Steel Cut Oats with Figs, Hazelnuts and Honey

Kirsten Veng-Pedersen 2012

I've had smaller kitchens in my life.

In the efficiency apartment we shared post-college, my first live-in boyfriend and I had so little storage we had to keep our pots and pans under the futon in the living room.

Then there was the kitchen I had that was so small I couldn't open the oven door all the way and I had to store food in the dishwasher.

Yeah, for someone who's never lived in New York, I've had some pretty tiny kitchens.

And while my current kitchen storage situation isn't quite as dire as it was in the good 'ol days, it's still not ideal.

I've had to be creative (maybe not as creative as keeping microwave popcorn in the dishwasher, but creative nonetheless.) I've also had to be vigilant about what I bring into the space.

So when I picked up a $20 rice maker you can imagine my need to justify keeping the thing around.

I love the idea of "set it and forget it" when making brown rice and other hearty grains that you have to cook the bejezus out of. I do not love the idea of a unitasker taking up precious space in my kitchen.

Now maybe it's just the novelty of it but it turns out my little rice maker is super useful. I steam vegetables, prepare dumplings for lunch, make lentils and even cook hard-boiled eggs in there. One of my favorite uses, however, is to make steel cut oats.

Steel cut oats are oat kernels that have been chopped up, as opposed to rolled oats, which are oat kernels that have been steamed, rolled, steamed again and then toasted. Although they are both made of the same thing and have the same nutritional value, steel cut oats take longer to digest and therefore promote a more stable blood sugar and make you feel full longer than rolled oats do.

Oh, and they're tasty too. They have a richer, nuttier flavor than rolled oats plus more texture with an al dente feel to them. The down side to all of this is that they take longer to make. Enter the rice maker. Set it and forget it (except for stirring once at the 10 minutes mark, otherwise you risk a gooey oatmeal eruption of unincorporated liquid near the end of cooking.)

To make really delicious oatmeal, I stir in some non-fat Greek yogurt for the protein and probiotics, then sweeten thing up with brown sugar and top it off with quartered fresh figs, coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts and a decadent drizzle of honey. Easy peasy and it tastes so good you'll swear off regular oatmeal.



Steel Cut Oats with Figs, Hazelnuts and Honey

Ingredients

For two 1 1/4 cup servings of oatmeal using a rice maker
(for other ways to prepare see this link)

• 1 cup steel cut oats
• 2 1/3 cup water

For each serving of oatmeal:

• 1/4 cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt (or substitute with a splash of milk)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 4 figs, quartered lengthwise
• 1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
• honey, to taste

Directions

1. Combine water and steel cut oats in rice maker. Cover and start.
2. After about 10 minutes, stir throughly to incorporate liquid into oats.
3. When rice maker switches to warm setting, unplug it and divide oatmeal into two bowls. 
4. Mix in yogurt and brown sugar.
5. Top with figs and hazelnuts.
6. Drizzle with honey.