I can't answer your steel cut question, but wanted to share my method for cooking oatmeal that eliminates the sticky pan. I use old fashioned oatmeal and add the oatmeal when the water comes to a boil and let it boil up to the top of the pan, then pull off burner, cover with lid and let set about 30 minutes. The volume is much greater, the texture is nice and it slides right out of the pan. I usually do this, shower and get dressed and my oatmeal is ready. I haven't tried this method with steel cut, but would think it would work.

Steel-cut (aka pin oats, Scottish or Irish oats) are the least processed form of oatmeal and are the whole oat grain that has been cut into two or three pieces, which allow them cook faster than cooking the whole oat seed (40-minutes - or less time if you soak them overnight). Steel-cut won't work in the microwave UNLESS you cook it into oatmeal first, refrigerate it, and then NUKE it when you are read to cook it for breakfast. It will keep several days in the refrigerator.

There are now available "Quick Cook Steel Cut Oats" (I've purchased them at Aldi) which are still cut into 2-3 slices of the whole oat seed, are par-cooked and cook quicker and can be microwaved. They take 3 minutes on high to cook in the microwave, and then you need to let them rest for a minute. If you cook these the traditional way, they take 5-7 minutes to cook (instead of the typical 40-minutes). But if you are accustomed to eating quick-cooking or instant oatmeal, you will certainly find steel-cut oats something quite different! Very "toothy" and coarse.

If you want to avoid cooking oatmeal and the starchy gunk in the pan, try this soaked oat method which works well as a cold cereal in the warmer months, or you can NUKE it for hot oatmeal. Since finding this recipe and method, I no longer cook oatmeal (because I hate the gunky pan, too).

OVERNIGHT OATMEAL
(source: Secrets of Salt-Free Cooking - by Jeanne Jones)

2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats (I've also used the "Instant Steel Cut Oats")
1/2 c. chopped almonds
1 c. raisins (I also use currants, craisins...)
1 t. ground cinnamon
3 c. water

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight before serving. [You can leave this mixture in the refrigerator and use it for several days - cold or hot.]

Grainlady note: Try 1/2 a recipe and stir it up in a quart jar. I also add a 1 T. of whey (yogurt or kefir) to the mixture, which reduces the hard-to-digest phytic acid in oatmeal (oats have one of the highest amounts of phytic acid of all grains). You can serve this mixture cold or heated (a few minutes on the stove-top or microwaved). Serve it with milk/cream or yogurt, or even cottage cheese and some sliced fruit or berries. If you want to add a little salt, you certainly could.

Another option is to make a large batch of oatmeal the traditional way (in a pan) and put it into a loaf pan, cover and chill it in the refrigerator. Turn it out of the pan and cut it into slices. These slices can be used to make fried oatmeal (pan fried like you would make a slice of French Toast - with or without being battered - both ways works) or you can add a little milk to a bowl + a slice of cooked oatmeal and NUKE it. These slices of cooked oatmeal will keep in the refrigerator for several days, or you can freeze them.

A little history.... In Scotland it was customary to prepare a large batch of oatmeal and pour the cooked cereal into a drawer in the kitchen hutch or dresser. Squares of the congealed oatmeal would then be cut out as needed and reheated by adding water. This process allowed the oatmeal to ferment, which made it easier to digest.

Oats 101

You can cook whole oat berries (seeds) and get oatmeal. The next process is steel-cut and the only thing done to the oats is to slice them lengthwise with sharp steel blades into 2-3 pieces. Porridge made with steel-cut oats is thick and VERY chewy. They normally take 40-minutes to cook, or you can use a quick cook method. The night before, bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a pot with a lid. Turn off heat and add 1-cup of steel-cut oats (I also add 1-2 T. of whey, kefir or yogurt) and put the lid on and let the mixture sit until the next morning. The next morning cook the oatmeal on low for 9-12 minutes. Stir occasionally. You can add salt, if you like it.

-Old-fashioned rolled oats, are oats that are softened slightly steam, then flattened between steel rollers. They cook in a fraction of time required for steel-cut oats - little more than 5-minutes.

-Quick-Cooking oats are made the same way as old-fashioned oats, except they have been cut into three or four slices before being flattened by rollers. This process reduces the cooking time to about 1-minute.

-Instant oatmeal is rolled very thin, pre-cooked, then dehydrated. The oats are rehydrated instantly by adding boiling water.

-Grainlady

This post was edited by grainlady on Fri, Nov 22, 13 at 15:16

I have soaked steel-cut oatmeal overnight and then cooked it on the stove in a non-stick pan, which was very easy to clean. I like it much better than the quick oatmeal, but normally I eat granola. For a cooked cereal, I prefer grits (to which I add eggs, sausage, cheese, etc), but they are probably not as good for me as the oatmeal. I add berries to my granola but not to oatmeal. For some reason, I do not like oatmeal to be sweet, and so I only add a small bit of butter to it. I might like it with brown sugar, but I definitely do not want cinnamon in it, even though I take cinnamon pills for my blood sugar.

