Cherry Pie Oatmeal

Lately I've been in love with preventionRD.com and her recipes. She does not disappoint. I'd been wanting to make my own steel cut oatmeal after getting addicted two winters ago to the frozen ready-to-eat version at Costco (I even blogged about it here) but hadn't had the motivation until I saw her recipe for Crock Pot Cherry Pie Steel Cut Oats. They are easy and delicious!

Author: Nicole Morrissey

Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 8 hours
Total time: 8 hours 5 mins
Serves: 4

A little something sweet and simple to start your morning off right. Kid-approved, no doubt!

Ingredients:
4 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I found this at Trader Joe's)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
¼ cup sucanat or other granular sugar (I used sugar in the raw)
1 cup dry steel cut oats
1 (20 oz) can no sugar added cherry pie filling (couldn't find this so used a pouch of Tap'n Apple all natural cherry pie filling from Whole Foods)
1 cup pitted bing cherries, fresh or frozen (Publix makes a nice bag of frozen sweet dark cherries)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a crock pot and stir. Place the lid on the crock pot and cook on low for 8-9 hours. Stir before serving hot. (Our crock pot runs pretty hot so I set it to low for an hour then turned it down to warm for overnight. Stirred it about an hour before serving and turned it up to low to help it finish cooking and thicken up.

Note:
Recipe adapted from Crock Pot Steel Cut Oats with Blueberries from Prevention RD’s Everyday Healthy Cooking