Can't Forget Breakfast!

I am definitely a "sweets person" in the morning for breakfast. But nobody likes to finish breakfast and regret how heavy/sweet the meal was so early in the day. I prefer things like fresh or dried fruit and nuts incorporated into baked goods, pancakes or oatmeals. (And the nice thing about "jazzed up" pancakes is that I never feel like I need much syrup. Win win.)

I know I've mentioned the Smitten Kitchen blog to you before. She has TONS of foodie followers and I've made a couple of her recipes and loved them. Her pictures are amazing, she's mommy to a toddler and she supposedly cooks in her own tiny kitchen at home... which is reassuring for me and my lack of counter space. ;) Some of her recipes are a little time consuming or "fancy"... but hey, everybody needs a little fancy in their lives and I love taking time out to cook whenever I can. Oh, and she's got a cookbook coming out in 2012, which will be on my wish list! (Along with the Weelicious cookbook that I've heard is in the works!)

Anyway, I've had an obsession with rhubarb this spring and was sad to hear I'm too late in the game to add it to my garden this year. Craig's uncle tells me I should plant it in the fall (or early spring) and not directly IN my garden, but somewhere just outside of it. When I saw this recipe for Rhubarb Streusel Muffins on the SK blog, I was nearly drooling on my keyboard. I love that it uses whole wheat flour and not too much sugar. The streusel topping is half mixed in and half sprinkled on top to create just the right amount of sweetness throughout, without being over the top. And the rhubarb is such a perfect compliment to it's light flavor! Delicious, I tell you!

I'm not a coffee or tea drinker, but this seems like it would be perfect with a morning cup. Or, in my case, a glass of milk and some sliced strawberries on the side. Will and I ate these with a banana on our way to Riehm Farm a week ago. And I loved taking one for breakfast on work mornings too. I still have some leftover rhubarb from Craig's Aunt Cathy after making TWO pies... so these are definitely going to show up on our breakfast table again soon. They disappeared very quickly last time.
One more new breakfast recipe that I tried recently was the Weelicious Apple Oat Cereal. It's everything I described above in a desirable breakfast for me!

From the time my kids were beginner finger food eaters, we seemed to always have a box of Cheerios on hand for easy snacking/breakfast. Will continued to eat a bowl of them with blueberries on top as a staple breakfast while I was home on maternity leave with Sophie. And then sometime that fall, we just started making our breakfasts and not using boxed cereals anymore. It's pretty rare now that we ever eat boxed cereal. Craig likes to keep a box of freezer waffles on hand in case we're out of whatever I made and he's up with the kids on a weekend. But that's very rare too.

The kids have different preferences regarding cereal. Will really only cares for cold cereal. Sophie likes either but seems to really enjoy hot oatmeal when I make it. So this combines the the typical flavors and ingredients of a hot oatmeal, but there's no cooking involved and it's served cold with milk or yogurt. So the recipe calls for dried apple rings, dates, walnuts and cinnamon (I used raisins in place of half the dates) ground in a food processor till it forms a sticky, clumpy, sort of ground consistency. Then you just break apart the clumps and stir it together with the oats and that's it! I'm storing it in a container at room temp and just serving it with milk like regular cold cereal. Here's what the mixture looks like. The oats soften in the milk and the apple cinnamon combo smells and tastes so good.

As usual, I made this the night before I planned to serve it, but it smelled so good I had to taste a little bit that night for a snack.

The kids ate this okaaay... not great, but okay. I'm going to keep offering and pairing it with different things. But in the mean time, I'm loving it for breakfast for myself.