Why does this recipe rock my world?  You get up in the morning, you rush to get ready for work, you rush out the door without a breakfast.  Perhaps you grab a bagel and cream cheese, perhaps a muffin, perhaps an Egg McMuffin.  If you’re lucky, you get a pastry, a hearty breakfast of pancakes and sausage and eggs, or some sort of fried something or rather. Unfortunately, when it comes to being healthy, none of these options is a great way to start your day.

Breakfast choices should be on the lookout for whole-grain carbs, fiber and nutrients. What better source for all of these than steel cut oats? and one way we can make that easier – is setting it up in the crockpot the night before so breakfast is ready to eat as soon as you are.

Oatmeal is a great way to start your day – particularly if you are heading out on a long bike ride. Saturday – April 16th is my first ever “century” bike ride. (Century as in – I’m going to bike 100 miles in the same day on my bicycle!) I’m training for the AIDS Lifecycle bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in June.  BIG SHOUT OUT TO MY SOUTH BAY “RIDE WITH CHRIS” ALC TRAINING RIDE CENTURY PEEPS!

In my research on how to prepare for your ‘first century’ – nearly every single article suggests eating a bowl of oatmeal with fruit about an hour before heading out.

Sure, it requires getting up a little earlier – but folks, I’ve tested this recipe out – and simply put? IT’S COMPLETELY AWESOME! Give it a shot!

A couple of cooking tips –

  1. it’s very important that you get Irish Style STEEL CUT Oats and NOT the instant or quick cooking oats. (you’ll end up with a liquidless mass that will not resemble oatmeal).
  2. The super cool – keep-it-moist slow cooker tip? Do a crockpot double-boiler! Following the recipe below, put the ingredients in a bowl – INSIDE your slow cooker.  Fill the crock with water to a little more than halfway. Set the inner bowl in the crock and see how high the water rises with the displacement.  Add water in the crock if necessary – I usually try to match it so that the water reaches about the same height on the outside of the oats bowl as the cooking water inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two pictures above are from annkroeker.com -

Ingredients

  • 1 cup steel cut oats
  • 1 cup dried cranberries
  • 1 cup dried figs (or other dried fruit of your choice)
  • 4 cups water
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half

Directions

In a slow cooker (ze’CrockPot), combine all ingredients in a bowl, set the bowl inside the crock following the double boiler trick I explained above. Set to low heat. Cover and let cook for 8 to 9 hours. This method works best if started before you go to bed. This way your oatmeal will be finished by morning.