The Essentials of Breakfast

Growing up, breakfast was always a big thing in our house, especially on weekends. Saturdays it was always some sort of omelet, eggs with either ham, bacon, sausage, or, best of all, homemade kielbasa from Czerw's in South Philly, served with a side of fried potatoes and fresh rye bread from the local Trenton Farmer's Market. Sunday, after early morning church, it was Scrapple and eggs (What's in Scrapple? You really don't want to know.)

With a family of my own now I have tried to keep up the same thing as best I can. Unfortunately, it's hard to get good kielbasa and Scrapple out here in Montana. But we do have our sit down weekend breakfasts. Saturday's it's usually bacon or sausage and eggs with fried potatoes and either gfcf cornbread or gfcf biscuits. And Sunday is always gfcf buttermilk pancakes. With four kids, three of whom have to get ready for school during the week, we make sure to make lots of extra pancakes so weekday breakfasts are a snap.

So breakfast in our household is an essential meal. But what are the essentials of breakfast? Well I actually posted about breakfast way back in the infancy of this blog (including the pancake recipe), so let me expand on that post a little bit.

Cereal

As my dear friend, the GFCF Mommy has already reported, Rice Chex are now gluten free. Like Katherine, I think it is really significant that a large company like General Mills is producing a gluten free cereal, and a letter of encouragement to them may not be a bad idea in the hope they will convert more of their cereals to gluten free. There is also an organic gf rice chex-type cereal out there made by Health Valley. I also read that Trix, Dora the Explorer, and Spiderman 3 cereals from General Mills, as well as Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles from Kraft, are gluten free. However, these do contain lots of dyes so you may want to watch out for them anyway.

What's really great about Rice Chex is that it's one of those cereals you can eat without milk - Julia loves them that way.

Yogurt

Yogurt is another common item people eat for breakfast. In the casein free world, both Silk and Wholesoy make soy-based yogurts in a variety of flavors. Here in Missoula our Good Foods Store and Huckleberry's both frequently have one or the other on sale at prices just a few pennies more than traditional yogurt.

Essential Tools

I would have to day that, in addition to the usual suspects - spatulas, whisks, mixing bowls, etc. there are two tools we use in the kitchen that help make breakfast an easy meal.

The Bread Machine. Every kitchen should have one of these. I mean, how easy is it to just throw all the ingredients into a machine and, as Ron Popiel says, "Set it, and forget it." This is how we make our banana bread and I will post a couple more quick bread recipes over the next week or so as well.

But what's really great about bread machines these days is their versatility. Not only can you make bread, but also jams, ketchup, and others - not to mention just kneading dough for you if that's all you need. My machine has 12 different cycles on it depending on what you want to make.

The Griddle. This one is sheer convenience. When you are cooking for six, anything that lessens the time and cleans up easy is a must. And the griddle fits the bill. We bought one of the smaller griddles available, and the time savings is immeasurable. Now we can cook three pancakes at once instead of one, or practically a whole package of bacon at once, followed by all eggs simultaneously however you want them fried or scrambled. Going beyond breakfast - want turkey burgers for 12? The griddle is your answer.

Clean up is a snap too. Most griddles are fully submersible, so you don't have to worry about damaging the electronics.

So I hope along with my ancient post this gives you some ideas about breakfast. I hope over the next couple of weeks to post some good breakfast recipes for you to try, beginning with tomorrow's post, raisin scones.