Sunday's Recipe Share -- Pumpkin Banana Baked Oatmeal

Breakfast for dinner, yay or nay?  In my family, it's a big YAY!!!  My family loves breakfast.  Last night I wanted to do a breakfast for dinner, but I wanted to do something different.  So, I looked through my multitude of Pinterest pins and found this recipe for Pumpkin Banana Baked Oatmeal.

I haven't really been eating much oatmeal since going gluten free, but I found some gluten-free oats at Trader Joe's and decided I could have these once in a while.  (Oats are naturally gluten-free, but they are usually processed on the same equipment as wheat products--the oats I bought are not).

This baked oatmeal is AWESOME.  I changed a couple of things from the original recipe, but not too many.

I got the recipe off of the Skinnytaste website.  The link to the recipe is below the picture (I totally forgot to take my own picture--it did look just like the one here though).

 Pumpkin Banana Baked Oatmeal

Here are the changes I made--First I used gluten free whole oats.  Second, I used coconut sugar instead of brown sugar.  Third, my version is dairy free--I used almond milk--that's what I had in the fridge--I'd also use coconut milk.  Lastly, I'd use less pumpkin pie spice next time, maybe just the 1 tsp--it was a little too much clove for my taste.

The family loved it.  I will definitely be making this again.

I served it with a side of bacon and a large family sized omelet that we shared among 4 of us.  For breakfast, I'd eat it with just the bacon...in fact, the leftovers are calling me....

Sunday's Recipe Share -- Healthy Chocolate Pudding

Okay, there's no question, I am a chocoholic.  It is one thing that I will never give up.  Thankfully, dark chocolate isn't considered bad, it's even considered good for you.  YAY!!!  However some desserts that are made with this healthy ingredient have some other not so healthy ingredients added to them.

I recently pinned a link to 24 Decadent Valentine's Day Desserts (grain free)--you can follow me on Pinterest by going to the link on the left.  This recipe was one of those 24 desserts.

It is for Chocolate Avocado Pudding.  Yes, I didn't name it that in the title because I wanted you to keep reading.  It is gluten free, grain free and dairy free--I used fair trade baking cocoa and almond milk in the recipe I made.

Doesn't it look yummy?

I had all the ingredients, so I thought I'd give it a try.  The results were so much better than I expected.  Thanks to the healthy avocado, it had the creaminess and mouth feel of chocolate pudding that was cooked on the stove for what seems like hours.   This took just a matter of minutes in my magic bullet.   

 It doesn't make a whole lot--it says two servings--really I could have eaten the whole thing in one sitting.  The above picture shows all of it.  I spooned half of it into a cute glass and added some sliced strawberries to garnish.  It was rich and delicious.  I will definitely be making this again--but probably a double recipe.  :)  The link to the recipe is below the last picture.

Enjoy!!!

 Chocolate Avocado Pudding