Planning for the Best Breakfast
Breakfast planning needn’t be a chore. Several factors should be considered when planning a morning meal for a single person or family and friends. These include:
- Time
- Preparation
- Food Ingredients
- Nutrition
- Serving style
It’s Time for A Tasty Morning Meal
When breakfast planning is well organized, it can encompass the general needs of everyone in the household.
Arrange the morning timetable so it adapts to each person’s needs. That includes late sleepers and stragglers to the table. This also includes the cook and any clean-up afterward.
Even the more complex morning menus should take no more than 30 minutes from prep time to clean up. With this time frame in mind, it’s easier to manage possible delays and distractions.
Preparation for the Best Breakfast
As a secondary important factor, preparing for the morning meal is simply a matter of planning menus before serving breakfast. Plan menus for a week and then vary them for weeks ahead.
Keep all prep tools and ingredients handy. Don’t be afraid to be creative about plating and serving breakfasts. When you plan menus, it makes shopping for food ingredients you make for breakfast easier.
Many foods can be stored in the refrigerator or freezer, and others can be stored in the pantry.
Food Ingredients Like Magic
The secret to preparation is to keep menus and food ingredients diverse, healthy, and nutritious.
Make a breakfast menu special each day of the week, just as restaurants do. For example, Monday breakfasts can start a week off to a good beginning with a high fiber, low fat grain or wheat germ, yogurt and fresh fruit such as grapes, berries or bananas. Choose fruits that do not need to be peeled or cored to save time. This can be prepared the night before and refrigerated.
In the French Style
Make menus more interesting with a French flair with a spinach quiche which is a recipe that is easy to make for breakfast and assemble with a prepared refrigerated pie crust, beaten eggs, a splash of non-fat cream, your favorite vegetables such as asparagus, chopped kale or spinach and a soft cheese like Brie.
Prepare the night before and pop it in the oven and serve for tasty morning meals. Keep in mind each egg in quiches gives 6 grams of protein. The “eat and run” people appreciate a slice of quiche.
Start the Day According to the Temperature Outside
Vary menus in texture from light to rib sticking when the weather is too hot to eat full meals. Serve scrambled egg and cheese stuffed croissants and melon and strawberry compotes.
When its cold enough for warm comfort foods in the morning, warm up with hot cereals with raisins and a whisper of maple syrup or, whole wheat pancakes, waffles, or French toast.
The Elegant Weekend Morning
On weekends, morning meals can be more relaxed. Make it special and treat yourself to breakfast in bed or with the family in a more elegant style with pretty table linens.
Everyone loves Eggs Benedict on lazy weekend mornings. Toast English Muffins and butter them while the eggs are poaching and Canadian bacon is warming in a saute pan. Prepare the lemon sauce the night before and warm it in the microwave.
Serve the first meal of the weekend buffet style with a selection of fruits, eggs, thinly sliced ham or an arrangement of bagels, lox, cream cheese, and horseradish or dill mayo spread. Kids love buffets where they can choose what they want to eat.
Making Memories and Grandma’s Favorite Morning Recipes
There is always something nostalgic about creating your own morning memories with special recipes.
Choose your favorite food ingredients. Then get creative and make memories for your family or friends. For instance, a simple, nutritious meal like a bowl of cream of wheat or rice gets a lift from a dash of cinnamon and adds color and flavor from fresh mint leaves or toasted sesame seeds. These are natural ingredients that perk up grains.
In Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, fish is often a favorite morning food. For example, salmon pancakes speckled with fresh dill and a dash of creme fraiche start the day in Sweden.
In Eastern European countries, eggs are served with sauteed greens chopped and garnished with creamed or pickled herring as a side. The eggs may also be poached and topped with whitefish roe.
Grandma had her favorites that never fade from memory, such as potato latkes topped with sour cream or her famous apple cinnamon pancakes with dollops of butter and syrup. Who can forget her famous blueberry pancakes recipe with blueberry syrup?
Start the Day with Energy and a Smile
We all love a hearty morning meal, even when rushing out the door. There is something unique about the foods we eat in the morning. It’s as if we feel “complete” even when we eat lightly as the sun rises.