"Hey, I made panckaes!"

If you're my friend on Facebook, you already know that yesterday I posted this picture with the comment "This is me."

It's received a lot of laughs and comments from my friends.  But, I feel like I need to clarify a few things.

1.  I am a smart woman.
2.  I am an opinionated woman.
3.  I follow politics closely and will happily go toe-to-toe with anyone that wants to debate me.
4.  I think that on a National platform, politicians are all self-serving and in the pockets (or pants) of large corporations.
5.  I firmly believe that if you want to make a difference in the world, stick with a local, grassroots organization.

That being said, I do make amazing pancakes.  And french toast.  And I think that there are a lot of women who make incredible french toast that could get more done in the 10 minutes that it takes them to make french toast than most of the men running our country can do in 4 years.  See.  I can rant too.

French Toast

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• dash of cinnamon
• splash of vanilla extract
• 10 to 12 slices bread (I only use Great Harvest Honey Wheat.  Because I love them.  And guess what?  They love me too.)
• butter
• maple syrup (100% pure maple syrup).

1.  Break eggs into a wide, shallow bowl or pie plate; beat lightly with a fork. Stir in cinnamon, vanilla extract, and milk.

2.  Over medium-low heat, heat griddle or skillet coated with a thin layer of butter or margarine.

3.  Place the bread slices, one at a time, into the bowl or plate, letting slices soak up egg mixture for a few seconds, then carefully turn to coat the other side. Soak/coat only as many slices as you will be cooking at one time.

4.  Transfer bread slices to griddle or skillet, heating slowly until bottom is golden brown. Turn and brown the other side. Serve French toast hot with butter and syrup. 

Soak your bread on each side.

Let the excess batter drip off a bit.

Cook until brown on each side.

Pure maple syrup and butter.  

My minis love french toast.  It's a fun alternative to pancakes.  Not that pancakes aren't awesome.  Because they really are.  Totally facebook status update worth.

Back to School

It's nearly back to school time.  That means parents everywhere are shedding tears of sadness while they jump for joy.  

I always try to do something special on that first morning that I send my minis off to school each year.  I figure the memory of a special breakfast will erase the memory of my "hurry up, grab your 100 pound backpack, remember your swim bag, are you kidding-me-you-didn't-do-a-summer-educational-project?, don't you dare forget that all-organic-homemade lunch I got up at 4 am to pack" rant.  

This year I plan on making my minis a dutch baby.  A dutch baby is basically an egg-based pancake that puffs up when baked.  The minis will love it.  And it has an easy prep time of 5 minutes.  I can prep and toss it in the oven.  Head upstairs and drag the minis out of bed and get them ready in time to take it out of the oven.  

Ingredients.

• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp butter

1. HEAT oven to 450°F. WHISK eggs, milk, flour, sugar and salt in medium bowl until smooth.
2. PLACE butter in 9-inch metal pie plate or 9 or 10-inch ovenproof skillet. HEAT in oven to melt butter, about 2 minutes. TILT plate to coat evenly with butter.
3. POUR batter into hot pie plate. BAKE in 450°F oven 8 minutes. Reduce oven setting to 375°F. CONTINUE baking until pancake is golden brown and sides are puffy, 8 to 10 minutes. CUT into wedges. SERVE immediately.

Dutch babies are traditionally served with powdered sugar and lemon wedges.  I will serve mine with fruit....strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.  It would also be delicious with 100% pure maple syrup.  Make sure your minis get a peek of it while it is still puffed up and in the oven because it flattens quickly.  Call it their summer educational project.

Step Away From the Cereal Box

Cereal is a tough one to give up.  The thing is, cereal is so processed that the end product is practically unrecognizable when compared to the original ingredients.  How do we get from this,

To this?

Well, the answer is we process the heck out of it.  Most cereal is ENRICHED.  We read it on the boxes, the manufacturers write on the packaging, "enriched with 12 vitamins and minerals", so we think it must be good for us.  Do you know what enriched means?

When a food is excessively processed, it is stripped of all its nutrients and minerals.  Manufacturers will then add nutrients and minerals back in to compensate for the loss of the original nutrients and minerals (the ones that Mother Nature intended to be there!)  Enriched does not mean that extra nutrients have been added, it means that food product is so overprocessed it needs to be "fixed" before it can be sold!

So, you've got to throw out your cereal.  While you're at it, throw out any instant oatmeal you have too.  When it comes to breakfast, we need to come up with other options.  And, just a warning, you will probably have to turn your stove on in the mornings.  The first thing I suggest you try is incredible and edible...that's right, you guessed it....

We eat eggs nearly every morning in our house.  Do you know that egg whites have the biological value of 100, which means all the nitrogen absorbed from the egg protein is retained and incorporated into your body tissue protein?!?!  Have no clue what that means?  Eat eggs, they're good for you!  We ALWAYS have hardboiled eggs available for snacks in our house.  Throw some eggs in water, bring to a boil, turn off heat, sit covered for 12-15 minutes, rinse in cold water.  My kids love hardboiled eggs with fruit for breakfast.  We love using this to slice them:

And amazing mothers have these that they use to mold their kids' hardboiled eggs.  I strive to be amazing, I'm not there yet.  So sorry, mini McGhees...you're settling for sliced eggs!

If you don't like hardboiled, you can always scramble them.  If I scramble I always add in diced bell peppers and spinach.  Fancy people call that a fritatta.  I call it eggs with veggies.

Another good breakfast option is oatmeal.  We can't use instant, flavored oatmeal, but we can make our own...it's tastier anyway!  My kids love steel cut oats, so try those or you can stick with rolled oats too.  Make the oats following the directions on the package.  It basically is adding the oats to boiling water (I use milk) and stirring occasionally until oats are done.  Once the oats are done, the fun begins!  The possibilities of are endless, but ideas to put into your oats are:

• fruit
• nuts
• honey
• small amount of brown sugar
• small amount of 100% maple syrup

Stove top oatmeal has a different texture than instant oatmeal.  So, your kids will probably protest because kids (and men) don't like change.  I would suggest calling stovetop oatmeal "hot cereal".  That way your kids aren't expecting their typical oatmeal only to be disappointed by the healthy, good stuff.  Or, you could always make a batch of stovetop and a batch of instant oatmeal and make a 50/50 mix.  Gradually, decrease the amount of instant until it is 100% stovetop.  Or, you could make the stovetop, plop it in front of your kids, and tell them breakfast is served, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.  That always goes over well too.

Other options are homemade whole wheat pancakes, waffles, or french toast, homemade whole wheat muffins, homemade granola with milk, plain greek yogurt with fruit and homemade granola, toast (homemade whole wheat bread).  Recipes for all of these will be coming soon, I will share them as we try them!