Turkish-ish Delight Oats

Okay, so I really don't know a thing about Turkish food, except that I know it's similar to other Middle Eastern cuisines that use tahini and apricots. When I decided to combine tahini and apricot preserves in my oat bowl a while back, I referred to the dish as Turkish Delight Oats. But since I really don't know what I'm talking about, we'll just call it Turkish-"ish."

The combination of raw tahini (or in this case, Artisana cashini butter) and sweet apricot perserves is heavenly to me, especially mixed into a bowl of hearty steel cut oats. I topped this bowl with an extra dried apricot just for fun:

Though I typically use McCann's or Bob's Red Mill steel cut oats, I picked up these freshly-ground local oats from the FunderFarm booth at the Memphis Farmers Market on Saturday:

I blogged about FunderFarm and their freshly-ground grains a few days ago when I tried their whole wheat pastry flour. Once again, fresh made such a difference. These oats were ground down a little more than the steel cut oats that I'm used to, and that made for a fluffier bowl of oatty goodness.

The recipe for my Turkish-ish Delight Oats is really quite simple, but I'll include it here along with a little tip for making oats overnight.

Overnight Turkish-ish Delight Oats
Serves 1
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1/4 cup steel cut oats
1 cup water
2 Tbsp. tahini or Artisana Raw Cashini Butter
2 Tbsp. apricot preserves

The night before, place the oats and water in a small saucepan with a lid. Bring to a boil and cover. Immediately turn off the heat. Leave the covered saucepan out overnight. This process actually soaks the oats into a cooked state so you don't have to wait 20 minutes to cook them in the morning.

The next morning, remove the lid and turn heat to medium to warm the oats. When oats are warm, remove from heat. Stir in tahini and apricot preserves. Enjoy!

Don't forget to enter the 101 Things to Do with Tofu cookbook giveaway. Details here. I'll pick a winner on Wednesday.