Christmas Morning Oatmeal

"GOOD IDEA, BUT RESCUE THIS RECIPE LIKE SO: The idea for this recipe was almost certainly gleaned from a bed & breakfast cookbook, the idea being that B&B owners are very busy in the morning, so they ..." See moredo as much prep the night before as they can. You can still accomplish the convenience, however, without the awful (think wallpaper paste) texture of crock-pot cooked oatmeal, and still avoid having much to do or clean up in the morning. Here's how: THE NIGHT BEFORE: toss together the following, and store in an airtight bowl in the fridge: sugar, spices, salt, cut up butter, cut up apples, cranberries (I substituted raisins), and nuts (I used slivered almonds). IN THE MORNING: put 2 1/2 cups water and the bowl full of sugar/fruit into a large pot and bring to a boil. Forget all that juice--too sweet! Notice that the total liquids is significantly reduced from the original recipe, because it's not sitting all night in a crock pot, getting "pasty". When it just begins to boil, add 2 cups regular rolled oats and cook 5 minutes. Done! All you had to do in the morning was combine pre-prepared ingredients and cook 5 minutes. You get delicious gourmet oatmeal without the "yucky" texture, and your kitchen is still clean in the morning because you did all the prep and clean-up the night before. One more tip, for those looking for home-made breakfasts without the chaos and mess (and time!) in the mornings: You can make pretty much anything the night before and just bake, cook, "

"To avoid burning my crockpot, I used a Reynolds turkey cooking bag and lined my crockpot with it. I made this for my husband's family and they loved it- even the avowed non-oatmeals eaters! Just beca..." See moreuse I love the spice with apples, I added cardamom to the spice mix. I tripled this recipe (I have a very large crockpot) and it held up just fine. The only thing I would do differently, when I enlarge the recipe is cut back on the cinnamon, because tripling that was way too much. I loved the combination of cranberry and nutmeg. This also reheated very very well-- after leaving my husband's family, the oatmeal sat for about and hour and half, before I plugged in the crockpot again at my parents, and it warmed back up delightfully."

"We thought this was wonderful. I sprayed the crockpot with pam, and didn't have any problems with sticking. I have an extremely hot crockpot, so I only put it on "keep warm" about 2am, and it was ..." See moreready and perfect by 7am. Loved it!"