Mmmm...Oatmeal

I am a Crock-Pot novice. I received a lovely Crock-Pot as a gift a couple of years ago, and I think I used it once when we lived in Texas. However, it did not make the move to New York with us. So, after 6 years of sitting in a box, it has finally emerged...and mostly sits in a cabinet. I will occasionally pull it out, study it a little quizzically, and then shrug and put it back in the cabinet. I simply don't know what to so with it.

I heard a rumor about the ease of cooking oatmeal in a Crock-Pot. And frankly the idea of going to bed and waking up to a warm, steaming pot of cinnamon-y, brown sugar-y oatmeal sounded blissful. So I Googled it, and found a great blog with a simple recipe for Crock-Pot oatmeal. We tried it last weekend, and it is awesome. Simple, hearty, and delicious. If you like oatmeal, give it a shot!

I actually read the recipe wrong, and made the whole thing with 4 cups of milk, instead of 4 cups of water and a 1/2 cup of milk or half & half. It turned out great anyway, creamy and delicious. So you could always play around with the amount of liquid based on the consistency you like, and the ratio of milk to water, depending on the creaminess you like.

All credit goes to www.mommyskitchen.net

Overnight Crock Pot Oatmeal

1 cup steel cut oats (this won't work with regular oats or quick cooking oats - too mushy)
4 cups water (if using a slow cooker liner decrease the water to 3 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup half and half or milk
1 cup dried fruit of choice
(apples, raisins, cranberries, apricots etc)
or 1 - fresh apple (chopped)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 - tbsp butter
1/2 - tsp vanilla extract
2-3 Tablespoons cinnamon sugar

First off find a bowl that will hold four cups of liquid, and fit inside your crock pot with the lid on. Measure out one cup of Steele cut oats. Pour that into the inner bowl. Add the four cups of water, milk or half and half, brown sugar, vanilla, butter and cinnamon sugar. If you would like to add dried fruit or a cut up apple the add it as well. Fill the crock with water to about halfway. Set the inner bowl in the crock and see how high the water rises. Add more water in the crock if necessary. Try to match it so that the water reaches about the same height on the outside of the oats bowl or just below the bowl. Place the lid on your crock pot. Set on low and go to bed. When you get up the next morning your oatmeal should be cooked perfectly in that steamy water bath.

Reeling

Have you ever had that experience where suddenly, without any warning, your legs are knocked out from under you? You are cruising along just fine, when something earth-shattering hits. And your shell of self-reliance is crushed, leaving you feeling immeasurably vulnerable, shaken, fragile.

I have a had a few of those this year. Days, or several days, that have left me reeling. Feeling un-anchored. Lost. Helpless.

And invariably, our loving and gracious God has used these moments as learning experience. A teachable moment - ha. At the time it felt like being thrown in the deep end without knowing how to swim.

The striking thing about these particular moments I'm thinking of is that God allowed them to happen at times when all my earthly "crutches", so to speak, were nowhere to be found. We all have those people around us who hold us up, strengthen us. Those we call first when something happens. Those who bear our burdens as gladly as we bear theirs. These are people God has graciously placed in our lives, and I believe He loves us in a very tangible way through them. But sometimes, at least with me, He has to remind me again in a very real way that while these people can help support me, He alone is my foundation. It is fine to lean on those who know and love me, but He alone must be the source of my strength.

Several of these moments have come this year when Kevin was traveling, friends were out of town, family was unavailable or unable to offer help. And the feeling of being completely alone was staggering. And in those moments, I could almost feel His hand on my back, reminding me that He was there...where He always is.

I am getting better, and faster, at turning to Him first, and leaning on others second. It is a hard lesson, and one I hope I hurry up and learn so He'll stop letting all this crap happen to me and around me. But I am, as ever, a work in progress.

Connections

It's 7:45pm on Tuesday night. It has been a day. Not particularly good or bad...just another day. Cameron is running a slight fever, but mostly doesn't seem bothered by it. It just makes him sleep a lot. And, no, I'm not complaining.

I hop off the couch about 7:30pm figuring I should start dinner (and by "hop", of course I mean roll my tired, pregnant self off the heating pad permanently located on the couch and shuffle slowly to the kitchen). Hmm...what to make on Tuesday night? Ah, that good old stand-by. Soup.
I love soup. I love making soup. I have a million variations I have made up over the years, and as soon as the weather turns pleasantly chilly, I start making soup. Poor Kevin emerges in the spring slightly waterlogged from the sheer volume of soup we have consumed.

Tonight, it's split pea. What could be simpler than onion, garlic, chicken stock, and a bag of dried split peas? Picking through the peas tonight brought back memories of picking through pinto beans with my grandmother. I feel like few family gatherings passed, large or small, that didn't include a pot of beans, simmered for hours with bacon or a ham hock. And you always had to pick through the dried beans first to make sure no small stones made it into the pot. This was a perfect job for small fingers, and I was often recruited to do it. But I didn't mind, mostly. I got to do it at the table in my grandmother's kitchen, and she was there. Being in her kitchen also meant I had a good chance of licking the bowl from the oatmeal cake icing, sweet talking a piece of candy from the top of the fridge or sneaking some of her homemade peanut brittle.

And as I picked through peas in New Jersey, I thought of her all the way down in south Texas. And I missed her. But this one small pot of Tuesday night split pea soup made me feel connected to her. And grateful for her.

It's Coming Along

As is all to often my habit, it has been weeks (okay, months) since I posted. It has been a full few months getting settled into our new home, town, routine and lives. We love our house, and still look around and think, "I can't believe this is ours". Cameron loves the space, and will still run laps around the dining room table for the sheer joy of having room to run. We have a few odd boxes in the corner of our study, awaiting the perfect bookshelves, and I still have a few unorganized cabinets that drive me crazy, but other than that, we feel pretty settled.

Here are a few highlights from the last few weeks:

-- We bought a car... the first car we've had in 6 years. And then 4 weeks after we got it, we hit a deer and wrecked the front. After a couple of weeks in the shop, it seems to be as good as new.

-- We had our first house guests for Labor Day weekend. If you want to make yourself crazy, invite people to come stay in your home 2 weeks after you move in. Fortunately, the Cohen's are basically family, so we didn't feel the need to have everything "done" before they got here. They brought their adorable twin daughters, Emma & Avery, who made poor Cameron's head spin. He spent the whole weekend with a look on his face that said, "who are these girls and WHY are they playing with MY toys?!?"

-- My parents came to visit for a week at the end of September. We spent a lovely weekend with them in Cooperstown visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame, and then just hung out the rest of the week. Cameron (and Nana & Papa) were in heaven.

-- We spent a week at the beach in Corpus with Kevin's mom and sister Jamie (in visiting from Panama). It was great fun introducing Cameron to the ocean! Kevin and I also got a weekend away to California, leaving the Mini in the capable hands of Grammy & AJ (that's Aunt Jamie).

-- Cameron had his first year trick or treating around our new neighborhood. He discovered a new and obsessive love of Reese's peanut butter cups. Can you blame him? Okay, I know I'm a little biased, but can you even stand the cuteness?


-- And I guess the only other thing going on is the anticipation of Baby #2 coming in March 2010. I'm at about 20 weeks, and other than back pain, am feeling pretty good. Pregnancy the second time around is a whole new ballgame, as I know you moms-of-more-than-one know. But that's a conversation for another post.

So there's our news in a nutshell. I hope everyone is enjoying the fall, and looking forward to eating too much food and watching a lot of football next week.