The Painted Apron

Anyone that cooks regularly and tries new things knows this dirty little secret, sometimes recipes turn out badly!  AGHHH! I hate it when that happens!  Cooking is basically a scientific experiment, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t…I have even had tried and true recipes bomb…so you have to laugh it off and move forward with something else.  This morning I had major failure…

It all started innocently enough, I decided to try an overnight oatmeal slow cooker recipe.  I had a recipe on “the Paint Bucket” this month for overnight no cook oatmeal.  That is more of a summer recipe using fruit and the refrigerator so going into fall I thought it might be nice and adjust it to a warm oatmeal.  I had a recipe in my “TO TRY” file for Slow Cooker Oatmeal, not sure where it came from, and I used that as a guide.

The recipe that is on my Bucket List this month is OVERNIGHT NO COOK OATMEAL

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Here’s the recipe:

SLOW COOKER OATMEAL

2 cups steel cut oats  [I used just regular oats]
1 diced apple
1 cup dried cranberries [I used craisins]
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup chopped pecans [I used walnuts]
3 cups water
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons butter

1. Combine the oats, apple, cranberries, almonds, pecans, water, milk, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and butter in a slow cooker. Cook on Low overnight or 8 hours.

I tossed everything, except for the liquids and the apple, into a crock pot sprayed with cooking oil, as I was making dinner.  Right before I went to bed I chopped the apple and added the milk and water.

This literally took less than 5 minutes from gathering ingredients to ready to cook.  I was feeling proud of myself and oh so “I am SO Miss Organized!”  Hungry Husband usually has cold cereal for breakfast so this will be a warm, welcome treat tomorrow when the low is 50. Hey, that’s freezing around here! So with a smile I covered the pot and switched it to low and went to bed dreaming of cinnamony apples…

In the morning I could catch the scent as I neared the kitchen…I couldn’t wait to take a peak…Ohhh! well, it looked pretty good…and it did smell amazing, almost like caramel apples…now for a taste.   Hmm…it was very hot, and the texture was well, well it was weird…not lumpy, chunky like oatmeal but more soupy….I decided to turn it off and let it sit for an hour while HH was getting ready for work.  Maybe it would firm up.

“It looks just like beef stew” he said, “Is there meat in it?”  It was definitely nasty looking!  But being the trooper he is, he fixed a bowl and ate it anyway…well, he ate most of it, ok, some of it.  His comment was “It is definitely going to stick to my ribs because it sure is sticking to the spoon and my bowl!” Ha!  I love HH!  I bet he’s nervous about dinner tonight… oh yeah, he also said “I’m going to be hungry at lunch!”  Sweet, he knows better that to tell me it was TERRIBLE!

I took another taste and promptly emptied the mess down the garbage disposal. The pot is currently soaking in the sink, where it will probably be most of the day…that was some kind of sticky stuff.

Now, I know there are lots of recipes out there for crock pot oatmeal so let me know if you have a good one.  I do think one thing I did which could have definitely affected the outcome was that I used regular Quaker oats instead of steel cut oats.  Sometimes substitutions do matter…

We will laugh about this a lot in the future.  Interpret that to mean that HH will be endless in his joking about it…I should make him his favorite dinner to make up for breakfast!  Uh oh,  his very favorite dinner is BEEF STEW!

Here’s a quick & easy recipe that I made yesterday also, and this one was successful!

This is on my Bucket List this month as CHOCOLATE CRACK

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Here’s the recipe:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 12 x 17 inch jelly roll pan with foil. Place saltine crackers salt side up and side-by-side in the pan as tightly as possible without overlapping. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan melt butter over medium heat stirring frequently with a spatula. Once butter has melted, add brown sugar and vanilla stirring to combine. Cook for about 5 minutes or until mixture is an even brown color and has begun to bubble. Remove from heat and pour over saltines using spatula to spread sauce.
Bake crackers for 5 minutes or until butter mixture begins to bubble. Remove from oven and sprinkle evenly with chocolate allowing the heat to melt the chocolate. Return to oven if necessary for 1 minute. Spread chocolate evenly with the spatula so all of the crackers are completely covered. Refrigerate until chocolate sets and hardens. Break apart and serve.

This couldn’t be more simple, just lay the crackers out on the foil lined pan

Make the butter topping sauce

Stir the brown sugar into the melted butterCook about 5 minutes until it starts to bubble

Pour the hot mixture over the pan of saltines and quickly spread with a spatula

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes

Top the hot crackers with chocolate and let it melt a minute-return to the oven if needed, just for a minute

Now that IS a hot mess! Let cool off enough to stick in the fridge to finish cooling

When candy has cooled thoroughly, break it into small cookie size pieces, it will be brittle but not as hard as toffee

Just break it down until it’s a size you like

and store in a tightly covered container or canister

Do I have your attention now?

I tucked some under a mini dome on the kitchen island for anyone passing through…

This candy would make a GREAT Gift from the Kitchen!