Carrot Cake Oatmeal--overnight slow cooker breakfast

Okay, so if you've read my blog at all, you know we're a breakfast family. That doesn't just mean we believe in the importance of eating breakfast every morning. It also means we believe in eating breakfast for dinner on occasion, and sometimes for lunch, if the mood suits us.

Needless to say, when my brother in law introduced us to baked oatmeal, we were hooked. Lately, I've been wanting to try a crock-pot oatmeal, though. It seems so easy--throw everything in the pot, turn it on, and wake up to breakfast (and maybe a delicious-smelling house). This was my first attempt at crock pot oatmeal, and sadly, I'd have to mark it down as a big fat FAIL.

When I was adding the 8 CUPS (yes, you read that right) of water, I thought it sounded like an awful lot. But I've cooked steel cut oats before, though it's been a while, and I seem to remember them taking a lot of water. So I went along with it, dubiously. In addition, the recipe says to put it on the 'warm' setting on the crock pot for 8 hours. I thought that seemed low, but hey, it's oatmeal, it'll just swell and absorb all that water...right?

the raw sludge in the crock pot after 10 hrs

WRONG. I woke to no good smells. I woke to a huge pot of warm soup...very thin soup. The carrots were still crunchy. The water was not absorbed. The oatmeal was not ready and waiting to eat.

I ended up turning it on high for an hour, and after tasting it again, I gave up and put it on the stove to boil away some of the water. Finally, it was ready, though still pretty runny. This was not a thick, yummy heap of carrot cake. It was a soupy porridge. With some cream and honey, it was actually tasty, but I'd make some major revisions to this recipe if I were to try it again.

bubbling away on the stove after 12 hrs in crockpot

Ingredients:

• 2 cups steel cut oats
• 2 cup shredded or chopped carrots (I threw mine in my Ninja for a minute or so)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut (shredded or flake)
• 8 cups water (I'd definitely cut this to 6 next time, maybe even 5).
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (optional--I did not use this).
• honey and cream or half & half for topping

Instructions:

1. In a large slow cooker, combine ingredients except for toppings. Set on "warm" and cook for 8 hours. 
2. Now, obviously, I would not recommend this cooking method. I'd try it on low next time, but I can't give conclusive evidence that would work, either, as I haven't done it. But I'd be wary of cooking anything on warm again.

   

   It finally cooked!