The Apron Adventures

I finally got a slow cooker! Get ready for a plethora of crock pot recipes soon to be posted. This was the first of my many experiments.

This is an easy and nutritious breakfast that is ready to go when you are when you wake up in the morning. It’s great for when you have guests over for breakfast or if you want to make breakfast for the entire week ahead of time and eat it all for yourself! Your first time making it I would recommend cooking it during the day when you are home to prevent mushy oatmeal. The cooking time will vary depending on the type of slow cooker you use.

Ingredients

• 2 apples, diced
• 1 1/2 cups almond milk (or milk of your choice)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup steel cut oats
• 2 tbsp. honey (agave nectar, maple syrup, or brown sugar can also be substituted)
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. ground flax seed
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Directions

• Coat the inside of your slow cooker with a canola oil based cooking spray, this will prevent a messy clean up!
• Combine all ingredients into the slow cooker and stir and cover
• Cook ingredients on low for approximately 7 hours
• Add optional toppings such as sliced almonds, walnuts, cranberries, raisins, or granola

Get creative and experiment with different fruits, milks, spices, nuts, and nut butters. Next time I’m going to try it with peaches and apricots

Nutrition Information

I love finding new recipes to make with quinoa! It’s such a versatile grain and is also a complete protein providing all of our essential amino acids. This is a great breakfast that will keep you full and satisfied for hours I’ve made these quite a few times and found that its best to prepare the quinoa ahead of time (the night before) and let it cool before mixing it with the rest of the ingredients. If you are new at preparing quinoa please see my previous post Quinoa Fruit Salad for cooking tips.

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 3 egg whites
• 1/3 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt
• 3 tbsp. almond milk (or milk of your choice)
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 tbsp. lemon zest
• 1 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup fresh berries

Directions

• In  a large bowl, mix together cooked quinoa (preferably already cooled), flour, baking powder, and salt until all ingredients are evenly distributed
• In a separate bowl, whisk together egg whites, Greek yogurt, milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, brown sugar, and vanilla
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix, be careful not to over-mix as it will develop the gluten too much resulting in an overly dense texture
• Heat a large skillet to medium high heat and coat with a canola oil based cooking spray
• Drop 1/4 cup batter onto skillet and top with fresh berries
• Cook for about 2-3 minutes or until bubbles begin to appear
• Flip and cook for an additional 2 minutes or until pancake is a reaches golden brown color
• Remove from skillet and wipe clean and proceed with cooking additional pancakes
• Makes about 8 pancakes