Slow and sleepy

My grandmother has spent most of her 90 years dodging the kitchen, and still quips, “I hate the inside of a house. Give me the outside any day.” With that attitude, she got away with mastering only a few signature dishes, my mother reports, including savory vegetable beef soup barley, hash, a loathsome concoction of churned up leftovers and slow-cooker oatmeal, which smelled of cinnamon and was impossibly creamy. Our recent “cold” snap and my children’s love of stove-top oatmeal put me in the mood to try this dish myself recently, and I was glad I did. Those Irish steel cut oats melted into creaminess, and the addition of apples and lots of cinnamon gave it good texture.

Here’s my recipe:

Apple and cinnamon slow cooker oatmeal

Serves four.

Spray the inside of the slow cooker with cooking spray.

Add 1 cup of steel cut oats. (Don’t substitute.)

Add four cups liquid (water and or milk work best).

Add one chopped tart, firm apple. Peeled or unpeeled, your choice.

Add 2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon.

Add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. (optional)

Add one-eight teaspoon salt. (optional)

Turn slow cooker to low and heat for eight hours or overnight.