Lars

I use steel cut oats and cook them like this: when I boil water for my morning coffee, I pour the extra water over a serving of oats in a microwave glass bowl. I let them soak until I'm ready for breakfast, then finish cooking them in the micro. When I was still working, I'd carry them to work, then cook in the micro there - that way they had a little bit more soak time.

I add frozen or fresh blueberries before I nuke it all. It never gets gummy or gluey. I've also toasted the oats in a dry pan before doing the soak method above. Gives it a nice nutty flavor.

I also make overnight steel cut oats. I just bring 3 cups of water to a boil, add a cup of steel cut oats, let it boil for a minute, then put the lid on and turn the heat off. The next morning I turn the heat on, add another cup of water or milk and cook for a couple of minutes and it's ready. I'm sure it could also be done in the microwave. I used to make enough that I could portion it out into small plastic bowls and take it to work with me, breakfast for the week. Then I'd just microwave a small bowl.

Lars, I also like oatmeal more savory than sweet. Occasionally I'll add some dried cranberries and a drizzle of maple syrup but lately I've taken to topping the bowl with a poached egg and some salt and pepper. Occasionally I'll stir in some cooked sausage.

When I was a child Grandma used to make cornmeal mush (which I still detest) and leftovers got poured into a loaf pan and refrigerated, then sliced and fried for the next morning, eaten topped with maple syrup like pancakes. It was the only way I'd eat it. I think the next time I make oatmeal I'm going to try that and see how it is, fried slices of steel cut oats topped with an egg.

Annie

Oatmeal and sausage sounds good to me - thanks for that tip, Annie! I have some oats I need to use up, and I almost always have some sausage on hand. We smoked some recently and haven't eaten them yet, plus I have breakfast sausage in the freezer that I like but Kevin doesn't, and so I could put those just on mine. I might try the egg also. I'm always looking for breakfast variations for the week-end. I make pancakes more than anything else, now that I have a large griddle.

At some point I want to make some oatmeal bread, but haven't looked for a recipe yet.

Lars

I cheat and cook mine in the rice cooker. I set it up at night and program it so it's ready in the morning when I get up. I use it for cooking oatmeal much more frequently than I do for cooking rice.

Lars, Elery also adds cheese to his oatmeal, he says people add cheese to grits all the time, so why not oatmeal. I guess he has a point and I was following that train of thought until he added Sriracha...

I think oatmeal is "bland" enough that a person could pretty much flavor it up with anything they liked and it wouldn't clash.

Annie

What a wonderful and complete response. You're the best. Thanks a million. I'll do it. Glad to hear that I am not the only one that doesn't like the gooey pan. Barb

Steel cut oats are very good cooked in apple juice instead of water.
A trick I learned from a friend.

Jeez, i never realized it was a problem. I cook my steel cut oats right in the pan, the gluey stuff is soft, I soak the pan while I eat and it comes right off with no problem at all. I eat all hot cereal with salt and pepper--no fruit in it for me--and i can see why cheese would be good too. Maybe even Sriracha.

Annie, you hate cornmeal mush. Does that mean you hate polenta too? It's the same thing.

Unless you'd burn the bottom of the oatmeal, I can't see how the clean up would be that big of a deal. I cook them basically like I cook brown rice. Pretty much any way you can cook brown rice, you can cook steel cut oats. I've not had any luck with microwave, they've always boiled over for me even with a way over sized pan. I'm sure it can be done but you'll have to figure out the right timing on it. If you put a lid on it, it will boil over.

Yes, I also dislike polenta. And grits. It's all mush to me, no matter what's put into it.

Yes, I know, that always starts an argument over whether the much maligned or beloved grits are not mush but in my life, they are.

Annie

I have never been much of an oatmeal person but have learned to love steel cut oats. I often make mine in the slow cooker overnight (grease it first!) with apples and cinnamon on low for 7 hours - it's great.

Overnight Oatmeal: *8 servings 1 cup each

8 cups water
2 cups steel cut oats
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt - optional
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker on Low. Put lid on and cook until oats are tender and porridge is creamy, about 7-8 hours or overnight. (9 gms fiber).

Here is a method for cooking oatmeal in a pressure cooker that I think I want to try. Some people say that you should not cook oatmeal in a pressure cooker because it might splatter and clog the steam release valve, but I have cooked other things that are supposed to splatter and did not have a problem.

I like the idea of cooking them in apple juice and with pieces of apple. Then I would want cinnamon with it.

Lars

I have just recently learned to love steel-cut oats. I have always liked oats in baked goods, but as a hot cereal not so much. Kind of gooey for my taste.

BUT....I do the overnight thing similar to what Annie does. I drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of a saucepan and add 1 cup of oats. Toast them for a minute, then add 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil, remove from heat and let stand overnight. I usually move the oats to a large covered bowl, stir in a bit of brown sugar or maple syrup and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning I scoop some of the oats into a small bowl, top with a dash of half-n-half and take them to work. I also take a small bowl of chopped apple, dried blueberries and cranberries and chopped walnuts. I heat up the oats and then top with the fruit mixture for a healthy, delicious breakfast.

We ate a lot of corn meal mush when I was a kid too. I learned to detest it as well! But I do like polenta, go figure.
Maybe because polenta is topped with savory things and the mush we ate was topped with butter, sugar and cinnamon. (Which sounds good, but grew very old after a while......)

