Yogimommy Makes Apple-Cinnamon Wheat Berries

I found the recipe for Apple-Cinnamon Wheat Berries after following through some of the links on one of my favorite blogs, Frugal Foodie in WV.  This recipe appealed to me for a couple of reasons.  One, I had been talking about trying a breakfast-in-the-crock-pot recipe for a while.  This desire increased as the temperatures dropped by 20+ degrees in a week (it may have been more but I do not tend to follow the weather report very closely).  Whatever the change--it got chilly fast.  Two, I had found wheat berries on sale not-too-long-ago and had been looking for recipes to use them in.  I bought them as one of my steps towards eating healthier--but I am still working through the process of learning to cook with an ingredient I do not know very well. 

That being said, I am not sure that I could really consider my final product to be "this" recipe exactly. I did make quite a few changes, and so I am going to write out my ingredients:

• 4 cups of unsweetened vanilla coconut milk (I would have used almond milk if I had it on hand)
• 1 1/2 cups of Wheat Berries
• 1 cup made up of the combination of the liquid that came off the pumpkin I had steamed and then let cool and water
• 3 Fuji apples cored and cut into 1-inch pieces (I left the peel on more out of convenience but I did not mind it in the final product)
• 1/2 cup of steamed pumpkin (I had this on hand because I had steamed a pumpkin using one of my favorite kitchen tools the day before--if I make this again I would add more pumpkin)
• 1/3 cup of old-fashioned oats
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon all spice
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar (I am not sure why the recipe called for this to be added at the end--if I make this again I would put it in earlier so the wheat berries absorb more of the sweetness)
• slivered almonds (I did not really measure these out--I just put what I thought we would like in each individual bowl)
• dried cranberries (again I did not really measure these out, but after the first bowls I replaced these with bananas which my family liked better in the dish) 

I followed the directions of the recipe fairly closely, adding my additional ingredients at the beginning.  

Overall, my family liked the dish but did not necessarily love it.  The wheat berries themselves have a texture that almost pops in your mouth that was not loved by everyone.  I will say that even the next day, the wheat berries kept that texture so this dish did not dissolve into mush or lose its texture after the long cook time or after being reheated the next day.

My dad, who tends to like things a little sweeter than me, did want to add more sweetness to his dish--he was the one that originally suggested the bananas rather than the cranberries that I agreed seemed to compliment the flavors of the dish more.

If I had the ingredients on hand (and really wanted to do a breakfast-in-the-crock-pot meal), I would not be opposed to making this one again, but I do not know that I would go out of my way to collect the ingredients solely to make this recipe again.  But I did love waking up to a nice hot breakfast basically done for me, so I am definitely interested in trying more breakfast-in-the-crock-pot meals.  And I am so excited that there are a couple more interesting ones linked up with this one on the Family Circle website.