It's a healthy breakfast thread!

[fuzzpig]

Really determined to finally ditch (or at least reduce) the cereal. The DCs only like really sugary/chocolatey stuff

I'm thinking of switching to cereal only at weekends.

DD (7) is fairly easy going and loves eggs, but DS (nearly 5) won't eat them. Well, he will eat a little bit, but only with dramatic sighs and eye rolling and I don't think it's worth the stress in the mornings.

He likes cheese on toast - decent wholemeal bread with seeds with either Red Leicester or cheddar. That's better than cereal right?

Not sure what else to do really. Neither will eat porridge no matter how I do it.

I like the idea of fruity pancakes and stuff but is that actually any better in terms of sugar?

Standard breakfast here is sandwhiches. With anything you'd put in a sandwhich at any other time of day.
Completely unstandard and gets me lots of weird looks it I mention it is leftovers. I'm partial to cold roast veg for breakfast with cold risotto

My DD eats cheese and cold meats for breakfast, given the option. I wish they would both eat porridge - I think the slow release carbs would be good for them, but they have refused all attempts. I might try slow cooker porridge with lots of cinnamon, and see if the smell will tempt them and I can eat it anyway

To whoever said their DC are starving as soon as they wake up - I have the opposite problem. Left to their own devices, my DC will be up for a couple of hours before they want breakfast. Clearly on school days when we have to be out of the house by 7:40am that doesn't work, so I end up accepting pretty much anything that they will eat (including homemade cake if there is some around) as being better than nothing . They very rarely choose cereal, though.

They have water, milk, or one likes lemon and ginger tea or they make themselves a hot chocolate in the winter. Occasionally they like a cappuccino. They don't even like juice anymore, so it's fruit or nothing. And when our apple crop is ready I might make them some juice from that - which tastes totally different to the processed stuff.

We generally have eggs on toast and fruit. (Mostly this is because this is what I eat for breakfast, so I guess toddler copies me). Sometimes yoghurt / peanut butter on toast. She loves porridge but i normally do that for a quick tea.

We don't buy cereal any more because she will demand literally bowlfuls of it and I think it's just sugar really. DP is grumpy about this.

Eggs are the food of gods!

It's worth trying and trying again. At the ripe old age of 10, DS now has porridge every morning, with cinnamon and sultanas. He was a porridge refuser for years. His other fave is granary toast with marmite. He self regulates his sugar intake now, having finally understood what GDAs are all about.

DD likes fridge porridge - with mashed banana and strawbs rasps and blueberries. Or peach chunks ATM.

At the weekend she also likes baked beans with toast, dippy eggs, scrambled eggs.

will they eat muesli with fruit in it? Mr Aldi's stuff is good.

toast and something plus a banana is also good.

Right I'm going to give porridge another go now. I'd love for the kids to have it.

Mine usually have toast with cheese or yoghurt. I hate them having cereal and only have rice crusties and weetabix for them to choose from.

At weekends we tend to skip breakfast and go straight to lunch. Ordinarily I wouldn't do this but mine take a couple of hours to get hungry and I'm actually starting to think that breakfast is not the be all and end all. My ds 12 doesn't have breakfast most days but takes an extra piece of fruit to have at break.

Weekends we always have eggs and toast or leftovers. Birthday breakfasts are anything goes so usually dippy egg and soldiers, fry up or biscuits with hit milk!

Valerie - here's how I do ours...

With cinnamon and sultanas. Handful of porridge oats ( I use Sains TTD ones ) sprinkling of cinnamon, handful of sultanas, add milk to cover and microwave for 2 minutes. Stir in a little cold milk once done.

Fridge - a few hours or night before half fill a jam jar with oats, add one small mashed up banana, other fruit eg berries 2 tbsp Greek natural yoghurt and top up with milk. Put lid on and shake. Stick it in the fridge. Vary fruit according to season. The banana is fairly essential IMO for sweetness though.

Fab thread,have been pondering this too.

I've been eating Overnight Oats lately, they are delicious. I like oats, but couldn't stand the texture of porridge. Overnight Oats are easy and a much firmer texture than porridge. There are loads of combinations you can do. It's basically just oats, milk and/or yogurt, a bit of something sweet (I use honey) and then whatever flavorings you want to use. I always add vanilla to mine as well. Mix it all up, pop it in the fridge before you go to bed and in the morning take it out and eat it. You can warm it a little in the microwave if you like. Yum!

One of my favourite breakfasts (from the days when I did Slimming World and rice was/is a 'free' food) is to cook up lots of brown rice the night before.

Then in the morning I mix a bowlful of rice with vanilla yoghurt, although nowadays mix it with an Alpro Soya vanilla dessert as going off cow products slightly. I love it, so much so that I am going to go off and cook up some rice now so I can have it tomorrow!

