DAY TWENTY FIVE: Oat bake with tomato and caramelised onions

On a whim I made this little oat bake for my lunch last weekend in the midst of going crazy with 'sweet treat' experiments. I craved something savoury and this is what happened...

For something so experimental I hadn't expected this to be quite so good! I'm not sure what made it quite so yummy, maybe the oat bake, maybe the topping, maybe both...combined with a savoury craving that this really needed satisfying. This sure did the job.

The oat bake was lovely light and moist, that in itself surprised me since I was expecting it to be more of a dense flat bake. Considering it has very little fat and hardly any flour, I was surprised at the delicacy. It also rose nicely with a rustic crust.  I baked it in a small cake ring as a circular guide so for the measurements below I got one serving approx. 2cm deep and 12cm wide. You could always use metal egg poaching rings or even small pie trays?

(picture of the plain oat bake taken with my phone)

For the topping, I wanted to go 'bruschetta' style as this never fails to please, so here we have caramelised onions, vine tomatoes a few shredded basil leaves..... and some beetroot chutney that happened to be sitting in the cupboard (a gift to my dad but he doesn't like beetroot) I thought it could make a great combo. You could use any chutney here to give a flavoursome kick, or leave it out altogether.  The flavours in the oat bake itself could also be adapted to your own taste, I kept it fairly low key as I knew the topping would be the star in the flavour stakes, and the oat bake was to become the texture king. 

I will definitely be making this again...next time I will quadruple the recipe and get my whole family in on the act!

Makes 1 oat bake (approx. 12cm diameter 1 inch thick)

Recipe: Oat bake with tomato and caramelised onions

Ingredients- oat bake

½ cup oats

¼ cup buckwheat flower

½ tsp heaped baking powder

1 tbs ground flax/chia

1 tbs nutritional yeast (optional)

½ tsp stock paste or stock cube to taste

¼ tsp salt (or to taste)

1 tsp soy sauce/liquid aminos

1 tsp olive oil

¼ cup soy yoghurt

Approx. 3 tbs soy milk as needed

Ingredients- topping

1 small red onion- sliced

Handful baby vine tomatoes- halved

Few leaves fresh basil- shredded

2 tbs chutney of choice

Method

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add the wet ingredients and mix well well to form a thick but easily spoonable batter.

Spoon/pour into a baking rind/mini pie tin/muffin tins. Smooth the top and bake at 180C for approx. 10 mins until risen and just turning golden on top.

Whilst the oat bake is cooking, prepare the onion and fry  for approx. 5 mins until soft and golden, adding the tomato after a couple of minutes. Just before removing from the heat add the chutney  to heat through.

Serve the topping mix over the oat bake and top with shredded basil leaves.

What Vegan MOFO means to me.

For further guidance on making gluten free choices please see this post.

For tips and info on recipe measurement conversions, ingredients, substitutions and the methods behind how I do things.... check out my 'baking tips' tab at the top of the page.