About two years ago, Steve and I had made an apple pie after the boys were in bed, and thought that, as a fun treat, we would let Gabe have pie for breakfast the next morning in lieu of our typical raisin bran or shredded wheat. 

In the morning, Gabe woke up while I was showering. When I came out, I said good morning, and asked how he was.  He though a moment, and replied “Well, I cried a little this morning because Daddy tried to make me eat pie for breakfast.”   Both he and his brother had rejected the proffered treat in favor of raisin bran.  

Let me tell you, it’s really hard to find an excuse for junk food when my own kid would prefer shredded wheat and oatmeal.

For years, our breakfast staples were:

1. Cereal (Shredded wheat)
2. Cereal (Raisin bran)
   
3. Cereal (Cheerios)
4. Oatmeal (aka, hot cereal)

Recently, we’ve had to tighten our budget a bit.  After we purchased our new home, the deal fell through for our old house, and as of yet, we haven’t found a new buyer.  Let me tell you, nothing tightens a budget like two mortgage payments. 

One of the only places where we had much wiggle room was our grocery bill.  I thought we were doing pretty darn good.  $175/week for 5 people isn’t really that shabby, especially considering that we rarely buy any packaged/convenience foods (with the exception of Cliff Kidz bars to take to gymnastics practice and the occasional bag of goldfish).  But alas, there are people that manage to both eat well AND spend far less than we do, and I had to start making some serious cuts.

Right away, I noticed that the majority of our bill was from one of four places: produce, dairy,  meat and…breakfast cereal.  The five of us were going through at least four boxes a week!  That adds up pretty quickly.  So we decided that going forward, we would no longer buy cereal.  It’s definitely taken a lot of pre planning on my part, but as I’ve found what we enjoy, and gotten into the habit of hot breakfasts, we’ve been really enjoying it. 

Having a cooked breakfast means that we’re all sitting down to eat the meal together, which is really nice since Steve’s work hours almost always preclude having a family dinner.  Since apples are in season, and we love to take trips to the orchard as a family, our breakfasts consist of a LOT of apple based dishes at the moment.  A few things we’ve been enjoying:

Apple Claufuti (A sort of custard-y dish that was originally made to use up a surplus of eggs, but turned out to be a surprising hit)

Apple Bread

Banana Bread

Apple and Banana muffins

Apple Pie

Apple Crisp

Baked apples

Homemade biscuits with homemade Apple Butter

“Breakfast Porridge” (essentially, oatmeal and cream of wheat cooked together in milk and lightly sweetened)

Eggs in various ways (the current favorite of the kids is breakfast sandwiches, my favorite way is when we splurge on bacon to go with them)

Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon Bread

Pancakes

Homemade Bagels

I can now appreciate why biscuits were such a breakfast staple on farms and homesteads!  They are a breeze to mix up, bake much faster than a bread or muffin, and lend themselves to a variety of different preparations.  Cheese or cinnamon sugar mixed in the dough, plain ones served with jam, apple butter or honey on top…quick, easy, and flexible!

I will admit, some of these aren’t actually that much cheaper than buying cereal, mostly because a lot of them use butter.  (So on that great and glorious future day when we finally have our own milk cow, they will be.) But in a way it does save money, by cutting down on waste. Ones like banana bread make use of old bananas that would otherwise be hitting the compost pile, and some of the apple recipes work perfectly well with those ‘past their prime’ apples that aren’t actually bad but have turned sort of soft and grainy.

I’ll include a few of of the recipes I use later, but I will add here that if you are ever in need of a recipe, the King Arthur Flour website has pretty much replaced every cookbook/baking website in my arsenal.  I have tried dozens of recipes over the past few months, and not a SINGLE ONE has let me down.  In the comments and reviews of various online recipes, you’ll typically see statements like “I liked it, but I added X and Y, and cooked for 15 minutes longer” or “It’s got great flavor, but came out really dry because the baking temperature is off.”  It’s up to the cook to check through and see what adjustments need to be made to get the results you’re looking for.  Not so with kingarthurflour.com! I have never had more success on first recipe attempts. Every one of them is tested in their kitchens, with a variety of equipment to make sure it’s going to give good results.  (This is totally my own opinion.  At this point, we don’t even have any regular readers, and KAF has no idea that our teeny blog exists.  I just really, really like their recipes, and want to pass on a recommendation for a very helpful resource!)

Let me know in the comments what your favorite breakfasts are, and any recipes you’d recommend trying out!