Have you tried dried cranberries and cherries? To me they each taste like what you would expect the other one would taste like.
I buy them from the bulk bin at my regular grocery place, they’re about a $1.20 a pound that way, sometimes less. My traditional recipe is:
3 c Water
1/2 c steal cut oak
2 - 1/2 cup 2% milk
1/4 c raisins
Soak raisins in 1 cup of water. Meanwhile bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add oats & return to a boil, cook 5-7 minutes reduce heat to low. Cook approx 10 more minutes or until oats start to thicken. Drain raisins and add to oats along with 1/2 cup of milk. Let cook for 5 minutes more.
Serve. I add another 1/2 cup of milk to the top along with Equal. You can substitute whatever you’d like.
Yet another McCann’s eater here. I also eat Quaker Quick Oats. The steel-cut is better. Heartier. Nice big grains. But sometimes I’m in a hurry.
Either way, I like my oatmeal with a spoonful of strawberry jam on top.
I confess I have not. However, I just set my cooker a-goin’, so in 8 or 9 hours, I will at least have an idea of what dried cherries simmered in water and half-and-half overnight taste like. 
Dried blueberries are great. They plump up like real blueberries when you cook them in things. They might get a little too plump and explode in overnight oatmeal though, but the only problem I see with that is you will end up blueberry flavored oatmeal instead of oatmeal with blueberries.
I used to do that when I was a kid! I had totally forgotten about it until I saw this. I’m going to have to try it again.
Sorry, I didn’t have time to elaborate earlier. Dried cherries are really sour and tart, with some bitter undertones. Not my thing at all. Dried cranberries, though, tend to be very subtle and enhance whatever you eat the with. Love 'em.
I’m another steel cut oats fan here too. I simmer mine with nutmeg and cinnamon and add whatever fruit and sweetener I like. They keep very well too. I can make a big batch and have enough left for a couple of weeks worth of goodness. All I need to do it heat them and eat them.
My favorite flavor combination? Honey and sliced banana…
I used to buy mine from Trader Joe’s, but since I am no longer close to one, I buy mine in a generic bag, from a local farmer’s market. I’ll have to keep an eye out for McCann’s.
I like to leave additional sweetening out during the cooking. If fruit’s involved, there’s enough sweetness right there for me. My boy likes to add the traditional brown sugar, while my boyfriend likes honey added. Leaving it out lets everyone doctor their bowl up as desired.
I was up at around 5:30 this morning, so I headed on down to have a look-see at my creation. It was a nice and thick consistency, my dried cherries had plumped up nicely, and it needed no additional flavor enhancement at all. For the record, here’s the modified recipe I used, based on some recommendations above and offline:
I lubed up the bowl of the rice cooker with margarine to prevent an unintentional experiment in molecular bonding. Then I added one half-cup steel-cut oats, about a cup of dried cherries, 1 cup of water, and 1 cup of half-and-half. Basically, I cut Alton’s recipe in half and increased the dairy-to-water ratio considerably while decreasing the overall amount of liquid slightly.
I’m very pleased with the results and look forward to experimenting with slight variations. On Cisco’s advice above, I will give dried cranberries a try. When I was at the store getting dried cherries, I saw some packages that proclaimed they were “tart,” and I got one that did not say that, so maybe that’s why I wasn’t disappointed. I’m also curious how frozen blueberries might tolerate this method of cooking.
I also think I’m going to get a legitimate slow cooker at some point. I’m a little worried about leaving the rice cooker on all night, since I really don’t think it’s intended for that.
Next weekend: savory oatmeal with hot sausage. Yuuum.
Don’t shoot the messenger! 
If you liked the cherries you might not like the cranberries.
I’m saving all these great ideas. Gonna buy some steel cut oats at the farmers market this week.
I always thought a good savory oatmeal could be made with dried wild mushrooms but I haven’t been able to try it myself since my grocery doesn’t have the type of mushrooms I wanted. If anyone has tried it, let me know.
I went to the steel cut for the same reason, the health thing.
But I am not a sweet-cooked cereal person. I like salty: Ive always put butter and salt on my cream o’ wheat. Same deal with steel cut.
My other secret is to use less water and/or overcook: the point is to make it more like a side dish grain. I think gooey oatmeal is disgusting, and that was my biggest hurdle with it, the goo. Steel cut is less gooey to start with, but I still find it more palatable with less moisture and more chew.
I think that it was suggested here (but in another thread): I’ve been substituting a cup of buttermilk for one of the cups of water.
And count me in as another who hated oatmeal until trying steel cut.
Does overcooking help the goo? I hate oatmeal, but decided to give steel-cut a try after all the threads raving about it.
I made some last weekend and it was…edible, I guess. Very gooey, which I hate.
Is there a way to cook it so it’s more like a grain and less a porridge?
Did you just plug in the rice cooker and leave it on the “keep warm” setting as you mentioned trying? or did you actually turn it on and put it in “cook” mode?
I’d love to try steel cut oats some time, and I do have a rice cooker, but it’s just the basic model (though it’s a Zojirushi, which is a good brand) - not one of the “fuzzy logic” ones that costs an arm and a leg. And my crock-pot is far too large to do the overnight recipe.
The former, since I presumed the latter would result in at least a brief boil, which there was no mention of in Alton’s recipe. Then, because I’d never used it before, I came back downstairs an hour later to make sure it was actually doing something.
My rice cooker is a Proctor-Silex. It’s what they had at Bloodbath & Beyond when I went shopping. If I do indeed move forward with plans for a slow cooker, I’m sure I’ll get the smallest one I can.
Those little mini-crocks are great for this, and also just fun to have around for impromptu cheese or chocolate dippage. Target has one for $17, I’ve seen them on sale there and places like Kmart for $9.99. So worth it.
Less water, cook a little faster. You have to experiment. Make sure to stir it.
I let it keep cooking on low to “dry it out”, so to speak. It’s pretty yummy that way.
I’ll definitely look into those, Queen Tonya. Thanks!