Baked Oatmeal French Toast Sticks

This recipe is a combination of two of my favorite breakfast foods: oatmeal and french toast. Fun fact: when I first decided that I wanted to start eating healthier, I thought bland and plain oatmeal was the only answer. I would heat up about 1/2 a cup of oats in the microwave with a little water, maybe a dash of cinnamon, and some fruit and call it a meal. I never thought to add crunchy granola or almond butter or any of the many toppings I add these days. I would eat this simple breakfast over and over again and I just could not understand why I wasn’t full or satisfied. Now I’d like to think of myself as the oatmeal queen lol. I love adding endless toppings and playing around with new flavor combos. For this recipe I got a little extra creative and started with a large sheet pan of baked oatmeal. You could stop at this first step and just eat the baked oatmeal as it is, or you can take the extra step and make them into french toast sticks (which I highly recommend). You can dip them in maple syrup, a little honey, almond butter, add some fresh fruit, really anything! They’re super crispy when they’re fresh, but they taste just as good the next day. Hopefully the recipe makes sense and you guys like it!

Ingredients

Oatmeal Bake

• 2 cups Bob’s Red Mill gluten free oats
• 1 1/2 cup almond milk (or any nut milk)
• 1/4 cup pecan butter
• 1/4 cup almond butter (you can sub the nut butters for any combination equaling 1/2 cup nut butter)
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 tbs flax meal
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon

French Toast

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1 bag of Crunchy Toasted Pecan Simple Mills cookies (crushed)

Instructions

1. Mix all dry ingredients for the oatmeal bake first and then add in wet. Mash the banana well before mixing! Make sure all ingredients are mixed well so that it creates a smooth mixture.
2. Pour into a lined baking tray. The mixture should be spread out, but not too thin. These don’t rise too much, so you don’t want a super thin bake. Think about the thickness of a slice of typical french toast, you want these to resemble that.
3. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes and let cool completely
4. Cut into desired shapes which are long thin rectangles. Again, think about typical french toast sticks. You don’t want them too long, resembling a piece of sliced bread.
5. Create french toast liquid mixture of eggs and almond milk in one flat bowl and another flat bowl of the crushed up cookies (use a blender for a second for the best consistency).
6. Start by coating one slice of the baked oatmeal in the liquid mixture and then coating the same slice in a layer of cookie crumbs.
7. Fry on a pan with a little avocado or coconut oil so each side gets crispy.
8. Repeat these steps to each stick until you’re done!
9. Let cool, dip, and enjoy!