Gluten-Free, Vegetarian Recipe: Baked Apple Pie Oatmeal

It's been at least three forevers and a day since I've posted one of these!

This is not only GF but completely vegan, because I'm still avoiding eggs and dairy after developing allergies to them (again) a year ago, though I often cheat with them and soy just because Japan is the worst possible place to be dealing with that and they are extremely hard to avoid if I can't spend hours every day preparing food for myself. 
After watching documentaries like Fed Up and Cowspiracy on our new premium Japanese Netflix, though, I can't say I really want to go back to eating them even when they don't try to strangle me anymore. 

When I was seriously cutting things out of my diet forever at about 12 or 13, I wanted to go vegan but really didn't see how I could do it, or how I would get enough protein. 
Not even eating soy is admittedly fairly easy now that I'm used to it (but still effing ridiculous) and I think it would not only be possible but easy in a developed Western country to avoid animal products and refined flour and sugar completely. You can do it! Even reducing your intake of these things is so much better for you and tha Earpth.

So anyway, onto the apple pie substitute!

You will need:
- about one cup of oatmeal
- another cup or so of almond milk
- one apple
- about a tablespoon of Earth Balance buttery spread
- brown, raw, or refined sugar (whatever you've got; brown is best)
- cinnamon

I've mentioned this thing we have before, this tiny broiler, or what I call "the fish drawer"; I bought a couple of wee ceramic casserole dishes from a village second-hand shop that fit in it perfectly shortly after we moved in and I use them for all kinds of stuff. 
There's no reason this shouldn't work in any other kind of glass or ceramic container in any other kind of oven. Actually, I'm sure it would be better, because the top of your oatmeal probably won't be like 3 cm from open blue flames and blacken quickly as a result.

Peel the apple and slice it thin, but not like, paper-thin. But not wedges, either. Flat.

Heat the oven to, I don't know, like 350? And put the dish in it for just long enough for it to be warm. Melt enough Earth Balance on the bottom to just coat it, and place one layer of apples in. Stick it in the oven.

When the apples are kind of sizzly and starting to brown on the edges, sprinkle brown sugar over them and pop them back in for another minute or just until it's melted.

Now add a thin layer of oats on top, and pour in just enough almond milk to cover them. Pop the dish back in the oven until the oatmeal looks almost finished but isn't getting browned or crispy or anything yet. Sprinkle a little more brown sugar, a little cinnamon, add another layer of apples, and repeat the first steps.

Add a little more Earth Balance to the top of the apples, then one more thin layer of oatmeal, then just enough almond milk to barely cover it all again, and then more brown sugar shortly before it's completely done, so it has a chance to melt. 
Sprinkle more cinnamon over the top and serve.