One thing that we do to simplify our mornings is to cycle through the same breakfasts every week. These boys like to eat, and we tend to not buy much processed food. My challenge was to find things we all didn’t mind eating over and over again that were easy to make, gluten free, eaten by everyone and low prep on the morning we were going to eat them.
Each Sunday, we eat pancakes or waffles and bacon for lunch and leave two mason jars of leftover pancake batter in the refrigerator. On Sunday afternoon, we will stir up Breakfast Cookie dough and press it into two pans.
On the mornings we need to leave the house quickly, we will bake and eat the breakfast cookie bars that we prepped on Sunday. They have to bake for a while, but the prep is completely hands off. On mornings we aren’t running out the door, we’ll add a little oil to the leftover pancake batter and make waffles. Those waffles are either eaten with ham, cheese, and eggs or with peanut butter and jelly. The fifth morning is either toast and sausage or frozen potato cakes and sausage.
On Saturday and Sunday, we leave people to fend for themselves until lunchtime. They can choose from cereal, omelets, yogurt, oatmeal or eggs. But everyone is responsible for his own food and for his own mess.
Oatmeal and More Breakfast Cookies
Makes 2 9×9 pans of bar cookies
Cream together:
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¼ c butter, softened (or coconut oil)
Mix in until combined:
- 1 cup nut butter that makes you happy (We use peanut or almond depending on what’s in the pantry)
- 2 eggs
Mix in until combined:
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp chia seeds
- 2 scoops protein powder (We’ve used several with success. I’ve also left it out and added an extra ½ cup of oats)
Stir in:
- 3 c quick oats (We use gluten free oats here, but if you don’t, it shouldn’t change things)
- 1 cup craisins, raisins, nuts, chocolate chips or a combination thereof
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray or butter or oil two 9×9 or 8×8 pans. Divide the dough between the pans. Press it out somewhat, but don’t stress over getting it flat. Bake until done – about 20 minutes, I think.
What can you think of that you can do ahead of time so that you and your family start the day well?