There are some mornings where having something made ahead of time, something preferably more portable than a bowl of cereal, is advantageous. Sundays tend to be that way in our house. Often Chris or I need to be early to church, sometimes both of us, and if I don't have something made ahead of time, one or both of us forgets to eat breakfast. We usually remember an hour or so later, just before church is starting, and too late for there to be anything done about it.
Read morePop Tarts.
In college, when I didn't really have a full kitchen to myself, but I was so very sick of dining hall food, I'd grab a few things I could microwave in my dorm room to change it up. Not so much a favorite, but a standby, I usually had Hot Pockets around. I also enjoyed pop tarts, but rarely let myself buy them. After all, they're "awful for you". (I conveniently ignored this same reasoning with the Hot Pockets.)
Read moreThe Best Oatmeal.
I have around 30ish recipes for oatmeal on this site. For someone who isn't a huge fan of a lot of breakfast foods, I like oatmeal. Most of those recipes are based off of a formula of one part oatmeal to one part water to one part milk. Guys, its wrong. As much as I can dress up a bowl of oatmeal with just about anything, (Lime wedges? Sure! PB&J? Delicious! Mascarpone cheese? Mercy.), the underlying bowl of oats should taste good on its own. Unfortunately, the one to one to one ratio just ends up with goop. Thick, rib-sticking, hearty, but goop, nonetheless.
Read moreYogurt Biscuits.
I have a thing about buying ingredients I don't regularly use. When I'm reading through a new recipe, if it calls for an ingredient I don't normally have on hand, or regularly buy, I usually skip it. It has to sound really, really good for me to buy something I may not be able to use up. For some reason, one ingredient I've held off on buying for a long time was whole wheat pastry flour. A recipe that called for it was immediately glossed over. I bookmarked a few, just in case, but mostly I just moved on.
Read moreKitchen Basics: How to make Nut Butter.
My son is a peanut butter fiend. His current favorite breakfast is a tortilla rolled up, filled with peanut butter and either sprinkles, honey, or sometimes nothing at all added. Therefore, we go through a LOT of peanut butter in this house. (And tortillas, consequently.) One morning, while making breakfast, I realized I was out of peanut butter. Thankfully I had a bag of peanuts in the freezer that could work rather well.
Read moreGranola Love.
I'm not a big fan of breakfast cereal. For a few different reasons, I've just never taken to much more than the super sweet, brightly colored "kid cereal". However, were I to eat that every day, (or really ever, let's be honest), it'd be really bad for me. So, for the mornings when I don't have a lot of time to make breakfast, I choose granola.
Read moreCinnamon Swirl Buttermilk Muffins.
These muffins are delicious, slightly chewy and mildly sweet. They are quite easy to make, though I would recommend either doubling the batch or making another item to go with them. These are not the sort of muffins that have staying power all on their own to get you through a busy morning, but more the type that wonderfully complement some sausage, eggs or other sort of filling breakfast.
Read moreGlorious Morning Muffins.
When my husband and I first moved to Lincoln, we discovered that there is a fabulous farmers market here. (There's actually several, but we didn't know that at the time...) One of the things I looked forward to the most, besides the delicious fresh produce, and the honey, was this one particular muffin sold by a local smoothie shop stand. They called theirs the Morning Glory muffin, and I would purposely avoid eating breakfast so that I could enjoy this muffin that was the size of two normal muffins. Filled with carrots, walnuts, apples, coconut, and raisins, it also tasted healthy, if a bit rich. Here's the problem though. The farmers market ends in October, every year. Yes, I could drive down to the smoothie shop, but I never really want smoothies mid-winter, while I often desperately want these muffins.
Read moreGranola Bars (or loose granola).
A while back, we bought some granola bars to help tide us over for the long car ride home from wherever we were. Jonathan LOVED them. A bit later, we bought some CLIF bars to have on hand in case of 'emergency' (needing to leave right away and realizing we'd forgotten breakfast, or to help tide through an extra long meeting, etc.). Again, the one bar Jonathan had, he loved. And obsessed over. Nearly daily, he begged that his snack/breakfast/lunch/dinner/whatever could be a CLIF bar. This was getting out of hand! I decided that if he loved granola bars so much, I'd rather make them and know exactly what was in them.
Read moreBagels.
Bagels are a lovely thing. Made well, they are chewy, lightly browned, with a lovely light texture. Poorly made, they are so tough your jaw may just wear out before you finish eating them. Now, I do not claim to be a bagel connoisseur, I have not had the famed H&H bagels or anything like that, but I do know that I do not want to wear my jaw out on food that is supposed to be tasty. On top of all that, store bought bagels, the ones that are usually the worst offenders of the toughness issue, are much too expensive per bagel for me to justify buying regularly.
Read more