More Pumpkin Obsession

I am really blowing through some Libby's pumpkin this year. This week's follow-up to this weekend's pumpkin cinnamon rolls and the pumpkin scones I pulled out of the freezer last week and the pumpkin oats I made for breakfast the week before that?

More pumpkin oats.



I'm re-using the picture from the LAST TIME I bragged about my delicious pumpkin oat breakfast because, well, let's face it. Every little tupperware container of oatmeal topped with craisins looks pretty much exactly the same.

Today's breakfast is a little different, though, because rather than assemble the raw materials at home and cook in the microwave here at work, I made a big batch of oats last night in the crockpot.

My vat-o-oatmeal contained the following:

- 3 cups steel-cut oats
- 3.5 cups skim milk
- 3.5 cups water
- 1.5-ish cups of plain canned pumpkin (I didn't really measure this, just sort of winged it)
- Generous squirt of sugar-free Log Cabin "maple" syrup
- A chunk of Splenda brown sugar blend (again, no measuring - just kind of dumped)
- Few shakes of salt
- Little pour of vanilla extract
- Plenty o' cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove

I gave it all a few stirs, tasted the "batter" and adjusted the spices a bit, and left that bad boy alone to cook 8 hours on low. When I woke up this morning, it was done and it smelled AWESOME.

It looked kind of nasty, though, to be honest. Part of it is that my crockpot has a bit of a "hot spot," so one side of the oatmeal cooked much faster than the other. It also developed a bit of a tough "skin" on top - not particularly appetizing. And the side of the crock without the hot spot left me with separated, kinda-watery oats, while the other side was much, much thicker.

But I stirred that bad boy vigorously, plopped a fat chunk of it in my tupperware, topped with craisins and booked it to work. I hoofed it today, and after my 15/20-minute walk, the oats needed just 30 or 40 seconds in the microwave to be the perfect temperature.

Verdict?

Delicious. Ugly, but delicious. I would strongly recommend this for people who, like me, are complete creatures of habit and don't mind eating the same thing for breakfast every day. I overserved myself today and am still working on my bowl of oats nearly an hour after getting here...this would make four-ish FAT servings like this, or about 5-6 still generously-sized servings.

I might change the ratios to add a BIT more liquid, since this is one thick-ass bowl of oats, but I'm not sure. I might just need to stir it better once it's done. The steel cut oats are key for this, too - don't try this with "regular" quick oats. I'm reasonably certain you'll end up with a mushy, disgusting mess in the morning.

Personally, I'm delighted to have come up with a way to have oats every morning without (1) taking the extra few minutes to assemble, or (2) paying through the nose to get it from DiBruno's. I've been doing that here and there, and good grief - a SMALL oatmeal (and, to be fair, the small is pretty hefty in size) is more than $4. I'd estimate that this vat of oats cost about $7 or $8 total - and that takes into account that I bought the majority of the ingredients at the overpriced grocery store down the street from me.

Pumpkin Craze

Today it's chilly out. Like, mid to high 50's. I'm actually kind of geeky-happy about that - you know, change of seasons and all that.

Today it's ALSO rainy out. Not REAL rain, for the most part, but lots of chilly mist. The kind where a hood is great, but an umbrella is sort of useless.

With the mist/rain/chill comes a sort of darkness. Or, well, not really DARK so much as "not in any way shape or form sunny." Even when it's not raining.

(Emily Dickinson wrote a poem about this - "A Certain Slant of Light." When we studied her in tenth grade English, my teacher described it as "You know what it's like when the sky is so gray, it hurts to look at it?" And that's how I always think of it now.)

So, when I'm presented with a bit of a chill, some wannabe-rain mist, and a certain slant of light, one thing sounds totally perfect.

(Okay, I lied. Lots of things sound perfect, like Sleepytime tea and my favorite sweatpants and a fleece blanket and blah blah blah.) But c'mon.

Pumpkin oats, baby.



This was amazing. Half cup of oats, a little less than a cup of vanilla almond milk (PhillyGuy may be developing a case of the lactose intolerants, so we're experimenting with non-dairy), about half a cup of pumpkin, bit of vanilla, bit of sugar-free maple syrup (chemicals FTW!) and a few shakes of pumpkin pie spice.

I mixed it all up in a tupperware and brought it to work cold, where I cooked it in the microwave. No, it's NOT as good as stovetop oats, but it beats the bejeezus out of my go-to at-work breakfasts (yogurt/berries or a bagel). I topped it with about half a pack of craisins that I picked up at the convenience store downstairs.

She may not be the prettiest bowl of oats you've ever seen, but I'm not sorry.