Here’s my breakfast this morning – quinoa with apples, dates, pecans, cinnamon, allspice & cardamom…a drop of vanilla and a splash of almond milk. Didn’t even need sugar! Very nice…
Even nicer is that I cooked the quinoa in the crockpot overnight so it was ready and waiting for me in the morning when I woke up. As a single, working mother who is generally flying by the seat of my pants, I can use every time-saving opportunity that’s available to me and WHOA how I love my slow cooker!
Waking up to a meal like this is extra special in that the aroma reaches out to tickle your nose before you even get out of bed. Put your slippers on and scoot on into the kitchen where the air is warm and heavy with the scents of apples and spices…
**UPDATE: I have been thinking about this one a lot and when I made this several months ago I didn’t write anything down about it – just took the picture, scribbled a few words (it was posted on nutrimirror) and that’s it. I have been making so much in the crock pot for the past few months that I think I just lumped this in with all of that. The more I think about it, I don’t think I actually made this in the crock pot at all! More likely, I prepared the quinoa one night and just added stuff to it every morning. Sheesh. Regardless, it was delicious…and I will post a true crockpot breakfast in the near future! My apologies! 🙂 (2/10/10)
The Whole Picture 
yeah Susan!! Great idea about breakfast in the crockpot. As a kid, my mother would cook the heck out of anything in a crockpot– we would laugh, gag and call it the mystery meat dinner. So I have a natural aversion to the crockpot… but if it held a yummy healthy breakfast??? Cant wait to try this. Thanks!
I’ve got my spaghetti sauce cooking in there right now! You should break it out so you guys have dinner ready when you get home. 😉
Recipe please! That looks delicious. But I don’t know how to cook quinoa….and can you let us know how much of the other stuff you put in (approx.)? I would definitely make this. Getting tired of my instant oatmeal (even tho it is the pretty yummy organic stuff). Could you make enough of this to last for a few days?
Kim, this is so sad, but I actually made/wrote that a few months ago and when I looked through my logs I couldn’t find where I had written the ratios or the amounts of anything. I’m sorry…that is so lame! Before posting it I thought I should make it again so I could include all the information, but at the time I wasn’t sure I was going to make this public so I just went ahead with it. Since writing/photographing the breakfast quinoa, I have actually been eating tons of oatmeal, but lately I have just been adding whatever I’ve had on hand as supplies have gotten low and I haven’t really been too thrilled with the results…have eaten it all but didn’t love it. 😉
Getting the water/quinoa ratio just right in the crockpot is important, so until I make this again and can give you something accurate, try this: Buy some quinoa and make about a cup of it per package instructions: generally 2 cups water to 1 cup quinoa – and be sure to soak it first to remove the saponin – it will be bitter if you don’t soak it first. That will be a good amount to start with – make sure you like it before making a huge batch. In the morning you can just pull it out of the fridge, scoop some into a bowl, pop that into the microwave and add as much of the other things to it as you want – however you like it!
I’m glad you asked though because the feedback gives me the direction I need to develop this…Future posts will ideally have the recipe as well as the nutritional stats included from the get-go. 🙂 And…I bought a huge bag of quinoa a couple weeks ago, so there ought to be more of that to come. 🙂
I am very excited about the crockpot breakfast and will wait with toe tapping for the recipe in the picture! I too want to have that aroma tickling my nose!
Please please report on the yogurt! It seems that homemade yogurt will work well with this- but I need you opinion on that first, too!
Thanks for helping to keep us healthy and frugal!
The yogurt turned out great! I wanted to drain it to the point that it became extra thick like Greek yogurt, but I need a new way to drain it because part of it was suspended in the whey still. But it was great and the squirt loved it! I just added a little vanilla to it for her and she was happy. Next time I will try pureeing some fruit and adding that.
thanks Eva’s mom for the support – I’ll get a crock pot breakfast on here soon that actually comes with a recipe!