Our kids don't eat till around 11am at the weekends, they don't wake up hungry - we do a brunch and then dinner in the evening, they have 3 meals a day on school days but we get a bit more flexible at the weekends.

My lot love porridge, I think the key to good porridge is not the recipe but the technique. We use jumbo oats, add enough liquid for the porridge to be covered by the depth of a knuckle, like steamed rice, bring it to the boil without stirring, cover and leave for 20 minutes so it thickens up. (We have cast iron pans which keep the heat for a long time). It is both creamy and has bite that way. We use milk/ water in combination, depending what's in the fridge.

Having said that, our favourite recipe is probably dessicated coconut as about 1/3 of the volume, plus cinnamon, chopped dates and sunflower seeds ups the protein content and makes it sweeter without refined sugar. We usually have some dates soaking in the fridge as they soften and mix into everything more easily but well chopped dates do the job nearly as well. If we make it like this, we always stir everything in while the porridge is cold, because the oats break up too much IMO if you stir them while they are cooking.

Having said that we do do a lot of egg based breakfasts, and have made very thin pancakes out of just beaten egg in a pinch. Everyone always starts with fruit and sometimes I do a fruit salad with yoghurt, pollen grains, seeds and crispy buckwheat. I usually put in chopped avocado with the fruit, bumps up the fat content and is probably more filling as a result, though I've never tested that hypothesis.

On really good days with a full fridge and an easy morning we have a fruit and veg salad - grated carrot, courgette and chopped spinach with a grated apple, some nuts and a dressing of banana and orange/strawberry/ whatever's good and strong flavoured. Everything tastes of the smoothie but you get a nice texture and a plate full of veg, too. We'll have tahini or yoghurt as a topping for this.

We love love love bananas and tahini in this house. It's scrummy and means that you are getting some protein in with your fruit. We probably tend toward too much fruity stuff so I'm always trying to get something in with it to temper the full on fruit sugar hit.

We also love sardines and avocado on toast, very satisfying and we use the sardines with bones in as we aren't big milk drinkers so I have an eye on the calcium/ vit D problem.

Oh, yeah, rice plus raisins, nuts and parsley is delicious and has good calcium in it, we do like a bit of rice for breakfast. Rice, egg, smoked fish and a bit of curry powder, like a super quick kedgeree which is the best breakfast in the wide world, bar none.

It's not the cheapest but Dorset Cereals do individual sachets of Gingerbread Porridge. Delicious!

Oh yes - rice, fruit, nuts & maple syrup (very sugary though).

I was very shocked when I saw the sugar content of Quaker and Sains own brand flavoured ( eg apple or berries ) porridges, which is why we make our own.

Was also going to suggest overnight oats. I make my milk/oat mix, leave overnight then in the morning add halved strawberries, pecans and a teaspoon of Nutella OR pecans, sliced banana and a teaspoon of peanut butter. The toppings are endless though!

Dcs will eat avocados with a sprinkling of salt or a vinegarette. Also cheese is popular - with crackers if there are any, we usually have a good selection hanging around. And I'll boil a smoked ham and they'll have that too.

Leftover fruit crumble or pie is very popular with DS1, especially if there's still some cream or custard!

Mini frittatas are good baked in a silicone cupcake tin. You can add whatever you have lying around (onion, mushroom, peppers, sweet corn, tomato, spinach, cheese, cooked potatoes, ham etc etc) into the pans, whisk up 6-8 eggs and pour over. Bake until set. These keep ok in the fridge as well for a cold breakfast on the go.

You've reminded me that DDs like avocado, or even guacamole, on toast, thanks. I might do that tomorrow.

DD1 is developing a liking for coffee, but she wants it from Starbucks

Add message | Report | Message poster ChristianGreysSkiddyGruts Wed 06-Aug-14 17:02:01
"Pearl barley porridge with cinnamon, nuts, fruit etc. Really filling and healthy."

How do u make this please could I have the recipe

Mine will have granary bread with choc spread and mashed banana on. Sometimes with peanut butter too.
Overnight oats are good with mashed banana. No so DT2, he's a weetabix kid.
Avocado, yoghurt and banana
scotch pancakes with berries or raisins in (or banana AGAIN!)
They also quite like a bowl of fruit on its own.

I've experimented lots with porridge recently, the flahavans oats are great, the jumbo ones take a very long time to cook though. I usually do half a mug of oats, a mug of semi milk and cook on a low heat for 20 minutes. Then a spoon of jam/berries to sweeten. Lots of stirring and possibly adding an extra splash of milk at some point.

If you can't find flahavans then the best i've found is the scots oats - the one with the strong man picture on the front.