Jamie and I received a new cookbook for Christmas – Thug Kitchen.  I had never heard of them before, but I got an awakening when I started flipping through the cookbook and saw that it was peppered with profanity and cursing.  This doesn’t bother me, but I had never seen a cookbook written in this manner before.  Needless to say, it caught my attention.

I spent a few hours going through the cookbook and realized quickly that this is a meat-free cookbook.  It is funny how a title projects a certain image.  With the title of Thug Kitchen, and the cursing found throughout the book, I would have expected recipes filled with double and triple meat servings, but that isn’t the case.  This is filled with non-meat dishes that look amazing.  We will definitely be trying out more than a few of these recipes this year.

As I was going through the book, I came across a breakfast recipe for Quinoa Oatmeal.  With a quick glance of the ingredients, I knew that we had everything on hand to whip this up for breakfast.  I was excited to try out this recipe, since I have gotten into a really bad habit of not eating breakfast these past few months.  Coffee and cream count as a well-balanced breakfast, right?

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about eating quinoa for breakfast, but when it is cooked with the steel cut oats you really can’t tell that you aren’t eating oatmeal.  It has the consistency and texture of a hearty bowl of oats.  As an added bonus you are getting a protein kick from the quinoa.  It really is a win-win.

We made up a single batch, which is a serving for 4 people.  I wanted to see if this would be OK warmed up the next morning for breakfast.  If everything turned out, I was hoping that we could make this on a regular basis and just warm it up for a quick breakfast in the mornings.  It isn’t difficult to make, but it takes about 30 minutes, so making it up the night before would last us for two mornings.  A little bit of planning is sometimes all it takes to make healthy decisions.

So, on day one, we ate it with a bit of brown sugar and some berries.  It was really good and super filling.  I found that it kept me full and prevented me from snacking till lunch time.

The next morning I took the oatmeal out of the fridge and re-heated it on the stove (it is situations like this where I kind-of wish we had a microwave).  It took about 10 minutes to re-heat, but it could have been faster if I had used a bigger pan.  Re-heated it tasted just as good as the day before.  We topped it with a little bit of cream and some bananas.  Delicious!

So, as 2015 starts, I have found an easy, good-for-you breakfast that I can easily put into our morning routine.  I think that is a good start!

Courtesy of:
Thug Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 4 cups boiling water
• 1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• 1 cup steel-cut oats
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup almond milk

Directions:

1. Rinse off the quinoa (this keeps it from tasting bitter)
2. In a saucepan, heat the coconut oil and add in the steel-cut oats.  Cook the oats for about 2 minutes
3. Add in rinsed quinoa, salt and the four cups of boiling water.
4. Bring mixture to a boil and then simmer for 20 – 25 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and stir in almond milk.
6. Breakfast is served!