What’s for Breakfast?
What do you eat for breakfast? Are you one who pretty much eats the same thing over and over? A routine breakfast eater? Or do you shake it up? I am somewhere in the middle. All I know is if I go without eating breakfast, my day is wonky. I practice a take on the intermittent fasting fad—finishing my dinner by 7pm and not eating again until 9 or 10am the next day. This first meal of the day is not called break-fast for nothing!
When Hart and I started dating in 2011, he introduced me to his breakfast regular: Buckwheat porridge. He buys the organic groats raw in a 25# bag. Hart fills a big bowl with the raw groats then pours it into a pre-heated, cast-iron, enamel-coated pot for a consistent roast. He stands at the stove for 20 minutes stirring non-stop, humming away, then adds a combo of boiling water and cold, and lets it cook for 25 minutes. Voila- his own Kashi! While it is cooking he prepares what he calls ‘the slurry’-tahini and miso mixed together with finely chopped cilantro mixed in.
We get our miso in bulk from Miso Master and prefer chickpea miso. On rare occasion, we purchase South River Miso out of Massachusetts which is the most delicious miso ever, but very expensive. The tahini has been a thing- we cannot seem to find a company that roasts the sesame consistently and have had some either almost burnt tahini or too lightly roasted without much nutty-flavor-tahini. We have tried to buy it in bulk but cannot find a source- please tell us if you know of any, although it would suck to order 15 pounds of tahini and it be a burnt batch. Hart goes to the garden for cilantro as he grows it year-round since both of us like to eat it at every meal.
Once we have served the Kashi and mixed it with the slurry, then we add the condiments, depending on what’s in season or on hand: salsa, cherry tomatoes, sauerkraut or kimchi, hot sauce, freshly chopped jalapeño or powdered cayenne, and avocado. It is an incredibly delicious and nutritious breakfast. Nadia used to eat it with raisins minus the hot sauce but she turned really picky at age six and instead insists on toast and jam for the past four years. She reminds me of that book Bread and Jam for Frances.
Hart has never wavered from his breakfast staple and even takes the big green iron pot along when we travel. But as much as I love this meal, I am seeking out other breakfasts after eating it more days than not for 12 years. I need to stir up my routine. I recently asked some of you for ideas and I received lots of inspiration! Thank you! Here are some of those you shared with me, in your own words:
Breakfast for Champions Herbal Broth from Recipes from the Herbalist’s Kitchen by Brittany Wood Nickerson. I often add shiitakes and crushed garlic and a bright handful of fresh parsley. And I love it with a little pickled purple cabbage. My favorite breakfast!
::
I make a bowl that is quinoa, sausage, kale, onions, apple, maple syrup, and sometimes cheddar. It’s a perfect combination of sweet/savory. We also do a bowl with roasted sweet potato, onion, greens, sometimes avocado or an egg on top. Really good with siracha.
::
Meg’s Best Granola recipe and also soup or rice and beans are fair game for breakfast. Sometime I just have an avocado with a little lemon and salt, maybe a drizzle of olive oil. Or a sprinkle of Tajin.
::
I eat organic corn grits cooked in bone broth.
::
I am doing chia seeds, with apples, peanut butter and sometimes walnuts or pecans and sunflower seeds caramelized in maple syrup and coconut oil.
::
Oatmeal pancakes made with left over oatmeal.
::
Amaranth is Awesome!!
::
I often eat roasted potatoes, greens, avocado, kraut, and often some sort of breakfast meat. Sometimes I make a stew in the crockpot or instapot the night before and eat that! I also fry leftover rice in butter kinda like hash browns and top with avocado and greens!
::
I made an Apple Dutch Baby the other morning. It was easy and so yummy. I made mine GF and white sugar free.
::
I like eggs with baked beans, tortilla chips, kimchi (or hot sauce), cheese, cilantro, maybe a corn tortilla on the side.
::
Sauteed veggies (I always use the orphan bits from cooking, like 1/4 onion, 1/2 bell pepper, potato cubes, carrot slivers etc) and an egg on top. Salsa and carb side like toast or tortilla optional.
::
Dashi broth or light soup.
::
Roasted sweet potatoes and avocado, chia pudding, sautéed greens or roasted sweet potato, polenta and butter and maple syrup.
::
Overnight oats/bircher muesli with coconut, seeds and sultanas is good. I like coconut yoghurt with warmed berries and Granola. I make a mix actually with rice flakes rather than oats, mix in coconut flakes, sultanas, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, petitas and put in a big jar to store. Then the night before put some in a smaller jar and top with almond milk and leave in the fridge overnight.
::
Sweet potato “toast” topped with arugula & sliced cherry tomatoes drizzled with grape seed oil (can be olive oil), ACV+ salt & pepper; and pan-browned tempeh with fresh finely-chopped ginger and liquid aminos (for savory).
::
::
Congee (savory rice porridge) or if you don’t like it savory, add spices and sweeten it!
~
You Gaians are the best! Thank you for so much inspiration!! I am playing around with a lot of these recipes you shared. I really like the soup idea. And I will add one of my all time favorites here- a breakfast that I overdosed on in my teens and had to take a ten-year break from, as I literally ate so much of it I threw it up one day and you know how that can turn you off to a particular food for a while. (Not a pleasant introduction to a favorite food but oh well).
It is french toast with maple syrup! (But back then I had it with bunny bread and artificial maple syrup which is maybe why I got sick after a while.)
A lot of these breakfast recipes can be prepped the night before. If you are like me, I am not big on cooking in the morning. I really like to have most things made and just warm them up or throw them together. French toast is delicious if soaked overnight and then just baked in the morning.
As I write this piece, I am acutely aware of how fortunate I am to not only have food when I am hungry but to choose my menu. Let us not forget for a moment that we are very privileged, and with that comes much responsibility. 10% of our world’s population experiences extreme poverty, not knowing when or if their next meal will come. Food insecurity is increasing all over the world due to inequality, war, weather extremes, barren soils etc…
As Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, “Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.” We are all interconnected, what my teacher Thích Nhat Hanh calls Interbeing. Practicing gratitude and humble awareness can help bring healing to our world. Asking ourselves, ‘What can I not consume today that lessens my footprint on this planet?’ And ‘What can I offer today that may make someone else’s life better?’ is important.
And if you find you have extra time to share, our local food pantries always need volunteers. Also, here are some organizations that could use financial support in continuing to help feed our hungry brothers and sisters:
