Hi guys, how are we doing this week so far? I’m still recovering from the weekend. Not in the fun way. See, on Friday, the two tots had a viral gastroenteritis (a.k.a stomach flu, which is not actually a flu) or as we know it, Tiny People Barfing All Over Us. Then I caught it and spent Saturday and most of Sunday in misery.
Wait, I should start over, right? Nobody wants to read “viral gastroenteritis” in the first paragraph of a food blog post. Â Sprinkles! Donuts! Salted caramel! (Did I make up for it? No? You could tell it was fake, right? Ok, just I’ll carry on then.)
So I was in the throes of fever and despair.  For the weekend on the whole, I didn’t actually leave my bed much, which was quite nice – when I wasn’t barfing or being barfed on, I got to do some cozy fall reading and movie-watching. (That I actually can find a silver lining to viral gastroenteritis probably says so much about the pace of my life right now.)
Anyway, I do have more to share with you today than tales of stomach woes. This slow-cooker steel-cut oatmeal is soooo good. I made it for the Bio-K blog (I brushed off my dietitian’s* hat and geeked out on probiotics big time. I love friendly bugs).
It made the creamiest steel-cut oats I have ever had, and I seriously doubt I’ll ever make them any other way. Once you add a bit of sweetener (I used maple syrup), it is like rice pudding. So yummy.
*If you’ve been around for a while and didn’t know I was a dietitian it is because I prefer to communicate nutrition peripherally, via sharing wonderful, home cooked meals from good quality ingredients. I believe absolutely everything (especially Soft, Chewy Apple Gingersnaps and Nut-Crusted Cranberry Tart) has a place in the diet, and do not like to nutritionize food which I think takes away from its wonderfulness.  Hence the sort of closet dietitian situation.
Slow-Cooker Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 3 cups water
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup steel-cut oats
- ¼ cup brown sugar or maple syrup
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in slow cooker and cook on low setting for 7 hours (and turn on the "keep warm" function if you've got it).
- In the morning, give the porridge a really good stir, then serve with more brown sugar as desired and/or milk. Toasted nuts are yummy, too!
