Refrigerator Oatmeal

I may be unusual among oatmeal lovers in that I love my oatmeal plain - no brown sugar, no maple syrup, nothing but oatmeal.  From time to time I toss some toasted walnuts on my oatmeal, but usually I just have it plain and natural.

I have been reading quite a bit lately about refrigerator oatmeal, and I kept thinking I would like to try it, so last night I made some to sit in my fridge overnight.   Instead of rolled oats, I decided to make my first foray into refrigerator oats with steel cut oats.   I was in Buffalo, New York, over the weekend and found some quick-cooking steel-cut oats at Trader Joe's.  I bought them thinking that I would cook them the regular way, and then on the drive home, I started thinking about trying them as refrigerator oatmeal.

So this is what I did:  I mixed 1/4 cup of Trader Joe's quick-cooking steel-cut oatmeal with 2/3 cup of soy milk (I used President's Choice Original Soy Milk - available in Loblaw's in Canada), 1 teaspoon of chia seeds, 1 tablespoon of maple syrup (I know, I know, I just said I like my oatmeal plain and simple) and 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries.



I placed the oats, the soy milk, the chia seeds and the maple syrup in a two cup screw-top zip-lock jar and then stirred everything together, then I added the strawberries, screwed the lid on and placed the jar in my fridge.



In the morning the chia seeds had expanded, the oatmeal had softened to a nice degree and the gentle aroma of strawberries pervaded the mixture.  Even though I like my oatmeal plain, I don't like it cold, so I put it in the microwave for about thirty seconds.  The verdict?  It was wonderful and made a great start to another week of work.