Baked oatmeal

As promised, I am here with a post on Baked oatmeal. Picky I am with what I eat. Perhaps like everyone else, I enjoy certain things cooked in a particular style otherwise they are avoided using my best possible behavior :)  Oatmeal falls in such a category. I never enjoyed oatmeal in its default form - served in hot milk- despite knowing its endless benefits.  A Bed & Breakfast place named Pomaika'i "Lucky" Farm at Big Island (Hawaii) served baked oatmeal which I throughly enjoyed.  Naturally, upon return to mainland, I began my hunt for baked oatmeal recipes.  After much needed browsing on internet and an experiment in my Kitchen,  here I present the recipe to you fellow readers.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups oats
7 tbsp brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup dried cranberries or resins
1/4 chopped walnuts 
1/2 cup milk or soy milk
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Preheat oven to 350F
- Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. You can use any combination of nuts/resins according to your taste.
- Mix lightly beaten egg, butter, vanilla extract and milk in a separate bowl
- Combine everything and mix uniformly
- Transfer this mixture into a 8X8 oven safe dish and bake for 25 mins or until it turns golden brown
- Cut baked oatmeal into pieces and serve hot as is or with milk.

For eggless veriation you can replace egg with 1/2 mashed banana which I want to try next time. You can also replace 1 tbsp of resins with 1 tbsp of dried coconut for additional flavor.