A Twist on Breakfast

One morning last month was I was running later than even my usual five to ten minutes, I had to grab breakfast on the run. I had just heard a radio commercial about Jamba Juice's $1 oatmeal deal, so despite the fact that I had long written off the lumpy-looking, beige-colored  goo as too reminiscent of Oliver Twist's sad little meals, I gave it a whirl. Lo and behold, I found it delightfully non-Dickensian.

Last night, the memory of the oatmeal surfaced when I was trying to think of ways to use the quickly softening strawberries from last Sunday's farm box. Thanks again to my trust sidekick Google, I learned that one can make oatmeal overnight in the slow cooker. Magical. The major complaints I found about this method were that cooking it for longer than six hours or so resulted in the dreaded porridge-like substance and that cleaning the crockpot was a real biatch. Problem number one was solved by using this brilliant recipe that uses the crockpot like a double boiler, and problem number two was solved by having my night owl of a husband plug the slow cooker in before he went to bed around midnight. I flipped it to 'warm' when I got up at the ungodly hour of 5:15 and enjoyed a delicious and healthy breakfast upon my return from the gym. Well done internet, well done.