What do you do if: You have a 6-Quart slow cooker (read: HUGE cooker for 1 person), and yet you don’t want to make 10 bowls of oatmeal all at once?

Answer: Double-boiler method Slow Cooker/Crock Pot oats!

I used to avoid making steel-cut oatmeal because they take so much time to make, plus you have to baby-sit it while it cooks! I also don’t enjoy having to heat up leftover oats in the microwave because it gets all crusty, so making giant batches is less appealing.

The double-boiler method avoids all this hassle!

I did a TON of research on how to do this right, and now, I love how easy, convenient, and FRESH my oatmeal is in the morning.

The Weapon: The slow cooker that I used is a 6-Quart Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker from CSN Cookware. It is AWESOME.

Without further ado, let’s jump in to the How-To’s!

1) Throw together your Oatmeal ingredients into a beautiful heat-proof bowl (ceramic and pyrex bowls work well!)

My Ingredients (feel free to modify to your liking):

–          ¼ cup steel cut oatmeal (I used McCann’s)

–          1 cup water

–          ¼ cup hazelnut milk (Optional)

–          ½ chopped banana

Some people prefer to “grease” their bowl with some butter or oil to prevent crusty edges, but my oats didn’t have this problem without the oil.

2) Take a strip of aluminum foil and curl it into a circle so the bottom of your bowl sits on top of it firmly to create a hollow “padding”. (This is a safety precaution to protect the crock pot. I’ve read the pot can crack if there isn’t anything between the outer pot and the bowl inside)

3) Secure your bowl on top of the foil. Make sure it’s sturdy. Pour water into the space between the pot and the bowl inside. (I fill it up till the level of water is comparable to the liquid level inside the oatmeal bowl)

4) Cover the pot with the lid. Switch slow cooker to “Low” and let it cook overnight.

5) Exactly 8 hours later, this is what my oatmeal looks like! I didn’t have to stir the ingredients in any way throughout the entire cooking process.

In the morning, top with anything your heart desires! Nuts, berries, frozen fruit, peanut butter, cereal, yogurt…just top it!

So to re-cap Why I love Slow Cooker Oatmeal:

–          Wake up to evenly cooked, hot oatmeal daily

–          Zero Breakfast prep time in the AM!

–          No need to wash POTS!! (Just the bowl your oatmeal is in!)

–          No need to stand over a stove 20 minutes at a time

Now, if you don’t have a slow cooker but you DO have a rice cooker, simply use the same recipe but reduce cooking time down to…something like 20 minutes for my Taiwanese Ta Tung rice cooker!

If you’re interested, it sells on New Egg for $60 bucks. I carried mine all the way from Asia. 😛

With this rice cooker, things are a little messier…but you don’t have to watch the oats, and steel cut oatmeal is DONE in less than 20 minutes.

If you’re patient enough to let it cool and thicken up, you can pack ’em away into little bento boxes to bring to school or work!

Ta Da!!!

Don’t you wanna try the slow cooker method now?

How do YOU cook your oats? Any secret recipes or gadgets you’d like to share? 🙂

Just for Fun!

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February 23, 2010

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