Linda

I cook a big pot (non-stick) of steel-cut on the weekend, with mega cinnamon. Then micro a bowl in the morning. It takes a while to cook, but you don't have to do anything except take it off when done. After eating the steel-cut, no way would I go back to the rolled.

For those of you that make a pot and eat later, isn't that like eating left-over food. I would think it would lose the feeling of a fresh fixed oatmeal. Am I too choosey? Barb

It is exactly like eating leftover food because it IS leftover food, but consider this..... When oatmeal is overcooked (cooked until it's nice and thick like you'd like it in the bowl), it tends to lose much of it's texture when reheated. Oatmeal will thicken up after it is removed from the heat, so stop cooking while it's still somewhat loose and liquidy to prevent over-cooking it, and you'll have a better texture when it's reheated. Allow the oatmeal to sit for 4 or 5 minutes before serving it, and it will thicken while it's sits and won't be over-cooked.

As an option to cooked and reheated oatmeal, I'd suggest trying the recipe I posted above that is refrigerated, and consume it cold or heated if the texture of cooked and reheated oatmeal is a concern and see if you like that texture better than cooked oatmeal reheated.

Over the weekend I made a pot of Pumpkin Oatmeal using soaked steel-cut oats (you could also use old-fashioned oats or quick oats), coconut milk, canned pumpkin puree leftover from another recipe I made, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice. We ate it with homemade coconut milk kefir, crispy pecans, and maple syrup over it for breakfast on Sunday.

This morning I made a batch of "Cooked Oatmeal Scones" with 1 cup of the leftover Pumpkin Oatmeal (see link below for the scone recipe). If you ever need a recipe to use leftover cooked oatmeal, this is a great one. If you have oatmeal haters in your family, this is a good recipe for them. The scone recipe calls for whole wheat flour, but all-purpose flour would work just as well. I used a gluten-free mixture of 1-cup of freshly-milled buckwheat flour and 3/4 c. almond flour for the whole wheat flour, and the recipe worked just fine. Another change I made to the recipe - instead of milk, I used more homemade coconut milk kefir, and I've also used plain yogurt, buttermilk or sour cream in this recipe and plain oatmeal.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooked Oatmeal Scones

This post was edited by grainlady on Mon, Nov 25, 13 at 14:59

What is the best oatmeal to use in cookie recipes? Just heard something about steel cut having a rough texture.

debra, I definitely wouldn't use uncooked steel cut oats in cookies, I can't imagine how hard and dry they would be!

Most of my oatmeal cookie recipes call for quick oats, but I use the old Quaker Oats recipe and I use the traditional Old Fashioned (5 minute) rolled oats because I like that chewier texture.

Annie

You can find steel-cut oats in all kinds of recipes - cookies, muffins, scones, quick breads and yeast breads (see the link below), but unless they are specifically called for in a recipe, I'd stick to quick or Old-Fashioned rolled oats.

Since steel-cut oats are the whole oat grain cut into 2 or 3 pieces without the benefit of being steamed to soften them, they also don't break down in baked goods and I personally feel it's a texture only a horse would like, but taste is subjective.....

I've made a couple different bread recipes with steel-cut oats in them, and once made a cookie recipe calling for steel-cut oats (they were not all that great - like I said, I think a horse would like them). In my waste-not, want-not thriftiness, I crumbled the cookies and made them into porridge.

I also flake whole oats in my flaker mill, and since these oat flakes aren't steamed, they are much thicker and chewier than Old-Fashioned rolled oats and they give a completely different texture.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Steel-cut Oats Recipes

Grainlady, I would greatly appreciate your pumpkin oatmeal recipe using coconut milk. The quantity of oats to pumpkin?

An online recipe used 3 c. of quick cooking oats to 14 oz. pumpkin.

The scones sound wonderful using the leftovers! Thanks.

iris_gal-

I found the recipe on-line (I believe it was Passionate Homemaking web site) and made half a recipe because I had 1/2 a cup of pumpkin left from another recipe.

Pumpkin Oatmeal

2 c. Old-Fashioned oats (if using quick oats, reduce cooking time accordingly).
3-1/2 c. coconut milk*
1 c. pumpkin puree
1 t. vanilla
1 t. pumpkin pie spice
---------
candied pecans or walnuts
(this is a great recipe and the one I used - http://savoringtoday.com/2011/01/20/sweetly-spiced-crispy-pecans/)
sweetener (maple syrup or honey)

Mix first 5 ingredients in a pan. Bring to boil and cook 5-minutes. Serve with nuts and sweetener sprinkled on the top. Additional coconut milk or regular milk if you'd like. Makes 4-5 servings.

*I used reconstituted powdered coconut milk from Tropical Traditions, and you can also make your own coconut milk at home with unsweetened coconut or the flesh from a fresh whole coconut. The link below has more information if you ever want to make your own.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: How to make your own coconut milk.

Grainlady, Thank You! Thank You !

I have a stock of coconut milk for curry and eager to try with oats. Leftovers for scones. Pure heaven.