No more breakfast cereals

I know many a mom who finds making breakfast just too much effort and grabs for a cereal box. I did my fair share of cereals as a kid and as a young mom also offered these up to my children. It has been a good couple of years since we have had breakfast cereals, with the exception of "instant oats" when we are camping. However, even instant oats no longer find their way into my shopping trolley.

Maybe I should share what is wrong with them before I give you the recipes.

1. They are processed foods...
2. High in fat
3. High in sugar
4. High in salt
5. Contain additives and preservatives

This equal more cost, lower nutrition, teeth cavaties, increased weight, less sustenance, water retention, higher BP and more. This is a good article which covers more of the dangers.

I thought I would share some healthy yummy whole breakfast ideas for those moms who still find themselves grabbing boxed cereals. They will involve a bit more time spent and those, who are not morning larks like I am, may battle with adding this new cooking time to their life, but even if you just substitute 2 or 3 mornings of boxed cereals to start with, its better than nothing.

Slow Cooker Oats For our family of 6. Adjust quantities as needed.

Grease your slow cooker with some butter.
Add 3 cups organic rolled oats
1 litre raw milk
500ml spring/distilled water
1/2 t salt
1 T raw honey or muscovado sugar
1/2 cup raisins/cranberries or 2 chopped apples
1/2 t cinnamon or one piece of stick cinnamon

Turn onto low when you go to bed and in the morning you have a delicious porridge which needs a little raw honey drizzled onto it.

Cooked oat with toasted almonds and cranberries

Cook the amount of oats you need for your family either in raw milk or water as you prefer.

Toast 100g of almonds lightly by dry frying them in a cast iron skillet.

Sprinkle over each persons serving of oats and top with cranberries and honey.

Raw muesli This is not my recipe - I got it from www.gonatural.co.za

3/4 cup oats per person
1 T mixed seeds (Chia, Flax, Linseed, Pumpkin, Sunflower etc)
1 T raisins or cranberries
Mix together.

1 T butter/coconut oil per person
1 T raw honey per person
Melt together in a double boiler.

Pour honey/butter over oat mix and stir until well blended. Serve into bowls and top with some homemade yoghurt.

Avo Toast

I make two loaves of spelt bread whenever I do make bread. One loaf is kept for the next morning and it is delicious toasted and topped with avo, salt, black pepper and lemon juice.

Wholemeal Muffins

These muffins are so delicious....my daughter put the recipe on her blog for you.

Oat waffles

We love these oat waffles on a Saturday or Sunday when we have more time to prepare.

Breakfast scones

Another every now and again treat from the baking department are breakfast scones. I learnt to make these in Home Ec at school and they are still fun. Combined with a protein they are great.

500ml flour
1ml salt
15ml Baking Powder
Sift together

40ml nut oil
150ml milk
10ml sugar
Add and mix

Shape into rounds place on a baking sheet and score into quarters. Bake at 200 Deg C for 15mins. Serve with cheese, butter, jams.

Eggs

Fried eggs, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, eggs benedict (weekends!) or omlettes are all great ways to start the day too. We do this 2x a week.

Homemade Flapjacks/American Pancakes

This is a so much-so much recipe for each home but a delicious start to the day with savory topping like bacon and mushrooms or sweet like a homemade berry "syrup" with yoghurt.

There are lots of ideas and each are MUCH better than grabbing a box of empty calories.