Slow Cooker Oatmeal Redux

I love the weekend.  However, my husband has an early class, and one of my daughters usually works, so it gets hard to have a hot, healthy breakfast ready for the whole family.  It seems like we eat in shifts.  That is where the slow cooker oatmeal comes in handy!  

I know I already covered this once, but I wanted to try it again using the steel cut oats.  Let me tell you, it is so good!  I really like that all I have to do is toss a few things in the slow cooker, and breakfast is ready in the morning.

When I woke up today, I thought I smelled oatmeal cookies baking.  It was wonderful!  My hubby was able to have a bowl before school, so he felt energized and ready for the day.  My son was up and ready for a bowl too.  He is a nearly 6' tall 14 year old beanpole, and boy does he like to eat!  Getting enough food for him is a challenge lately.  He is always hungry.  My girls aren't huge eaters, but they do enjoy something other than cold cereal for breakfast.  They were thrilled with the oatmeal.  It makes for a great change.

The original recipe calls for steel cut oats, and I agree it is so much better.  It is nuttier, and has better texture and mouth-feel.  The quick oats became soggy, which isn't my thing.  They taste okay, but really, use the steel cut oats, they are sometimes called Irish Oatmeal.  I buy mine in bulk at a health food store, but I know they sell Irish Oatmeal at most grocery stores now.  I like to add quinoa to my oatmeal for the extra protein, if you don't want it, you don't need to add it. 

These are the dry ingredients in my slow cooker, before I added the water and sweetened condensed milk.

• Ingredients

   

• 8 cups water
• 2 cups steel-cut oats
• 1 cup quinoa 
• 2 Tbs flax seeds
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries/raisins/or any dried fruit you like
• 1/3 chopped nuts or coconut
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp cinnamon, or 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp salt

Preparation

1. Combine everything in a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker. Turn heat to low. Put the lid on and cook until the oats are tender and the porridge is creamy, 7 to 8 hours.  I put everything in before bed at 11pm, and it was ready when my husband woke at 6am. 

You can add milk and butter to it to serve, top with granola, berries or nuts.  I served it with a little butter on top for the kids, and plain for myself.  The sweetened condensed milk was all the sweetness it needed for my taste.  Cooking it all night makes it turn almost to caramel.

You can take this recipe and change it to suit your taste.  You can leave out the flax, fruit, quinoa and spices, or change it up however you like.  This makes a lot of oatmeal, you can try halving the recipe if you are feeding less people.  I need a ton to feed my son.  Other recipes call for milk and brown sugar, instead of the sweetened condensed milk.  You can try it that way too.  This is about what you like, have fun with it! 

In the morning it smelled so good!  It wasn't runny or soggy.  Just perfectly nutty, spicy, sweet oatmeal.