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Friday, September 3, 2010

Back-to-School Breakfast


There is a Wal-Mart commercial that irks me. Let me set the scene. Little boy in school and teacher announces a pop quiz. Class gets nervous and little boy gets nervous. But on the sidelines is Mom watching him. And Mom is saying, "I can't actually be there for him, but I can give him a good breakfast." And then the advertisement is for Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Toaster Strudel. And then I want to punch the TV.

They can't be serious. Fill your child with some empty sugar calories, high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil and you can be confident in giving them sufficient nutrition for their growing bodies and minds!!!

Let's not do that to our children this school year. What can we give our kids to help them stay full and focused? Here are a few ideas of what you can feed your babies before you send them off to the world of times tables and book reports. I am going to give you two lists. One of quick breakfasts when you don't have a lot of time and then a second list of breakfast items you can make when you have some extra time.

Quicky Breakfast:
Scrambled eggs with whole grain toast and jam (Smucker's Simply Fruit is GREAT all-fruit jam)
Oatmeal and fresh fruit
Yogurt with whole grain muffin
Whole grain cold cereal or granola and fresh fruit
Fruit and yogurt smoothie and whole grain toast and jam

And wash it down with juice or skim milk.

More-Time-on-my-Hands Breakfast:
Oatmeal with Apples, Brown Sugar and Raisins
Whole Wheat Berry Muffins
Whole Grain Waffles
Peanut Butter Pancakes
Breakfast Burritos
Skillet Potatoes with Roasted Red Peppers and Baked Eggs
Apple and Carrot Bran Muffins
Whole Wheat Double Chocolate Muffins
Homemade Granola
Zucchini Blueberry Muffins
And I am working on a breakfast quinoa recipe that I will post eventually

Obviously, there is much more that can be added to these lists, so please add your ideas to the comments.

Rookie's Notes: A word on muffins. Make a batch and then freeze them. For breakfasts, microwave a frozen muffin for 1 minute and it's done. Same with waffles. Make a bunch, freeze and then put them in the toaster.

A word on oatmeal. Ditch the packets. Not only does is have a few weird ingredients in it, it's much more expensive. To make quick oats, it takes minutes. Here is my recipe.

1 1/4 cup quick oats
1 Tbsp ground flax seed
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt
2 cups water

In a small bowl, combine oats, flax seed, cinnamon and salt. Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Once boiling, stir in quick oats mixture and stir constantly for 1 minute. Remove pan from the heat and serve. We like ours with a little brown sugar and sliced bananas.

Yields 4 servings.

12 comments:

The P*dunc's said...

I have never seen that commercial, but it sounds ridiculous! I do like the one where the reading tutor is waiting in the library to tutor a kid and it ends up being an adult. That one got me teary...until the end when the Walmart logo came up (make it from "a foundation for a better life" or something, NOT Walmart.

Thanks for the breakfast ideas!

Kalli said...

I'm sending my kid(s) to your house every morning...

in the winter I get really into breakfast, oatmeal with peaches most days. I also freeze pancakes and zap them in the microwave. That's easy peasy. Summer and pregnancy made me lose my motivation these last few months. Know what he's eating right now? A rice cake with peanut butter and apple juice. It's his favorite, I kid you not.

Ingrid_3Bs said...

uh-oh! While I'm not that bad, I'm not as good as I could be....I need to start making them muffins and scones, things like that. FYI, I do feed them yogurt, banana, but they will it EGGO waffles and sausage.
~ingrid

whitneyingram said...

@kalli - That is much better than crap cereal or Toaster Strudel. Plus, you get a free pass. When one is as dilated as you, you can just give him a jar of peanut butter for breakfast.

Rebecca said...

Frozen breakfast foods have got to be the worst ever!

Sarah Hunt said...

this is hilarious. I saw that commercial the other night, and I screamed out loud. My husband came into the room to see what was wrong then of course I went off about the horror I just witnessed. Its like those commericals promoting HFCS! ahhhhhh!
I really love this idea. I've only tried it for me but enjoyed it.
http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/quick-and-easy-breakfasts#slide_6
I look forward to your breakfast quinoa. We do quinoa yogurt parfaits! yum!
oh and your whole grain waffle recipe is our favorite! It kicked our old recipe right out of the book. Thanks!

Michelle @ Twig said...

and really who thinks that the packeted mush of an oatmeal even tastes good? not me! thanks for this.

[Morgan] said...

i feel this way about the childrens cartoon program noggin, and their slogan... "noggin, it's like preschool on tv!"

oh, you mean i can put my kid in front of the tv for 3+ hours a day, as long as it's in front of YOUR channel, and it's just like taking them to school?

what the hell?

Heather said...

I've seen that commercial and I was like whaaa? Are you serious??? So infuriating! Thanks for the awesome recipes! Can't wait for the quinoa one, we love quinoa.

Sweet Pea Chef said...

I couldn't agree more. 'nuff said.

Oh, my Julia Child print came this week. LOVE it.

Carina said...

That commercial PISSED ME THE EFF OFF.

I'm thrilled that my school-age child (who is my picky eater) learned to love scrambled eggs. His fav breakfast is scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast with butter (NO JAM, MOM,) and some cocoa.

When you make waffles on the weekend (go ahead, make 'em) freeze the other half. Use wax paper to separate if you feel like. Toast them in the toaster on a school morning and everyone's happy. You're happy because your kid is eating your whole grain/flax seed waffle and he's happy because SYRUP.

Next up: getting him to eat oatmeal. This is going to suck.

Unknown said...

I absolutely LOVE this post! I couldn't agree with you more. I don't have any more suggestions to add, because I happen to make a lot of the same things in different variations. Thumbs up, Rookie!