As I was seeking out what other bakers have been doing with their harvest, I came across a sweet little blog called Sweet Anna's. I pretty much love everything about this blog. Miss Anna has even smartly developed a recipes tab complete with meal planning and shopping lists. I am humbled by her greatness and it is in that spirit that I very minimally edited her recipe for what she calls Pumpkin Pie Slow Cooker Overnight Oatmeal. She admits that her family likes things sweet, and I opted for a little less sugar. She uses pumpkin pie spice and I spell out which spices I used because, well, I love a lot of ginger and allspice and I don't want you to miss out!
Anyhow, you know how sometimes I tell you that a recipe is easy? Mostly, they are. Some are pretty simple. Some are simple to those who know something about cooking and baking. And, then, some of them are truly Stacy-Hamilton-in-Fast-Times-at-Ridgemont-High-easy. This is one such recipe. I mean it. My four year old could put it together without much instruction.
This recipe makes me think of group ski trips - the kind where several families rent one house and one family is responsible for each meal. Or, one of those long winter weekends with kids when you don't want to have to cook every single freaking breakfast for pete's sake. Ooh! Or snow days. You could feed it to the kids all day long on a snow day. Hehe.
A few things to plan for:
- this recipe will take 8 hours in your slow cooker. So, plan to compile ingredients in your slow cooker bowl but not turn it on until before you go to bed, unless you want the sticky mass of burnt oatmeal on the bottom that I created
- this will be more oatmeal than a family of 3 or 4 can eat in one sitting. Plan to freeze 1/2 to 1 C at a time so you have individual servings later on. Or make this for a crowd when you have one over the holidays
- you have control of how sweet this one is. It can be syrupy like pumpkin pie or plainer like actual oatmeal. We went for the plainer so we could add pure brown sugar on top. Because, duh.
- fyi, Trader Joe's has Irish Oats for less than you'll find them in the regular markets. And if you're a Costco member, try there, too. Once you eat steel cut oats, you may not ever want the mush of quick-cooking oatmeal ever again
xox,
A.
Pumpkin Spice Slow Cooker Oatmeal
Serves 8
6 C filtered water
1 C vanilla soymilk
1-1/2 C steel cut oats
1 C pumpkin puree (remember that pumpkin I roasted?)
3/4 C raisins
1/2 C brown sugar (or up to 1 C if you prefer it sweeter)
2-1/2 t cinnamon
3/4 t ginger
3/4 t allspice
1/2 t cloves
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t sea salt
Measure all your ingredients. Put them into the bowl of your slow cooker. Stir until well blended. Turn your slow cooker on low and leave it alone for 8 hours.
Top with butter, cream, brown sugar, cinnamon, sliced toasted almonds: really, whatever sounds good!