I live in The Netherlands and I can't easily find these, so I must be looking for the wrong stuff. If any Dutch people read this, can they post back what I should be looking for? I tried the natural-food stores where I live, but I only get blank stares and people pointing towards the wheat germ...

Reply

Looks delicious, nic. I love steel-cut oats and I have dried blueberries for snacking but I've never used them together because I thought the fruit would turn the whole thing that awful purple color of frozen blueberries. Now I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow.

Dried cranberries and some apple juice or apple sauce is also wonderful.

Jim, steel-cut oats are whole oat groats (or berries) that are sliced across the grain into a coarse meal (about 1cm) rather than flattened or rolled. Perhaps if you describe them rather than ask for them by the name "steel-cut" it will help. They're also called "Irish style" oats and sometimes "pinhead" oats.

Reply

You can also get whole grain oats, a lot like brown rice, but with much better flavor. I like them more for lunch or a quick dinner, in place of cous cous. (Quick dinner means you already have them cooked, they actually take quite a while) Each oat is perfect, chewy, and dense. Adding walnuts or pecans to the oats during the last five minutes of cooking brings out the nutty flavors.

Whole oats go well with blander or simpler sauces, and tend to clash with Indonesian, Indian, and Tex-Mex flavors, although Mexicali style foods go well with them. Heavy cheese sauces are too rich. A light cream and parmesan northern Italian style sauce is perfect; Turkish mint and vegetable melanges, like Imam bayaldi, bring out the flavor of everything together, and any middle eastern recipe made with buckwheat or whole wheat should work.

For a desperation dessert I once microwaved the pecan-oat mixture with bananas and drizzled a brown sugar-butter-cinnomon sauce made in a bowl in the microwave at the same time, and added a very small amount of chili oil to the sauce because it was a little bland. Adding a bit of coffee creamer to kick it off, it was the hit of the family get together (yes, its a cut-throat competition, and I do my best work under pressure), and I get requests to repeat it occasionally.

Reply

This IS the best breakfast. I find that steel cut oats keep really well too, so you can make a pot and have it last for a few mornings, saving the slow cook-time.

Reply

If any of you all can get your hands on Hamlyn's Pinhead Oatmeal you're in for a treat. It's how I remember oatmeal from the long-ago year I spent in Scotland (where Hamlyn's is produced) as a student. Pure bliss in a bowl, especially on a chilly January morning. Closer to home, Bob's Red Mill out of Oregon makes an excellent product called Original Scottish Oatmeal; it's definitely of the steel cut type, and is prepared by the same slow-cook method.

And for those of you keeping track, oats, along with blueberries and walnuts, are considered amongst the "super foods" being touted by nutrtionists these days. Eat and be well.

Huffy

Reply

I eat steel cut oats every morning. To avoid the long cooking time (I am so NOT a morning person) I put the oats, water and dried fruit (I especially love dried cherries, but will use raisins) with a pinch of salt in a sauce pan the night before. Bring it to a boil and set on a cool burner. In the morning they are ready to be microwaved. Yum!

Reply

If anyone is interested there is a breakfast type sausage made and sold in the Cincinatti area called Goetta. This is a german food and is made from beef pork and pinhead oats. It is pronounced getta.
Also I have been using oats in with my egg beaters. I use three Tablespoons oats with three servings egg beaters. I find it very good.

Reply

I find putting all the ingredients for my oatmeal (including substituting any portion of the water with milk) into the fuzzy logic rice cooker the night before and setting the timer makes it the easiest breakfast I make. It's great smell to wake up in the morning to as well.

Reply

Alton Brown makes a slow cooker version of steel cut oatmeal that cooks overnight. Works very, I think...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_17138,00.html

Reply

How long will steel cut oats stay in the fridge? I just made a big batch with apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, honey and raisins (perfect in the AM) and want to refridge the leftovers but don't know how long they will last ... ?

Thanks!

Reply

For added nuttiness, toast the dry oats for a couple minutes over high heat before adding the water and cooking.

For added creaminess, substitute skim, whole or buttermilk for 1 cup of the water.

Refrigerated oatmeal gets gelatinous. Mash in some milk and then microwave to restore a creamy texture.

Reply