Pumpkin pie oatmeal

Pumpkin pie oatmeal.

     As you can imagine, I receive many food related e-mails.  I was perusing an e-mail from MyFitnessPal entitled "10 slow cooker breakfasts under 350 calories."  I've been trying to shed some pounds, use up all my old pumpkin related food items (I'm afraid I go rather crazy around fall pumpkin season) and use the slow cooker feature of a new cooking appliance I bought called an Instant Pot.  This recipe combined all three elements so I decided to try it out.

Pumpkin pie oatmeal from http://www.aroundmyfamilytable.com/pumpkin-pie-oatmeal/

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups steel cut oats
• 4 1/2 cups water (depending on if you like thicker or thinner oatmeal)
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree (about half a can)
• 2 tsps pure vanilla extract
• 2 tsps pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4- 1/2 cup brown sugar

Procedure:

1. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Stirring occasionally if you can.
2. Season to taste with salt and/or more brown sugar.
3. ©Around My Family Table

     My Instant Pot cooked it beautifully.  It looked and smelled wonderful.  The taste was, alas, just... so so.  It certainly didn't resemble pumpkin pie.  It just tasted blah.. overspiced even.  Like oatmeal and cinnamon but not sweet enough.  Even adding more brown sugar didn't really do much.  I felt like it was perhaps a bit heartier because of the pumpkin, and it did made a lot of oatmeal (I am still finishing it off almost two weeks later), but this is probably not a recipe that I will make again.  Oh well. I suppose not all recipes can be amazingly delicious.