Zucchini Carrot Cake Overnight Oatmeal

If you've never made overnight oatmeal, you should definitely try it.  It is always great to wake up in the morning with breakfast ready and waiting.  Especially if no one has to wake up early to make it happen.  This is a slightly modified version of a recipe from "The Vegan Slow Cooker" cookbook.  (This was a gift to my husband, and I am SO glad I got it for him!  I use it all the time!)

One important thing - when making overnight oatmeal, you need steel cut oats.  Old fashioned or rolled oats are not the same and will turn into a pot of mush.  I can't stress enough - steel cut oats!

Here is what I used:

1 cup grated zucchini

1 grated carrot

1 cup steel cut oats

3 cups water

1 tablespoon Vanilla extract

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

dash of ground cloves

dash of ground nutmeg

dash of salt

1 slow cooker (I think its 3 or 4 quart capacity?)

Here's what I did:

This recipe is super easy.  Really all you do is throw everything in a slow cooker, and turn it on.  Done!  Ok, I'll go into a little more detail.  I grated my zucchini and carrot right into the crock with my croc... er... GATOR grater!  

 Its grate to be a Florida Gator!!!

Here's what it looked like once I added all the ingredients.  Give it a good stir before putting the lid on top.  My slow cooker tends to run a little hot, so I left mine on "warm" all night long (about 8-9 hours).  When I woke up, I turned it to "low" for about 30 minutes or so.  It came out perfect!

And here is the finished product.  While my kiddos didn't finish all their breakfast, they both ate a good amount, so I count that as a success!  Plus, we woke up to our house smelling like we just baked a cake, only with a healthy breakfast waiting for us instead.