Hi Anita – I use heavy cream because that’s usually what I have on hand, but any of them would work.

Thanks so much Natalie! The pressure cooker really is the best way to make steel cut oats.

Hi Euayne – when you’re sauteing the oats in butter it’s called toasting the oats. There isn’t any bread toast involved.

Thanks Melissa – glad you enjoy it. I think thawed frozen strawberries would work well in this recipe without any changes.

Gayle, I’m so glad you mentioned the blood sugar spike issue for people with impaired glucose metabolism or diabetes (any grain can spike glucose levels, actually, no matter how “whole” it is, because grains’ high starch content is quickly broken down into glucose and absorbed).

I Do love oats, but after experimenting using the suggestions at bloodsugar101 dot com, I find I must strictly limit my oat consumption (a few years after a gestational diabetes pregnancy I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes due to impaired first phase insulin response, and I’m working hard to avoid progressing to full-blown diabetes by sticking to a minimally processed real food diet and testing my blood sugar after meals often). When I do eat oats, it’s in VERY small portions (no more than 1/2 cup cooked) and always with other foods that contain fat and protein (like an equal or larger portion of whole milk yogurt and a handful of nuts) to avoid a blood sugar level that goes up too high for too long. Less processed oat forms (such as steel cut oats) cause might raise blood glucose a bit slower and lower than super-high spiking highly refined oats like those in Cheerios* and instant oat products, but my own repeated blood glucose testing after eating various forms of oats have shown me that I need to be careful even with steel cut oats. All starch converts to glucose eventually – so limiting starch minimizes the stress on my ability to utilize glucose.

*Cheerios is not the “heart healthy” cereal the manufacturer and AHA would have us believe – Cheerios is a highly refined and processed form of oats – practically an instantly absorbing bowl of glucose – the highest blood sugar level I have ever had from food was after a bowl of Cheerios with a little milk equaling 75 grams of carbohydrate – sort of like a home version of a glucose tolerance test. Research very strongly indicates that chronically high post-meal blood sugar levels are a much better predictor of heart disease than any cholesterol numbers, but the fear of natural fat & cholesterol and processed grain food industry influence over the past half century overshadowed the stronger BG-CVD evidence.

I do frequently cook whole oats (from the bulk bin) or steel cut oats in the pressure cooker for my teenage son, however, I always soak the (untoasted) oats overnight (or at least a few hours) in filtered water and a spoonful of plain live culture yogurt to neutralize the substantial amount of phytic acid (phytate) content in oats that can bind with minerals and prevent absorption. I just start the soaking after dinner or before bedtime in a bowl inside my electric Instant Pot pressure multi-cooker (with a trivet and water in the liner pot) and cook it in the morning – it’s so easy and finishes cooking in a few minutes (soaked oats also cook very fast in a regular pan on the stove or in the microwave). I often also include a bit of untoasted buckwheat groats or buckwheat flour with the soaking oats because buckwheat contains a substantial amount of phytase (oats don’t contain much phytase, and human digestive systems don’t make very much); phytase is an enzyme that breaks down grains’ high phytate content).

Essentially, the traditional method (pre-industrial) of preparing oats and other grains by soaking before cooking improves digestibility, nutrition content, as well as neutralizes problematic anti-nutrient compounds that are high in all grains (soaking imitates nature – contact with moisture initiates the seeds’ sprouting process by neutralizing sprouting inhibitors – but it also makes seeds easier to digest). When my dad was a kid in the 30s and 40s, oatmeal containers always included instructions to soak before cooking, but for some reason they don’t now, so that knowledge has been lost by the generations raised on processed, packaged foods. More info is at http://www.westonaprice.org/beginner-videos/proper-preparation-of-grains-and-legumes-video-by-sarah-pope