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Big Family Breakfast???
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I am curious as to what others make for breakfast. I find myself in the kitchen making pancakes, waffles, eggs, etc. and I am wondering if there is a simplified way to handle breakfast with 4DC. I’m usually in the kitchen for 45 minutes to an hour and it is becoming exhausting.
I hear you. I had this same problem and I finally decided to simplify breakfast. I made a batch of homemade waffles once a week and made enough to freeze for use the rest of the week. I usually have eggs for breakfast so I was always willing to make eggs and toast for anyone who wanted either since eggs are quick and easy. Other than that, I taught the kids how to make their own breakfasts and I saved big breakfasts for Saturdays. My kids made oatmeal, peanut butter toast, cheese toast, cinnamon toast, waffles (from the freezer), and sometimes cereal. I also made muffins once every couple of weeks. I found muffins to be easy because I could whip them up quickly and throw them in the oven and continue with other tasks while they baked. I also sometimes made smoothies.
Now, I’m down to homeschooling one 14 year old daughter and she makes her own breakfast every morning. I have grown lazier and I now buy frozen whole wheat waffles instead of making my own. I rarely make muffins anymore either. I usually have a very light breakfast or an egg with toast.
I have 5 DC. We invested in a 2nd waffle iron and it’s been wonderful! I can start cranking out waffles quicker than it takes to heat up the stove for pancakes.
We often have cold cereal, eggos (with PB & Jelly or just with syrup), bagels, yogurt & granola, or Pillsbury cinnamon rolls when I don’t feel like cooking or we need a quick breakfast.
Some other favorites are Coco-wheats, baked oatmeal, fried egg on English muffins, scrambed eggs with ham & cheese, or egg casseroles. My DC are thrilled anytime I bake muffins or scones. If we have any type of meat, it’s usually brown & serve sausage or pre-cooked ham. I usually only cook bacon if we’re having breakfast for dinner or lunch. Any casseroles (eggs or oatmeal) can be assembled the night before, which saves time. I usually mix waffle batter as my irons are heating up, which saves a bit of time.
Some days I have my older DC get their own breakfasts, so I just get the youngest two. Other days, they help with the toaster, coffee, or eggs. I can’t say we have super healthy breakfasts. I do pick low sugar cereals and plain, Greek yogurt, so we avoid some processed junk. At this point in time, I need breakfast and lunch to be quick and easy! If I make a big breakfast, lunch will probably be cold sandwiches to make up for the extra time spent cooking breakfast.
We only have one and hubby cooks breakfast though I do have to step in once in a while if I do not want eggs and bacon every morning. I like muffins, smoothies, bread and peanut butter, oatmeal (he does cook that too). Our DS gets tired of eggs but being a farmer hubby wants a big breakfast. Of course, I would just eat leftovers too. 🙂 Breakfast is my least favorite for having to prepare, but I know it needs to be the best meal.
Crockpot overnight rice pudding
Dice up onions, sweet potatoes, and kale the night before. In the morning all you have to do is Sautee until tender then add eggs and scramble. Add the kale at the end so it doesn’t overcook.
Baked oatmeal. Get it all mixed together the night before. In the morning, pop in the oven and go back to bed for a few more minutes. 🙂
Assemble a big green smoothie the night before. In the morning, blend and serve with cut up fruit and peanut butter for dipping.
On a weekend when you have time, make a 4-batch of healthy muffins. Keep them in the freezer in gallon bags and just pull out a bag the night before to let thaw.
Oh, you can save pancakes in the freezer too. My favorite recipe is from UrbanHomemaker.com and has rice, iats, and wheat berries. Cook the pancakes as usual and then spread them out on cookie sheets. Freeze for about half an hour then transfer to gallon bags. In the morning just microwave and add your favorite toppings
I love to cook breakfast, but it is time consuming, so I try not to do it every day. One time we did a breakfast station. I had to spend one evening making a bunch of food, but it worked out well.
We used recipes from notconsumed.com. We really like:
breakfast burritos (scrambled eggs, sausage and cheese wrapped in a fajita-size flour tortilla, then wrapped in paper towel and finally wrapped in aluminum foil and placed in a plastic shoe box in the freezer).
muffins for the freezer …serve with yogurt or Smoothie made of fresh bananas, frozen strawberries, plain Greek yogurt and your favorite sweetener.
frozen waffles and pancakes
Dutch Puff and Baked oatmeal recipes from raisingolives.com
oatmeal topped with blueberries, plain Greek yogurt, cinnamon, sweetener
Leftover scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits from supper the night before
Cereal, toast, Greek yogurt, or whatever they can make themselves. ? I only make dinner – the other meals are whatever they can serve/cook themselves.
Today I did make banana bread with my younger two. For lunch my 14YO made steak, and that supplied leftovers for dinner.
As a result,my kids learn how to cook early. My 14 and 10 year-olds cook daily. Just in the past few weeks there has been steak, scrambled eggs, mac & cheese, brownies, grilled cheese, and pancakes.
M-F we have very simple breakfasts. Cereal and fruit, or cooked oatmeal and fruit. Sometimes scrambled eggs and fruit.
On the weekends, if I’m going to do a “bigger” breakfast, it’s typically:
– toast, eggs and bacon and fruit
– waffles and fruit
– eggs, bacon and fried potatoesHonestly we rarely ever have a big breakfast. DS has gymnastics at 9:00 on Saturday, and DH always sleeps in. So our “breakfast” actually tends to be more of a noontime brunch on Sunday after Mass.
