Thursday, December 3, 2009

Breakfast for Dinner

My people are tired. My people are run-down. My people are at the ends of their proverbial ropes and, frankly, not that much fun to be around. To be fair, I count myself among them. When I headed to the store at 3:45 this afternoon, it was with simple comfort food in mind to maybe soothe the souls of my overworked, buried-in-grading husband, my end-of-the-preschool-week, one-too-many play dates, exhausted daughter and my own anxious self. So, what comfort food did I turn to? Mashers? Soup? Breakfast!

I have a wonderful old friend who works at my neighborhood Vitamin Cottage with whom I always chit-chat when I stop in. She teases me now because on at least two occasions I’ve gone in the store to buys eggs, filled up my basket and gotten home with no eggs. So, every time I see her, she reminds me: “Don’t forget the eggs!”

Eureka! If you can’t cheer people up with breakfast for dinner, I thought, then they just cannot be pleased. So, I whipped up a batch of organic blueberry pancakes (I use the Arrowhead Mills Multigrain mix) with butter and real maple syrup. At the same time, I sautéed some organic baby spinach in a bit of butter, then added beaten eggs, bacon left over from a quiche earlier in the week and diced organic tomato. The kids finished the meal with plain organic goat yogurt—Joseph has discovered he loves this and kept yelling “bipes!” (bites!) at Sophia, who was feeding him. Seriously adorable.

By the end of dinner, we were all grooving to Johnny Mathis Christmas music and in a much better place emotionally. Something to keep in my back pocket for the next time my frazzled family needs an extra touch of culinary comfort.

3 comments:

  1. Loved this. Thank you. And welcome back.

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  2. Hi. Nice post! Glad I stumbled upon it.
    We have a major pancake issue in our house - meaning it's all the kids want to eat in the morning (and at night .. and for a snack ...). Could be worse I suppose, at least I know I can give them something without an arguement. At Whole Foods my oldest spied a can of Batter Blaster - organic pancakes in a can! He was asking very sweetly if we could try them and I gave in. I was skeptical but now I have to admit they are pretty good. I am determined that they NOT take the place of my homemade ones but they are perfect as a morning shortcut!
    Happy Holidays
    --J

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  3. when ski season rolls around, here, (which it is about to do.... yay...), I give myself permission to have breakfast for supper ONCE. A. WEEK. for the entire 6-8 weeks of ski season (I'm really counting just January and February, when we are all in school/work, and skiing till 6:00 or so two or three nights a week. So, getting in the door pretty late and without a great deal of culinary oomph).

    It's always blueberry waffles, and one week, it's with bacon, the next, it's with sausage.

    Makes everybody happy and well fed.

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