flour - see this chart for help) 
• 2 cups of water
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1/4 cup cooked, crumbled bacon (option to substitute ham, sausage, or eliminate this completely)
• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 teaspoons seasoning (I used garlic salt combined with an italian seasoning)
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese (I used mozzarella - Gruyere is a great option too)
• 3 cups broccoli florets 

*recipe adapted from Pinch of Yum

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