A breakfast look back

I used to post our weekly meal plan (for dinners) and even though I haven’t had time to do that in forever, I still take photos of my meals most of the time.  And I have a billion pointless photos on my computer to prove it.  I keep thinking I’ll get around to posting about them one day but maybe I should just cut my losses and accept that it’s not happening.  I have made so many quick breads and muffins and oatmeal bakes for breakfast over the last several months and I just don’t see how I’m ever going to catch up.  My breakfasts are usually the same thing day after day after day for months on end, until I move onto the next thing.  Over the years, the phases that stand out the most were oatmeal (2011-2012), two eggs & toast (2013-2014), waffles, smoothies (2015-2016), and now…???  There isn’t anything!  I make some kind of baked good, be it muffins, a loaf of bread, or baked oatmeal, and then I eat it until it’s gone and then I bake something else.  The one thing they all have in common is the topping…can you guess what it is?  Nutbutter.  I absolutely have to have some kind of nut or seed butter to start my day.  It is what I crave the most, so I basically just want anything that can provide the vehicle to get it into my mouth.  OK, now that I’ve written all that let me see if I can round up some photos.

Breakfast bake with cashew butter.  The above lasted for two days’ breakfasts.  If I used almond flour in a recipe I try not to have almond butter with it, purely for the sake of diversifying my diet, but I will admit cashew butter is my absolute favorite so I am happy to cook with almond flour and top it with cashew butter on most days.  😉

These were zucchini muffins from the 21DSD cookbook, which I froze for random mornings that I didn’t have my crap together.  In this case, it was the day after we got home (at 4 am) from Florida and I had to get us all fed and V to swimming at 9:30.

This is Danielle Walker’s sandwich bread (cashew based) from her first cookbook Against All Grain.  I topped it with almond butter.

Another breakfast bake with heaps of cashew butter.  No recollection of this particular one because it’s one of probably 30 I’ve made in the last few months.

I first got the idea to do this from Kath’s blog. After making my own mini versions over and over and over I thought “why am I not making a huge version of this in a casserole dish?”  It’s such an obvious note and yet it took me so long to clue in.  This one is a blueberry oatmeal bake which I took out of the oven about 10 minutes before it was done to add the candied nut topping on.

But those nuts weren’t enough, naturally, so I added nut butter each day too.  A different one depending on my mood!  Sun butter seemed the best pairing with the blueberries.

If walnut butter weren’t so pricey I’d probably devour that too.  Mmmmmm…

You can see the slivered almonds in it too.  Nut overload.

I’ve been much more veg*n lately and I think nuts have just become such a staple to give my body all the oomph it requires.  I need/want to be a high fat vegetarian.  I can’t live without nuts, avocado, and oil and I think I’m the healthiest ever with that kind of way of eating.

Going, going, gone.

OMG.

This was the spiced ginger loaf that I was OBSESSED with.

Probably one of the best things I made all year.  AND I even posted the recipe!

If you missed this one, make it asap.

In ranking my favorite almond butters, I’d say Justin’s is pretty high up there.  They have a warning on their label that they may contain peanuts though, so I don’t give it to P.  Barney Butter is super good but it is sweetened and doesn’t have the consistency of natural butters, so it’s not something I use every day.  TJ’s makes a few almond butters, but I buy the salted roasted smooth one.  I’m not usually into chunky nut butter.  Artisana makes amazing nut butters, but they are too $$$ for me.  And now Thrive Market is making their own, which I have yet to try, but it’s only a matter of time…

Have you guys started Thrive yet??

That’s another thing you need to get on.  They are always doing promos and giving things away. You get free shipping for orders over $49 (which gets you SO MUCH STUFF).  I should do a post of all the things I get from Thrive for cheaper than I’d get them elsewhere.  It’s a charitable company too…they donate memberships to those who can’t afford memberships and live in food deserts, etc.

I also dabbled in gluten free breadmaker recipes, and while they all turned out well enough to eat, there weren’t any that were better than the recipes I laready have on this site.  I kept trying to tweak things this way and that way – nixing eggs for flax and/or psyllium and bumping up the nutritional value while decreasing the number of different flours – but then they would all end up super squat, or worse, caving in after cooling.  So then I went back to my tried and true wheat loaf recipe.

The kids really like home-made bread…so if I’m not careful I don’t get any.

NuNaturals sent me some new products to try and I have loved adding their oat fiber to baked goods. Sometimes I add so many dry ingredients I end up having to make a few different ramekins’ worth.

Flax meal, ground nuts and seeds, oats, almond flour, etc etc.  I get carried away.  One time I added a bunch of macadamia nuts to the blender and that made for a delish combo, but I now reserve my macadamia binges for lunch time.  I eat a cup or so on my salads every day, so I figure I should let breakfast sing in it’s own way.

Puddles of nut butter.

Even muffins end up with a butter coated fate!

I had to make these into muffins because all the ramekins were occupied or in the dishwasher.  It worked out fine, but I always wound up going back to get more muffins because two never did the trick.

I knew I was going to be backing a bunch around the holidays so I bought heaps of bananas.  But what I should have bought were more baking loaf pans!  Rookie move.  I stayed up til midnight baking bread for all of P’s teachers because I only had three loaf pans.  So I had to wait for them to cook, cool, clean, then repeat… GAH!

Pretty sure this baked oatmeal was pumpkin flavored.

Again, topped with every nut ever.

Followed by nut butter.

I would just put the whole glass dish into the microwave each morning and then attack it with a fork until I felt full and then I’d wrap it up until the next day.  It’s a dangerous way to eat since you have no clue where your serving started or ended but I am pretty good about listening to my appetite and tuning out the “shoulds” of portions by now.

And now after all that I was going to post last week’s dinners!  I guess that will have to wait…I feel good about deleting the photos now.  Goodbye 2016.  Onward!