Pumpkin Pie Steel-Cut Oatmeal – in less than 10 minutes

As I mentioned in a earlier post, we eat a lot of oatmeal and usually it is the steel-cut kind.  But, that takes too long to cook in the morning, like 40 minutes, right?  Not really, as I base mine on this easy and relatively fast recipe for 7 minute stove top steel-cut oatmeal. That is how I make oatmeal about 75% of the time now.

 

Of course, you can always make your oatmeal ahead and just heat it up in the morning.  But, it is simple to soak the oats overnight and then they cook in a jiffy.  When I make oatmeal, it is enough to feed four elementary kids plus one adult.  I usually end up with one or two extra servings of oatmeal and Emma and I have it the next morning since she LOVES oatmeal.

 

You can use the basic recipe and then add dried fruit and spices to your preference, or add nothing and just enjoy the oaty goodness.  I add the flax-seed to boost the Omega-3′s.  Today’s breakfast was:

 

Pumpkin Pie Steel-cut Oatmeal

 

• 1 cup steel cut oats
• 1 cup milk
  

  Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal Ingredients

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 dash sea salt
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (a mixture of ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice)
• 2 Tbsp real maple syrup or honey (not HFCS stuff)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
• 2 Tbsp ground flax-seed (optional)
    

1. The night before (or at least 6 hours before), soak the oats in about 3-4 cups of plain water with about 2 Tbsp of whey, kefir, buttermilk, or lemon juice added.

   

   Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal in pot

   (Note: the whey, etc. is optional, it would work with just the water, but the whey helps to “pre-digest” the oats and allows your body to get more nutrients out of them).

2. In the morning, drain oats in a fine-meshed sieve, rinse with water, and then drain again.
3. Place the drained, soaked oats and all other ingredients in a pot, bring to slight boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes until thickened.  Serve with cream if desired.
    

 This morning’s taste test results from the kids were:

Emma: 5 out of 5 stars

Julia: 4 out of 5 stars (she is not an oatmeal lover, but this was the best she has had)

Leah: 5 out of 5 stars

Sarah: 4.5 out of 5 stars (she didn’t like the pecans, otherwise it would have gotten 5)

- Stacey

Almost all the fat comes from the pecans, so if you omit those, it is low-fat.  Either way, you get lots of Vitamin A from the pumpkin.  Nutritional Analysis (including pecans) assuming 8 servings from http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php:

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