"Back to Breakfast" at Cindy's Porch!
It is amazing how much better a person feels when they start the day with a good breakfast.
It sounds so simple: “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
A person doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the body needs fuel to get it moving, to get the energy stores built up, and to help us concentrate. A car that only runs on gas fumes is eventually going to peter out and stop. A body that only runs on the previous night’s supper is eventually going to peter out and stop.
Breakfast is all about mornings. The quality of your breakfast depends on the quality of your mornings (and the night before).
Morning is probably the most chaotic part of the day. Everyone is trying to get up, get moving, and get out the
door at the same time. And if you are not trying to get yourself out the door, you are trying to get the kids, spouse, and pets out the door. And while doing this you are tracking down homework, favorite shirts, missing shoes, lost keys, the cat, the hamster (hopefully not at the same time as the cat!), and your oldest child (who is still hiding under the covers in bed - ten minutes before the bus arrives!) YIKES! No wonder there isn't time for breakfast!
The reality is that in many homes, breakfast is the least important PART of the morning. It's funny, we spend more time on the "outside" of our bodies (morning shower, hair, makeup, teeth, and picking clothes) than we do
on the "inside" of our bodies (a good breakfast).
Let's turn this around and go "Back to Breakfast"!
Keep Good Ingredients in Your Home
 I am a huge fan of saving money whenever I go grocery shopping. This doesn’t mean I choose “cheap” over quality. I am more likely to make a good breakfast for my family and me when the fridge and pantry are stocked with interesting ingredients and food choices. Knowing what to buy takes a little planning. And planning breakfast is just as important as planning supper.
Breakfast ingredients we keep in our home:
- In-season fresh fruits (Nature's own fast food!): We have a huge fruit bowl on our kitchen table. I keep it filled with apples, oranges, grapefruits, plums, peaches, pears, bananas, grapes, melons, etc. I choose fruits that are in-season and priced right. When the grapes are too expensive, they stay in the store and I choose something else. When blueberries, strawberries, peaches, and cherries are available fresh from the fields I buy extra and stock up my freezer. Then we can enjoy these healthy treats all winter long.
- In-season veggies: for breakfast? Yup, the breakfast police will NOT come knocking on your door if your teenager decides to munch on a carrot or a red pepper instead of an orange for breakfast. Fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach taste great on eggs. And fried potatoes (made in the oven without the fat) fill you up in a hurry.
- Milk: We drink milk in our family. A glass for breakfast, lunch, snack, and supper. The kids drank whole milk when they were small and then switched to the 1% that my husband and I drink. I know we should switch to skim milk, but none of us like the taste, so we have settled on the 1%. I rarely buy chocolate milk – only once in awhile for some variety in the lunch boxes. I never buy the “junk-food” milk that is currently sold in the dairy section. That’s the stuff flavored like chocolate bars or strawberry cheesecake. CHA CHING!
- Other dairy products: Yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese, and hard cheese make great additions to the breakfast table. Again, I purchase these when the price is right. I’ve noticed over the past few months that the price of yogurt in our area has doubled. I’m thinking it might be time to try making home-made yogurt (we’ve never done this before).
- Eggs: It only takes a few minutes to scramble an egg. Top it with some grated cheddar cheese and chopped fresh tomato (and basil from the garden) and serve it on warm whole wheat toast. Mmmmmm! We spent a good part of last summer teaching the kids how to cook eggs for breakfast (I had to do some learning too LOL). This included scrambled eggs, egg burritos, micro-waved scrambled eggs, poached eggs, and omelets. Since then, we are often treated to a new morning egg creation from one of the kids. Delicious – and simple!
- Bread (and buns, bagels, pitas, tortillas, and muffins): Choose breads that are high fibre and whole wheats (leave the white stuff in the store). If you have a bread maker set it up on the counter the night before for fresh bread in the morning. Are you and your family hooked on the pasty white stuff? Try buying one loaf of white bread and one loaf of whole wheat bread. Then make sandwiches with one slice of each. One day, stop buying the white stuff.
- Cereal: this is a touchy “ingredient” because cereal is the most common breakfast out there. Unfortunately many of the cereals are made with sugars and wimpy carbs. And they taste great! My husband is one of those people who doesn’t like sweet stuff. He will often cook a batch of grains for himself. He loves it. I can’t stand it (I am a sweet gal LOL). So I compromise – oatmeal. We all love oatmeal (made with milk, not water). Oatmeal is inexpensive, healthy and tastes great with a little bit of brown sugar and a couple spoonfuls of frozen berries. We eat it about two or three times a week during the winter. This winter, I am going to teach the kids how to make it themselves. As for that sugary cereal? We still buy the occasional box during the summer (when the price is right). If you want to see how sweet our cereals have become, try to find a box where none of the first two ingredients is sugar (or glucose, fructose, or sucrose). I do this with the kids when we are shopping, it takes them a LONG time to find one.