We recently started doing a “breakfast bake” once a week. I have four kids, 3-10, and they all have food intolerances (gluten and dairy among others, and two have problems with all grains). I choose two different grain-free recipes and two different grain recipes so each kid has two things to rotate between for the week, and we all work together to make them. Each kid except the 3 YO has one thing to make all by themselves–egg muffins (except we do them as “egg bread”, because I hate cleaning muffin tins) for the 5 YO, hashbrown and egg breakfast casserole for the 7 YO, grain-free biscuits for the 10 YO, and I make two different batches of gluten-free biscuits. They have laminated recipe cards that have their recipe, ingredients needed, and supplies needed listed (with pictures for the non-readers). They make their recipe without help and then put their bowl/utensils in the dishwasher and clean up their mess. It takes us 15-20 minutes to make everything, plus baking time, and takes me another 15 minutes or so later to wash all the pans and put the finished food away. Then it only takes about 10 minutes to get breakfast ready for the rest of the week. If I don’t have stuff ready for the breakfast bake when we’ve run out of breakfast stuff, I make everyone high-protein smoothies or scrambled eggs and fruit for breakfast. My kids have problems with naturally occurring food chemicals in foods like bacon and sausage, otherwise we’d have a little more variety in our breakfasts.
I bought the breakfast station pack from Not Consumed & loved the idea. I have 5 kids 10 & under who eat so much that I had a hard time keeping up with supply & demand.
Currently we have low sugar cereal, baked oatmeal (Lynn’s Kitchen Adventure pb oatmeal is our fave), andwaffles (I make a double batch once a week).
We are all burned out on yogurt & regular oatmeal but it’s usually on rotation.
I save big breakfasts for Saturdays & dinner.
If I had more time/energy I would go back to using those breakfast stations. It really did help. But I had to devote one entire afternoon 2-3 times a month to that. I also did her lunch stations so I was in kitchen for 4-5 hrs every week trying to keep up the supply.
A friend used those stations & since her kids were older they all pitched in and knocked it out in a couple hours.
Breakfast!! Boy, you guys do a lot. I’m impressed. 🙂 We have prepared cereal and we put out a plate of fruit for the kids to choose from. My DD and I will have hot oatmeal. I wish everyone else would eat it because then I could just make one big pot. I have actually been wondering how to simplify our breakfast. We’ve been doing Couch Time before breakfast and it would be nice to have a plate of muffins or meat and cheese so we could eat while having Couch Time and then move from that directly into school. (“Couch Time” for us is I think “Morning Basket” reading time, especially Bible or devotional reading.)
I do some version of this every week! I usually start off the week with something that makes a big batch of something! Like tonight I mixed all the dry ingredients for a homemade pancake batter so tomorrow morning, I just add a few wet ingredients and I have enough pancake batter for Monday and Tuesday morning! Then mid week I will do a day or two with a mixture of toast, sausage and eggs and then Thursday night I premix a homemade muffin dry mix the night before where I just add the wet ingredients and bake! I double the recipe so I have enough for two morning! That usually takes me into Saturday morning with something easy, for those who don’t like eggs! I try to do a big breakfast with eggs and toast or sausage! So, my week looks something like this:
Monday & Tuesday – pancakes (prep as much as possible the night before.
Wednesday & Thursday – eggs, toast and/or sausage. (Half my kids don’t like eggs so for them it’s just toast and sausage)
Friday – muffins or banana bread (prep as much as possible he night before)
Saturday – I try to do eggs, toast and/or sausage! For those who don’t eat eggs there is also usually left over muffins.
Sunday – it’s always different! Getting 6 kids 8 and under out the door is the goal and to church on time is even better! So, sometimes it’s just toast and fruit or something I make ahead of time!
All of our bread is homemade from freshly ground wheat that we mill ourselves! Thank goodness for bread makers!!! I set it at night and we all wake up to a freshly baked loaf of bread! So all the toast is made from the freshly baked bread! 🙂 yum It never gets old. It also doesn’t look exactly like this every week. Sometimes we do eggs/toast mid-week and I decide to make muffins for Thursday and Friday because I need something easy. Also sometimes I do muffins at the beginning of the week and pancakes at the end but you get the picture. Anyhow just though I’d share because my morning were also getting long in the kitchen with breakfast. I have found that making things the night before and making enough to last for two mornings have helped so much. Also as you can see, it starts my week off easy which is great and my week also ends with something easy! Let’s be honest, by the end of the week, we could use something that makes life a little easier!!!
Oh, and one more thing……. I just store the left over pancake batter in a mason jar in the fridge for the next morning! I just love mason jars 🙂 I know we could make them in bulk and freeze them but they are just so much better made fresh.
If your family likes hot/cold cereal this granola is a must try!!Original recipe is in the ball canning book. So, dig it out. I use 10 cups oats, quick or whole oats, 2 cups coconut, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup sunflower seeds, 1/2 cup walnuts or sliced almonds, 2 tsps salt, mix and then add in large measuring cup 1/2 cup maple syrup, 1 cup cooking or coconut oil, 2 tsp vanilla extract add to dry ingredients. stir and put thin layer onto 2 large greased cookie sheets in 250 degree oven for 40 minutes. stir after each 10 minutes. cool and add 1 cup each raisins and craisins. store in air tight container. add milk for cool cereal. add 1 cup prepared granola to 1 cup milk and bring to slow boil mixing constant for the best hot oatmeal you’ve ever tasted. everyone loves it!
I also try to get my meat for the week in the fridge to thaw in a big bowl, sometimes the bowl goes in the second fridge because of room, having meat thawed is like half the battle complete, I feel! If meat is frozen and you need dinner on the table within the hour and you don’t want to use a microwave, this won’t work well for very dense frozen objects like whole hams or chickens though! Fill your kitchen sink 1/2 full with very hot water and submerge your frozen item. set timer for ten minutes and you generally have a thawed piece of meat.. Martha
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