Monday, September 20, 2010

Extra, extra, read all about it...

"Good morning, sunshine!  What do you want for breakfast today?  Let's stay in bed and cuddle and watch the Today Show while we eat and sip our coffee.  We'll stay in our PJ's til 10 and then go out and get the mail and read it together..."

Who says that in real life?

I will say that I have the luxury of having slow mornings, being unemployed and all.  If I work too hard in the morning I won't have anything to do in the afternoon.  I don't generally wake up before 8am  ok, 8:17 to be precise.  I do wake up early when my husband has to be at work early to make him coffee and be sure he eats something. 

What do ya'll eat for breakfast?  What do you feed your kids?  I hope it's not poptarts or super sugary cereal.  Yes, I just said that.  But you can't argue with the facts; that stuff is bad for you and has little to no nutritional value.

When I meal plan, I don't typically think about breakfasts and lunches.  It's just me and my husband, so there really doesn't need to be an overload of planning in the other two meals of the day.  We don't have set breakfasts for certain days, but we do have a few things that we rotate.  We eat a lot oatmeal at our house, probably 3 to 4 mornings a week.  I purchase organic whole oats in bulk from a local source, and I would say that we go through about 3 lbs a month.  Of course, I use them in other ways besides breakfast but the bulk of it is eaten in the morning.  Here are some of our favorite add-ins, but note that we don't eat them all at the same time!
Natural peanut butter
Honey
Cream or half and half
Brown sugar
Real butter
Walnuts, almonds, pepitas, pecans...any nut or seed we have on hand!
Apples
Strawberry preserves
Cinnamon

Other mornings we'll eat whole wheat cinnamon toast and sometimes breakfast sandwiches.  You have to mix it up so you don't get tired of eating the same thing.  When our life was much busier, we ate a lot of instant oatmeal but there is so much sugar in it!  If you plan well, you can make your own instant oatmeal packets on the weekend and have them for the week.  Just take some oats, pulverize them in your food processor, and then divide them into baggies with the sweetener and add-ins of your choice.  Add to hot water and you've got a warm hearty breakfast to get you going in the morning. 

There is one morning a week where we eat so much for breakfast that we're not hungry for lunch.  That day is usually Saturday.  It will typically be a meal with either pancakes or biscuits, some kind of breakfast meat, and eggs.  Maybe even hashbrowns!

I hope you liked my little ode to oatmeal.  Have any yummy breakfast ideas to share?

1 comment:

  1. i'm on a different computer and trying to catch up on these wonderful blogs. we LOVE oatmeal at our house. i didn't know there was a nutritional difference between the instant and whole until just about two years ago. we will add banana and walnuts (my favorite) or soy milk and pumpkin with cinnamon (their favorite)

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