Overnight Crock Pot Oatmeal

Wouldn't it be great to wake up and already have a warm, hearty breakfast waiting for you.  I've been thinking about this lately, especially in the morning when it's hard to roll out of my warm, comfy bed and even think about going out into the cold.  It would be easier if I knew a warm breakfast was waiting for me in the kitchen.  I know the rest of my family feels the same way and I started to wonder if I could make us oatmeal in the crock pot overnight.  So, I searched the internet for recipes and decided to try this particular overnight crock pot oatmeal recipe.  Most overnight oatmeal recipes I found say you MUST use steel cut oats.  Frugalupstate.com did an oatmeal experiment where she used both steel cut and old-fashioned oats in the crock pot.  There were complaints with her original recipe that when using old-fashioned oats the oatmeal turned out too soupy.  It took her and her friends a few tries to get the right consistency using old-fashioned oats.  They concluded that 2 cups of regular/old-fashioned oats are needed in this recipe to get a good consistency.  I'm going to follow her instructions for using old-fashioned oats since that's what I have sitting in my cupboard.  Will we wake up to perfectly cooked oatmeal or a soupy mess?

Ingredients (recipe from frugalupstate.com)

1 cup steel cut or 2 cups regular oats (NOT Quick Oats!)

4 cups water

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup brown sugar

1  TBS butter

1/2  tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Combine all in crockpot and cook on low for 8hrs.  Serve with milk & cinnamon sugar.

Variations:

Add up to 1 C raisins/dried fruit before cooking.

Add 1 chopped fresh apple before cooking.

Top with fresh fruit (in season) or canned fruit (drained).

Add a pat of butter or a dollop of jam/preserves.

Drizzle with honey.

 Simple ingredients

I just mixed everything in the crock pot and let it cook on low for about 8 1/2 hours.

It's done!

The Results...
This obviously wasn't soupy.  It was thick enough to stick to a spoon, but it wasn't perfectly cooked.  Although the simple flavors of brown sugar, vanilla and cinnamon were nice, we had a hard time eating this because of the oatmeal's texture.  It was really overcooked.  It was like eating paste.  This morning my 6 yr. old asked, "what happened to this oatmeal!?"  She usually likes a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, but she didn't like the extra mushy texture of this oatmeal.  Perhaps this would be a hit at a retirement home (no chewing required), but it wasn't a hit at our home.  Next time, I will try the steel cut oats.