- Baking supplies: for whole wheat (or rye) breads, pancakes, muffins, and other breakfast goodies.
- Bacon, sausage and ham. How come the yummiest parts of the “standard” breakfast are amongst the greasiest and fattiest? We still enjoy our bacon, sausage, and ham – but we save them for the weekends. And then we enjoy ONE slice of bacon or ONE sausage. Too many of them and I will start to look like a sausage LOL. Another goal I have is to take another look at tofu and some of the other vegetarian protein alternatives that are available in the stores (I am going to have to hunt down a good soy cookbook from the library first!).
Set Up a Weekly Breakfast Schedule
No more "there's nothing for breakfast!" You've got a plan.
The idea of a weekly breakfast came in from one of our readers. It is a great way to start if you are trying to simplfy breakfast. She has six children and another due in a couple months (wow! talk about morning chaos). Her requirements are that breakfast must be simple, inexpensive, and require NO THOUGHT. So she created this weekly breakfast schedule for her family.
- Monday – waffles, juice
- Tuesday – oatmeal made with milk, juice
- Wednesday – homemade fruit bread (banana, pumpkin, etc.) Yogurt purchased in the big tubs for less than $2.00, juice, or milk (double the recipe and freeze for the next week).
- Thursday – oatmeal again, juice. It is our cheapest breakfast and probably the healthiest.
- Friday – egg sandwiches, juice
- Saturday – cereal. Sometimes something sugary and awful, sometimes something more healthy. They only get it once a week so I don’t stress about it.
- Sunday – Out the door early, so it’s every man for himself.
Brilliant! Not only does the family know what is for breakfast, but you also know exactly what to put on your grocery list. And any time you have plan when you are shopping, you save money. Print out a blank schedule from Cindy's Porch. Then talk to your family about their breakfast favorites and plan out what is going to be cooked on Monday, Tuesday, etc. Post the schedule on the fridge and everyone will know what the "daily special" is going to be.
Twas the night before breakfast….
A good morning starts with a good breakfast. And a good breakfast
starts with a little planning the night before.
Twas the night before breakfast....
This is a great tip from one of our readers (thank-you!). Do you have kids (or perhaps even you) who are simply not hungry in the morning? How do you ensure everyone arrives at the breakfast table hungry and ready to eat? Eat supper at a reasonable time (i.e. NOT after 7:00 pm) and then shut down the kitchen for the evening. Limit bedtime snacks. If your little ones are hungry or thirsty, offer them a small glass of water. Within a few days, you will discover that your family has developed the breakfast habit! They will be hungry in the morning.
Take a few minutes in the evening to get ready for the next day. You will be amazed by how much time in the morning you can free up. And when you have time, you have less morning chaos!
- Dig out any cooking pots, frying pans, griddles, wooden spoons, egg flippers, and/or pancake flippers that you may need and set them up on the stove.
- Set the table for breakfast. Put some fresh fruit on a bowl in the middle of the table to encourage the family to help themselves.
- If you are a coffee or tea drinker in the morning, set up the tea kettle or coffee pot. If you are trying to wean yourself from the morning caffeine hit, ensure you have another morning drink ready to go (juice, milk, water, etc).
- If you are going to have to eat a breakfast on the run, pack some fruit, a muffin, a whole grain bagel with cream cheese, and some juice the night before. Then grab your breakfast and go. You will be less tempted to BUY something from the handy-dandy fast food drive thru (or the snack food machine at work). CHA CHING!
- Take a quick peak in the fridge and ensure that the cat hasn’t drank the last of the breakfast milk, and your husband hasn’t cooked the last of the eggs. I often keep a bag of powdered milk in the house for those mornings when we are out of the liquid milk. I use it for oatmeal or baking – no one notices!
- Make the lunches for the next day (I get the kids to help).
- Ensure backpacks, diaper bags, purses, briefcases, and car key are ready to go for the next day.
- Walk through the house and do a quick "pick-up." I encourage the kids to pick up their own things before they go to bed, and then I do the same with my things before I go to bed. No more tripping over the shoes on the stairs!
- Skip the late night news and go to bed.
- Wake up about 15 minutes before the family.
Congratualations! With a plan and some good food you are ready to go Back to Breakfast. Start tomorrow. It won't cost a dime. Not only will your body feel better, you will discover that you will end up with more money in your jeans (instead of at the drive thru coffee shop or the snack food vending machine).
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