Carrot cake slow cooker steel-cut oats

As life gets busier, I realize how important meal prep and make-ahead meals are. I’m on the upswing from an injury and am able to start training again, granted I have to be cautious and sensible, but any kind of running is better than none at all! I’m back working again and am fortunate to be a part of the Forerunners team in North Van. It’s a great environment and my coworkers are wonderful. So, with all of these new developments, it means I’m at home less but still need to eat properly to keep fuelled for training. No one likes a hangry salesperson!

Oatmeal, or any hot cereal, seems to be a prominent runner food, probably due to its low glycemic index (it has slower digestion and absorption rates and doesn’t spike your blood glucose or insulin levels). It’s also a simple food that’s not hard on your stomach.

However, oatmeal can get a little tiresome after a while. I think I had oatmeal for breakfast every single morning for two years before rediscovering toast and remembering what I’d been missing. But, I’m back on the oatmeal train. While skimming Twitter I saw a recipe for carrot cake slow cooker steel-cut oats. I love carrot cake so this sounded like a winning recipe. Plus, you just throw the ingredients in a slow cooker, cover, and leave it for seven hours.

I left everything in the slow cooker overnight and when I woke up I had a piping-hot bowl of hearty oats to jump-start my day.

Carrot Cake Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats

Recipe from myVEGA

Yields: 4-6 servings

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 7 hours

Ingredients:

• 1 cup steel-cut oats
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 5 cups water
• 1 serving vanilla protein powder
• ¼ cup raisins
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ¼ cup chopped walnuts
• 1 tsp maple syrup (optional)

Directions:

1. Place all ingredients except the walnuts and maple syrup in your slow-cooker and cook on low for 7 hours.
2. Once oats have finished cooking, top with chopped walnuts and drizzle with maple syrup