So the other morning we used up the last of our quick cooking oats for breakfast. I usually make up plain oatmeal for the kidlet and then doctor it up with some dried fruit, a little bit of honey and some milk, and that particular morning was no different. What WAS different was that as I poured out the last of the oatmeal into the bowl I thought, well CRAP, what am I going to do for tomorrow’s breakfast? Notice I did not say, let’s go to the grocery store and get more… because when you’re 38 weeks pregnant? Grocery shopping with your preschooler sucks. So instead, I started rifling through my cabinet to find these…
These are called Steel Cut Oats, aka Irish Oats, aka Pinheads. They are a total pain in the butt to cook if you are planning on doing them on the stove top and so when I accidentally bought them from Trader Joe’s a few months ago I stuck them all the way in the back of the pantry and forgot about them. Well, laziness is the mother of all invention, and I am CERTAINLY too lazy to go to the grocery store to get more oatmeal for my child right now, so I decided to see what I could do with these little babies.
I have actually made them before on the stove and while being too time consuming for a quick before-school breakfast (30 minutes to cook? eek), they are DAMN delicious if you DO decide to make them. They are nuttier than regular oatmeal and have an amazing texture that lends itself well to dried fruit and perhaps a little half and half. They are a stick to your ribs kind of breakfast.But again. I am lazy.
So how about some Crockpot Oatmeal??
What I got was wonderful, easy and best of all, made a gazillion pounds of breakfast that I could freeze into serving size portions for when Kid #2 FINALLY gets here and I have to actually feed #1 (and myself occasionally).
I made mine with dried cranberries and apples, but you could also make it with pumpkin puree or bananas or raisins to mix things up. Go wild and crazy and ENJOY being as lazy as I am!
Crockpot Oatmeal
This makes about 4 servings. I doubled the recipe and froze the rest up because the kid and I eat a LOT of it.Ingredients
1 Cup of Steel Cut Oats (Irish Oats, or Pinheads)
3 1/2 Cups of Water
1/2 Cup of either milk or half and half- it’s up to you how rich you want to make this… the half and half makes it DELICIOUS, but I’m pregnant and eating calories like it’s going out of style.
1 Apple, cored and chopped into small pieces
1/4 C of Dried Cranberries
1 TB of Cinnamon or Pumpkin Pie Spice
3 TB Brown Sugar – I try to under sweeten my oats, because when you eat them you can always add more. Too much and you’ll be having dessert for breakfast.
Directions
Ready for it? It’s pretty hard. Dump everything into the crockpot. Turn it on low for 5-7 hours. Done.
Now I don’t have a crockpot with a timer on it, so if you want to make them overnight, try and get them started as late as possible so that they don’t burn while you’re sleeping. Otherwise, if you do have a timer, set it for low for about 5 hours and then it should switch to warm when it’s finished.
Freeze it up into single serving portions and then reheat slowly when you’re ready to eat.
Enjoy while I sit here and gestate grumpily.
