Baked Sweet Potato Oatmeal with Pecan Streusel

Despite the fact that the days are slowly getting warmer, the mornings are still pretty cool and a bowl of oatmeal still hits the spot for breakfast. I had been wanting to try doing a baked oatmeal for a while and I figured that I should do it now before the morning get too warm. Sweet potatoes are still in good supply and I was thinking about the sweet potato casserole that I had made a while ago and wondering if I could make a baked oatmeal version. I prefer using steel cut oats to rolled oats when making oatmeal but I could not find a recipe for a steel cut oats baked oatmeal. In the end I decided to just modify the rolled oats recipe for the steel cut oats. Steel cut oats require more liquid and more cooking time but you can cut down on the cooking time by soaking the oats overnight which is what I decided to do. I roasted the sweet potatoes in the oven until they were nice and soft and starting to caramelize for added flavour. Maple syrup seemed like a natural addition and keeping with the sweet potato casserole theme I went with a pecan streusel topping. I had to wait to add the streusel topping until the oatmeal had cooked enough that the streusel would not just sink into the oatmeal so I added it part way through the cooking process. The baked sweet potato oatmeal turned out really good! It was nice and warm and sweet and really creamy on the inside with a slightly crisp topping. The sweet potato flavour really came through and of course it worked well with the pecan topping. It was like having dessert for breakfast. In fact, a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream would probably go really well on it.

Baked Sweet Potato Oatmeal with Pecan Streusel

(makes 4 servings)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup steel cut oats
4 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cup sweet potato (cooked and mashed)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup pecans (chopped)
1/4 cup flour
3 tablespoons butter (softened)

Directions:
1. Mix the steel cut oats and the milk in an 8 inch baking dish and let sit over night.
2. Mix in the sweet potato puree, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and salt.
3. Bake, covered, in a preheated 350F oven until most of the liquid has been absorbed, about for 30-40 minutes.
4. Mix the brown sugar, pecans, flour and butter and pour it onto the oatmeal and bake, uncovered until golden brown on top, about 20 minutes.

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Sweet Potato Pecan Pie