Apple Pie Oatmeal in the Crock Pot

We really enjoyed our apple picking trip to Parlee Farms this year (thank you Amy for the recommendation!).  It was a very fun place with gigantic apples, tons of pumpkins, yummy treats, lots of animals and a very fun hay play area!  It didn't take long to pick the apples because with them being so big the bag filled up in no time at all.  But, it was a perfect outing with a 2 year old for sure.

I used up the last of our apple picking apples on this delicious recipe.  Well, all except one apple.  I saved the one that is absolutely perfect and wish I could just preserve it to look at!  Isn't it amazing?  Leaf and all!  I picked that one myself!

Anyway, I made this breakfast recipe last night in preparation for today.  My husband eats breakfast at 4:30 in the morning and as much as I love him, there was slim to no chance that I was getting up at 2:00 to prepare this.  But the thought of some hearty warm oatmeal to start his day was worth making it the night before and warming it over this morning and it tastes great!

I found this recipe here at Kalyn's Kitchen.  I found my favorite, previously shared Sausage Soup recipe on the same blog so as soon as I found this I knew it was going to be a success!

I doubled the recipe so I'll list below what I did.  I will be honest that I did not do any fancy math or conversions so I'm sure there may be a better way to list these ingredients but oh well...


Ingredients:

4 large apples, seeds removed and coarsely chopped, no need to peel them) - I used gigantic apples so you may need to add more

6 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

6 cups water (more if you like thinner oatmeal)

3 cups rolled oats (I used Old Fashioned Quaker Oats)


Directions:

Cut apples into pieces (original recipe suggests cutting them into different sizes so some will dissolve while others stay chunky).  My apples were pretty chunky so I'll probably cut about half of them a bit smaller next time.  They really don't get mushy with the short cooking time.

Spray crock pot with nonstick spray.

Add the apples, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt.

Add 6 cups of water (a little more if you want your oatmeal more runny, mine was pretty thick).

Stir together and cook on high for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Add oatmeal and stir.

Cook on high for an additional 45 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes depending on how soft you want your oatmeal to be.  I cooked mine for an hour.

Serve warm.

I stored mine in the fridge and heated bowlfuls in the microwave for about a minute.  You can add a little water to the bowl before heating if the oatmeal seems too thick.  You could also heat in a pan on the stove if you prefer.