Breakfast Menus

I admit it.  I hate cooking breakfast.  Not because I hate cooking.  It’s because in the morning I hate doing anything other than drinking coffee, playing the latest Zynga “Ville” game and growling at anyone who dares to talk to me.  My children love when I cook breakfast.  Every Saturday I do just that.  Bacon, eggs and oatmeal are a Saturday staple in this house and have been for years.  If we have to be somewhere on a Saturday morning and I won’t have time to cook, I make bacon, eggs and oatmeal for Friday night dinner.  It’s just what we do.  And now, in attempt to be a better mother I am vowing to cook breakfast for my little family every most mornings.

The breakfast menu will cycle.  I know what my family likes and I know the children enjoy the predictability.

So, without further rambling here are the breakfast menus:

Sunday: Biscuits and Gravy
There are other whole wheat biscuit recipes to be found if you google.  I’ve never had much luck with straight whole wheat flour biscuits, so I sacrifice some healthiness in this recipe for nice texture.  The gravy is . . . well . . . gravy.  No healthy eating here, folks.

Monday:  Scrambled Eggs and Grits
I have six containers of Philadelphia Cooking Creme to use by July so I added some to the scrambled eggs and it was very nice. Creamier and tangier than when I use plain cream.  Yum! Another yum is adding garlic (or garlic powder) to the eggs.  The hubby protests that, so I don’t do it often.  As for the grits . . .  there are a hundred different ways to prepare grits.  My personal favorite is a lovely, rich, delicious grits casserole.

Tuesday:  Belgian Waffles
Currently I use a Krusteaz Belgian Waffle Mix that I stock piled during a sale.  It’s not as healthy, but it is quick and yummy.  Btw, Log Cabin brand syrup does not contain HFCS.

Wednesday:  Oatmeal
Plenty of recipes for this one!  My tried and true recipe is as follows:
I cup of Old Fashioned Oats (if you’ve never tried Irish or Steel Cut Oats, you should.  Amazing!  Unfortunately, they are also expensive, never go on sale–so it seems–and don’t offer coupons.)

1 cup of whole milk (it’s fine to use Almond, coconut, etc milk here)

1 cup of cream (if you don’t have cream, simply double the milk)

3 Tbs of brown sugar

1/4 stick of butter

2 tsp of cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice (my personal fav)

1/4 tsp of salt

I usually microwave the oatmeal in a glass dish because it’s faster, but you can cook it on the stove top as well.  I’m giving the microwave instructions.

Place oats in a microwave-safe dish.  Add milk and cream.  Stir slightly.  Microwave for 5 minutes.
Add butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Stir.  Microwave for 2-3 more minutes.  Stir.  Serve.

You might also add fruit jelly or whole bits of fruit to this.  Yum!  If you add jelly, use less brown sugar.

Thursday:  Eggs and Sausage
Yeah, this is pretty much it.  Eggs to order and a box of sausage links.  Sometimes just eggs and toast if I’m not stocked on sausage.

Friday:  Pancakes
There are some lovely for-real-whole wheat pancake recipes out there.  My family prefers for me to sneak in the whole wheat when it comes to pancakes and biscuits, though. *shrug*  I do use unbleached all-purpose flour if that earns me any brownie points with the health police.

Saturday:  Bacon, Eggs and Oatmeal
Scrambled eggs, bacon on the griddle and my oatmeal recipe.  It’s a tradition.

I’ll be posting my dinner menus when I can find time.  It’s taken me most of the afternoon so far just to do one blog post.  Five minutes here, three minutes there . . . if you have children, you get it.  Completely.

 

Strawberry Sorbet

This week I bought 6 pounds of strawberries on sale at Publix.  My family can inhale about 1.5 pounds of strawberries in less than two hours.  After that, they are done with strawberries.  The strawberries hang on for about a day tempting us with their sweet fragrance, but it only works once or twice.  So, the berries begin to wither away quickly leaving behind mold and mush where their bright redness used to be.  Time’s a tickin’, iow.  I knew I had to do something with the strawberries asap.  Some will go into green bags, others I will freeze.  But today 2 lucky pounds of strawberries were puréed and assembled with other ingredients to make a lovely, silky Strawberry Sorbet.

Check it.

From this:

To this:

I differed from the recipe a bit.  I doubled it, first of all, and I must say that this recipe was very, very sweet.  Next time I will use less sugar.  I also strained the purée into the pot with the sugar so that it would have fewer seeds and be smoother.  I added a tablespoon of vodka, as well, to keep the sorbet creamier and keep ice crystals from forming.  The taste of the vodka was not distinguishable.  Because I do not have an ice cream maker, I froze the mixture in a 13X9 baking dish and stirred it every 1/2 hour or so until it was the right consistency.