Bunnyworm's Breakfast Couscous

  Breakfast in my home is always a challenge. You can only eat so much oatmeal or scrambled eggs before your family (and your own stomach) rebel, regardless of how creative you get. I have made al dente ramen and then scrambled an egg in the drained noodles for breakfast before. Omelets, dried fruit in the oatmeal. Quiche. You name it. It gets more wacky and creative the less eggs we have. We buy 2 1/2 dozen at least every two weeks. We go through canisters of oatmeal. We utterly devour grits (Bunnyworm likes pureed beets mixed in with her grits).

  Today, Daddybeast is off work so I wanted to make something nonstandard. I woke up and I started digging through my supercook account to see what I could make that looked even close to being breakfasty. I also added a new ingredient to my list: couscous. I bought some on special at my farmers market and I wanted to try it out. Since it was new I figured, hey, it's a grain. It'd probably make a pretty good breakfast. All the recipes I found on supercook though, were for dinner dishes. A lot of them made me drool. Curry Lamb and couscous? YES PLEASE. 

   But not for breakfast.

  So I hunted and dug around google. I love google. Yeah, they've sold us out to the NSA hardcore, but I still love them. Let's be perfectly honest here. Could most of us find ANYTHING online without google? Sure you could use yahoo or whatever other search engine, but when someone asks me to look something up online, they ask me to "google it". That's some big shit right there. That's like how we refer to adhesive medical strips as bandaids or the phrase "kodak moment" even though as of 2012, they aren't even making cameras anymore. Google might not have invented the search engine (That would be "Archie" which was made buy this guy) but it is certainly the first one that pops into my head.

  Anyhow, I digress.

  I pulled up several different recipes for couscous as a breakfast food. Ultimately, I went with the most basic recipe I found. It looked ok. I figured I'd go for it.

  However, it seemed a bit plain and I wanted to spruce it up, so I added vanilla extract, golden raisins and craisins.

raisins, golden raisins, and craisins in couscous

  Then I decided it needed some nuts. Pecans is what I had at the time.

Pecans

  And lastly, because everyone in my home is nuts about apples, I chopped up a gala apple and tossed it in.

  I cheat when I cut up apples. I have one of those apple coring/slicing tools my Gramma gave me right after Bunnyworm was born. It is one of the most useful tools in my kitchen. Wash apple, remove stem, set on cutting board, then bring that shit down. That gives you nice uniform apple wedges. Then I took my choppin' knife and I chopped those slices up till they looked like the picture to the left.

  Then I mixed everything up. It didn't look like it would be particularly good. It actually looked kinda nasty, but that's how breakfast foods look. Have you ever looked at a bowl of oatmeal and said "HOLY SHIT! I AM GOING TO EAT THE FUCK OUT OF THAT OATMEAL!"? No. Because it looks like grey souless lumpy matter. It looks like it comes predigested. At least this is colorful.

  Anyhow, I portioned it out into 3 bowls. One for me, one for Daddybeast, and one for Bunnyworm. While I was doing this I had 3 crying cats pawing at my legs begging me for wet catfood. Bjorn likes to sit right behind my legs so I trip over him when i turn around. Remember: cats are assholes.

  For a sweetener, you can use just about anything. The original recipe called for either honey or agave nectar. We used honey, but there is no reason why you couldn't use sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup (yum!), stevia, splenda (except the fact that artificial sweeteners are TERRIBLE for you), etfc. Each will marginally change the taste, but without a sweetener, this tastes really bland with occasional bursts of raisin or apple or whatever.


Here is my modified recipe:

2 cups milk (we used 2%)
1 cup couscous
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup craisins (dried cranberries)
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1 medium gala apple, chopped
honey/other sweetener to taste

  First, put your milk in a pot and set it to high CAREFULLY because milk will burn. This should never boil. You just want to get the milk hot. When it starts to steam, reduce your heat all the way down to simmer.You *could* just let the milk go on medium heat, but I'm impatient and you would be too if you had a toddler screaming at you because she was hungry.

  Put your c/raisins in a bowl and pour some water over them and let them soak.

  Add your couscous, stirring to make sure it's all under the milk's surface. Go ahead and add your vanilla extract now. Cover it and let it cook for 5-6 minutes (mine took about 7 minutes to absorb all the milk).

  While the couscous is cooking, chop up your apple and your pecans if they aren't already chopped.

Bunnyworm's bowl, with honey drizzled over

  When the couscous has absorbed the milk, remove from heat. Drain your c/raisins and mix them, chopped pecans and apple slices in. Then you can decide which sweetener to use. I sweetened each person's food individually because Daddybeast is diabetic. I always let him choose what and how much to use. Bunnyworm and I used honey. Be careful you don't add too much. I found that 2 tbsp was enough for my adult portion. Bunnyworm likes things really sweet so she also got 2 tbsp (and sticky).