Slow cooking for Breakfast

We have been exploring the use of our slow cooker to wake up on these chilly (or flat out cold) fall/winter mornings to a nice hot meal, without having to get up extra early to prepare.


We now have quite a few recipes for slow cooker oatmeal that have turned out wonderful!

Being fall time we like to enjoy the fruits of the season, pumpkin and cranberry are featured prominently at this time of the year. So to begin our exploration of slow cooker oatmeal... Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oatmeal

Ingredients:


1 cup steel cut oats (Has to be steel cut, all other forms of oatmeal will turn to complete mush - steel cut can be fond really cheap at more natural food stores for much less than any other but if you have no other choice, Quaker has steel cut oats and they are usually hiding in the oatmeal section of the grocery store)
1 cup milk (you can use regular milk, I used almond milk and it turned out really good)
3 cups water
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (from a can is fine)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Spray the slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray or olive oil. (This is VERY important, I forgot to do this and the clean up was awful LOL)

Combine the oats, milk, water, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, cloves and brown sugar in the crock pot. Mix well. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours (8 hours is the best, 9 hours is the maximum for this, any longer and you get a gelatinous mass of goo).

Stir well before serving. Add the walnuts and raisins if desired.

Makes 4-6 servings.

There are lots of things you can add once this is finished cooking. I added a splash more almond milk and a pat of butter to mine and it was delicious! Liam added a dollop of maple syrup. Ascher added just a touch of butter.

I tried not to make this too sweet, that way everyone could adjust it to their taste once it was finished but we weren't all subjected to overly sweet oatmeal. But the hard part is already done, the oatmeal is cooked and hot and ready to eat first thing.

Tonight I am setting up the slow cooker with an apple-cinnamon overnight oatmeal. We'll see how it turns out!