Overnight Spiced Vanilla-Pear Oatmeal

As sad as I am to see summer go, I’m certainly enjoying the cooler weather September is offering.  We’ve started turning off the air conditioner at night and cracking the windows to let the natural cool air in.  And surprisingly, yesterday morning I woke up a little chilly.  I got up at 6 to go for a run and it was so much colder (and darker) than what I’ve been used to all summer.  
By the end of my run I was hot and sweaty, but this spiced vanilla pear oatmeal was a beautiful thing to come home to.  

No, my husband didn’t make me breakfast.…..my crock pot did.  And I love it for it!

It’s the perfect breakfast for the brisk fall mornings, and even better for those frigid winter mornings to come. I’m already dreading those mornings. But this oatmeal will certainly
help.

Just put everything into the crock pot right before you got to bed and when you wake up, not only will your house smell like heaven, but breakfast will taste like it too.

Slow- Cooker Spiced Vanilla-Pear Oatmeal
Ingredients
1 cup steel cut oats, dry
4 cups water
1/2 cup skim or low fat milk (or you can use almond, soy or coconut milk)
1 large (or two small) pears, sliced or chopped with skins
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tbs brown sugar
Instructions
Place all ingredients into the crock pot and let simmer on lowest setting for about 5-6 hours (definitely no more than 6 from my experience).
Sweeten with more brown sugar or add a tad more milk if needed when serving.   It should be very thick and flavorful!

inspired by and adapted from  Oh She Glows
Serves 3-4

****note: I’d like to think most of us get more than 6 hours of sleep.  So its a good idea to set an alarm to make sure it doesn’t over-cook..  Unless you have one of those super cool crock pots that switches to the “warm” setting on its own once it’s cooked for the allotted. Just run and switch it to the warm setting then crawl back in bed for a couple of hours.  You can keep it on the warm setting for a couple of hours once it’s done cooking.

In other news, Sweet Treats and More was featured in Women’s Health Magazine (Online) in this week’s segment of “What We’re Reading This Week“. Kinda fun! Check it out and see the other blogs featured.

Comments

  1. Great fall recipe! Thanks for the crock pot tips. Congrats on your feature!

  2. That sounds super yummy! It’d be perfect for Christmas morning!

  3. Mmmmm…looks delicious and perfect for a cold morning meal.

  4. Wonder if you could use rolled oats instead? What do you think?

    New to your blog and loving it!

  5. Last week was my first time making these steel-cut oats, and they turned out fantastic! I threw everything in the crock at around 12:30 AM before heading to bed, set the timer for five and a half hours and let warm for a good few hours afterward. Delicious, however I needed to add milk to thin it up a little bit, as well as add a few more teaspoons of brown sugar for sweetness – the oats alone seemed to be lacking something, and this was perfect. Awesome recipe for cool fall/winter mornings, I’m about to make it again for tomorrow. Thanks!

  6. BethieofVA – rolled oats need less than half the same fluid AND time….
    I do these all the time but I leave them all night, substitute butter for the milk listed here, then add fresh fruit before serving, or include dried fruit, then top with chopped walnuts before serving….

  7. How many servings is this?

    Bethie – probably not. rolled oats don’t generally need to cook as long as steel cut oats. I’ve only seen crock pot recipes for steel cut oats.

  8. K Newman~ this serves about 3-4

  9. I made this and it’s quite lovely !
    My only suggestion is to use fairly ripe pears (really juicy pears)…and definitely use two. My pear was a little under-ripe therefore the oatmeal didn’t have too much pear flavour. It would have benefitted from a riper fruit.

  10. This was quite remarkable and yes lovely. It does make a difference if you use ripe pears and mine were so it was yummy and it was not difficult to make – all my gang liked it to so it is definitely a hit!

  11. Oh my goodness. I threw this in the crockpot last night [I have one that switches to the warm setting automatically - love it], and woke up to breakfast being ready! It was amazing. I LOVED that I could just walk downstairs and head straight for the cabinet to grab a bowl, no need to get out a pot and ingredients for oats :) And now I have some left over for breakfasts for the rest of the week, couldn’t have worked out better! Thanks for the recipe!

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