Tag Archives: Breakfast

Cooking, Health, Homemade, Kids, Recipes

Ice Cream for breakfast

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My kids are pretty excited that I let them have Ice Cream for Breakfast. This is an incredibly easy and healthy recipe that really shows how powerful the Vitamix is. So healthy we can serve it at breakfast!

2 frozen bananas (for easy blending, slice and freeze for at least 30 minutes)

12 frozen strawberries

1/2 – 3/4 cup whole milk

1/2 tsp. of vanilla

Toss frozen bananas, then frozen strawberries into the Vitamix, then add 1/2 cup of milk. The trick is to use the tamper constantly to make this recipe. It will be loud and angry, but the results are yummy! Start blending low and then move up to high, constantly tamper-ing the contents down until you get a smooth creamy texture that can be scooped. (Add additional milk if needed).

strawberrycreamcollage

 

 

 

Cooking, Favorites, Homemade, Kids, Recipes

How we do Dinner: Part 1

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I really only cook cook two or three times a week. I always double/triple pretty much every recipe and my family is prepared to eat leftovers; “Here is your dinner of leftovers or you may have a banana”.
For the other nights, when we aren’t eating a “real” meal, we are big on customizable formulas. I have found my kids get really excited about “DIY” meals even if they are really simple. To be fair, my kids are not at all picky, which is a huge blessing. They are good about eating almost everything so that isn’t a battle (we have lots of battles, just not that one). These ideas aren’t revolutionary or original but they work great for us:
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  • Omelettes: We do a lot of breakfast for dinner:eggs/grits/fruit or omelettes & fruit (I spent a long time googling omelettes and finally found a perfect photo tutorial on how to make them easily, but they removed the link). Options: sausage, bacon bits, onions, peppers, tomatoes, cheese, broccoli etc. I have also made omelette kits and put them in the freezer with small bags of fresh veggies/shredded cheese/cooked sausage/onions and put it all in a big ziplock to grab in a hurry. This makes it crazy easy and  cheap because you have just enough of everything right when you need it.
  • Oatmeal Bar: Sometimes we even do a “gourmet” oatmeal bar with tons of toppings. Yes, I give my kids a bowl of oatmeal for dinner but if they have a small sprinkle of chocolate chips and some sliced strawberries they say “best dinner ever”. The secret to delicious oatmeal is a big plop of real butter and a drizzle of half and half or whole milk/cream. Options: fruit, brown sugar, nuts (huge bag of sliced almonds from Costco lasts forever and goes into lots of our recipes), coconut, rainsins/craisins, chocolate chips, peanut butter.
  • Nacho Night: This is also an effort free meal that somehow gets my kids very excited. We often do Nacho Night on a blanket on the floor and have movie night, so that could be a big part of the appeal! Aldi has tortilla chips for like $1.20 a bag so we are never without these. Options: shredded chicken (canned works), beans, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, veggies, ground beef. Nachos “outside the box” can include breakfast toppings (my friend Katy does sausage, eggs, cheese on nachos), or chicken salad with chips (super delicious and lower carb than chicken salad sandwiches). One final touch that we love is serving in food baskets, just like you’d get at a burger joint or hot dog stand. It makes it so much more fun!
  • Just add a smoothie! When we have slim pickings for dinner (the end of leftovers, or something my kids aren’t thrilled to eat), we add a smoothie to round out our meal. After years of smoothies, my kids still LOVE them and I can make it healthy to add  to a not-so-fab meal OR decadent to add to a healthy but not exciting meal (big spinach salad with tons of toppings is great with a chocolate peanut butter smoothie on the side). This is when having a vitamix is 100% worth it for us. Seriously, it’s like a magic bullet at our house: “We are having salad……*crickets…..AND A SMOOTHIE” *big cheers* (affiliate link).
  • Fruit side/treat: Another thing we have been doing is swapping a side out for fruit. So say we have grilled chicken and rice as our main course. Instead of adding broccoli, we add fresh pineapple which is a big treat for us. Suddenly our meal is exciting and  I have found this really helps me not feel like I need dessert also, so it’s a win/win.

Like I said, these are not original ideas or revolutionary ones, but they are in our current rotation and are working for us now. Cooking for a family gets so tiring with all the other obligations of parenting, so anything that makes it easier is valuable in my book! I’d love to hear any ideas you have and I’ll be adding Part 2 soon!

Cooking, DIY, Recipes

Magic Oatmeal Cake

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I probably won’t be sharing a ton of recipes here, because cooking is really not my forte (I’m not sure what my forte is, but I’m sure I will one day discover it). This recipe however, is one that I’ve made many dozens of times and tweaked enough that it barely resembles the original I came across years ago. It also has a wonderful flexibility in quantity and ingredient that has made it a go-to breakfast at our house for years. You just can’t fail with this “Magic Oatmeal Cake”.  It’s easy, versatile and healthy. It’s great to reheat on cold mornings, or sometimes I will make it the day before and have my husband throw it in the oven before he goes to work so it is ready when the kids get up.

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Magic Oatmeal Cake

Combine:
4-5 cups of oatmeal
 1-2 cups of yogurt
2 cups warm water

Let this sit on the counter for a few hours or until you get around to baking it. Sometimes it sits on my counter all day long.

Preheat oven to 350*

Combine in a separate bowl:
1 cup sweetener: sugar, honey, molasses, turbinado, or whatever you want
3/4 cup oil (applesauce may be substituted)
4 eggs
1 Tbls cinnamon
1 Tbls baking powder
2 Tsp. vanilla

Add the above to oatmeal/yogurt mixture, then add:
1-2 cups of milk to desired texture: more milk makes it custardy, less makes it cake-like.
 1-2 cups fruit of choice (fresh, dried, frozen)

Dump it in a 9″ x 13″ greased pan, bake for 1 hour. Let cool, then keep in fridge, you can reheat or eat cold.

Ideas for add-ins: frozen blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, bananas, applesauce, chopped apples, pears, peaches, raisins, golden raisins, canned pineapple, walnuts, almonds, wheat germ, bran, flax seed. Dessert version: cherries and mini chocolate chips (we love Enjoy Life chocolate chips because they are allergen-friendly!)

Enjoy!