triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Crockpot For Breakfast

One of the reasons crockpot users are so enthusiastic about them is that you can set up a meal before you leave for work, and have dinner ready when you get home. What most folk don't realize is that you can also set up breakfast before you go to bed and have it ready in the morning.

I first ran into the idea on the Usenet frugalista group almost a decade ago. The recipe posted then was:

Overnite Rice Pudding:

1 cup rice
6-8 cups milk
1 cup sugar (I would recommend brown sugar for flavor; and I certainly wouldn't do like the creator of this recipe and consider using two cups of sugar)
1/4 cup dried raisins
cinnamon to taste (I'd start with a quarter tee)

Cook on low over night.

I loved the concept, but the use of milk turned me off. We eat lots of cheese, I eat lots of yogurt, but I having drunk any milk since I was a calf and haven't poured any over cereal in at least fifteen years. We rarely even have any in the house. Besides, regular rice in the microwave is so fast and easy that I'd find it silly going to this much work to cook it. So when our life shifted to where doing something like this made sense for us, I went looking for other recipes.

Green Chili Grits:

2 cups regular grits
6 cups water
1/2 teaspoon paprika (optional)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
4 to 6 ounces chopped mild green chile (New Mexican if you have it)
1 or more jalapeno chiles, seeded and finely chopped
dash cayenne

Combine all ingredients in the Crock Pot and cook on low for 6 to 9 hours. Whatever is left after breakfast can be refrigerated in a loaf pan, and then sliced and fried for dinner.

Overnite Oatmeal:

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 to 1 cup chopped dates, apples, or raisins, or combination, optional
4 cups water
dash salt
maple syrup or granulated or brown sugar, to sweeten

Spray Crockpot with non-stick spray. Combine ingredients in crockpot; cook
on low for 8 to 10 hours. Stir in sweetener when almost done. Serves 8 as found, which is more people than I've made breakfast for in a while, but adjusting is a simple matter of arithmetic.

In other news, I have continued experimenting with my Dragon Wings, and have posted an update to the original recipe.

Update:

My wee wifey just sent me another recipe for crockpot cereal:

1/4 cup cracked wheat
1/4 cup buckwheat groats (kasha)
1/4 cup oatmeal (real oatmeal or at least what they now call od-fashioned)
1/4 cup pearl barley
1/4 cup brown rice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups water

Combine all the ingredients in a crockpot set on LOW temperature and cook overnite. Again, quantities can be adjusted, as long as your crockpot is small enough that you aren't starting with a thin layer on the bottom.

Posted by triticale at March 3, 2005 09:24 PM