A Tale of Two Oats - My Attempts at Steel Cut Oats

Last night I tried to make Steel Cut Oats.  For those who are unfamiliar, a quick overview: standard oatmeal is made by rolling and flattening the oats.  This makes it cook very fast but also robs it of some of it's flavor.  Steel cut oats are just chopped up oats.  They take longer to cook, but still have all the good stuff in them.

I've been intrigued by them since watching the Good Eats episode that featured them as an overnight recipe.  Toss them in a crock pot overnight and have delicious oatmeal for breakfast!  So that's what I tried.

Alton's recipe is fairly simple:

1 cup Steel Cut Oats
1 cup dried Cranberries
1 cup dried Figs
4 cups Water
1/2 cup Half and Half

I had everything ready to go last night except the figs.  I  haven't really had much of a taste for figs since I read about the "wasp situation" I warn you now that reading it might swear you off Newtons.

I put it all together in the crock pot before I went to sleep and turned it on Low.  Simple, right?

Well, I woke up in the middle of the night.  I decided to go and stir the oats to help it a bit with even cooking, and to take a taste.  Actually it was pretty good, but VERY cranberry-y.  In fact it was a little TOO much cranberry flavor.  I think it might have been better with some fig flavor to add complexity, so my bad for letting my fears override the recipe!

In any case, it was pretty clear that 3 1/2 hours of cooking on low was more than enough to cook the oats completely and infuse them with the flavor of the cranberries.

I turned off the crock pot and emptied the oats into another bowl and put them into the fridge for the morning.  Then I had another idea.  Kendra hadn't been all that wild about the cranberry idea.  She prefers maple and brown sugar on her oatmeal.  So, I decided that since I still had half the night to cook, I'd try a plain batch that could be flavored in the morning.  I put all the ingredients into the crock pot and went back to bed.

The more astute of you will immediately see the problem with cooking in the middle of the night.  I did NOT just say "I put all the ingredients into the crock pot, turned it on, and went back to bed."  Sigh.

I got up this morning, threw out the stuff in the crock pot and spooned up a big bowl of cranberry steel cut oats.  It was ok, but still much too much cranberry flavor.  The texture was nice and there was a good nutty undertone.  Kendra tried some but retained her dislike of fruit in her oatmeal and declined to eat a bowl.  My daughter took a test bite and decided that pancakes were more to her taste, so I ended up making them.  Our roommate did eat a bowl, though, and pronounced it ok, which I agree with.

Well, I did meet my goal.  I cooked something I've never cooked before.  The result wasn't fantastic, but that was more the fault of the cranberries than the oats.  I tend to agree with Kendra that it might work out with maple and brown sugar.  I plan to try again sometime soon.