Breakfast Fruit Salad

This recipe for Breakfast Fruit Salad is so easy.  I really does make a great breakfast and even lunch–especially on those sweltering hot summer days here in Texas.  Okay, it’s the middle of February and I’m only DREAMING of those summer days, as it’s gotten cold here, (well cold for Texas!).  This is a breakfast that my kids really enjoy, it’s sweet and crunchy, which makes it a good substitute for the crunchy breakfast cereal we are no longer eating while on the grain free diet.  The yogurt dressing really makes this salad so yummy!  You can add other fruit and nuts to the mix.  In the past, I’ve added walnuts (which I’ve discovered I have an allergy to) and pecans.  I’ve also added strawberries instead of the grapes.  To make it sort of like a Waldorf salad, you can even add a bit of celery.  The recipe is versatile, and I haven’t found a combination that didn’t work alright.  But it’s a healthy substitute to more processed breakfast foods.  It can also be pretty frugal depending on the fruit you use and if you use seasonal fruits on sale.  The yogurt dressing is simple and healthy.  Purchasing plain yogurt and flavoring it yourself, if MUCH more healthy than purchasing the stuff already flavored, which is full of high fructose corn syrup and other not so good for you things.  Not to mention that it really is easy!  Which reminds me, I think I’ll do a post about making homemade flavored yogurt this week!  In the meantime, enjoy this recipe!

[gmc_recipe 918]

Pinterest Banana Pancakes

Do you like Pinterest? I sure do! It has so many wonderful ideas presented in glorious color! Sometimes it is a bit overwhelming to be honest. Today I’m going to share a recipe that I tried after seeing it on Pinterest.

2-Ingredient Banana Pancakes

What you need:

• whisk
• medium bowl
• spatula
• skillet

Ingredients:

• banana, the riper the better
• 2 eggs
• oil or spray for skillet, optional really but it helps

What to do (this is super easy!):

Mash the banana as well as possible in the bowl and add the two eggs, yolk and all to the bowl. Keep whisking until it is definitely all mixed. And that’s it!

Spray your skillet or frying pan with non-stick or use a little oil. Next measure out your batter to make your pancakes. It is a bit runny but it ‘sets’ quickly on the edges.

Flip the pancakes after a few moments. You’ll be able to tell that the edges are ‘drying’ much like when making other pancakes. The image below shows the pancakes in the skillet without oil; they stuck. The second image shows oil 🙂

It only made 5 pancakes- not quite enough for the three of us this morning. Two are teenagers so I think you can understand. My daughter didn’t like these banana pancakes. She decided to make a full batch of ‘regular’ pancakes afterward. I thought they were okay; different. My son hasn’t tried it yet but I’m sure he’ll eat it either way.

The nutritional facts, according to Cassey at Blogilates, are as follows:

Calories: 248.5
Fat- Saturated: 3.3g
Polyunsaturated: 2.2g
Monounsaturated: 4.2g
Cholesterol: 370mg
Sodium: 141.2mg
Potassium: 6.7.3mg
Carbohydrates: 27.7g
Dietary Fiber: 2.8g
Sugars: 14.6g
Protein: 13.6g

What is the most interesting thing you’ve tried from Pinterest? Did it turn out like it ‘should’ have? Please leave a comment!

Breakfast?

As a teenager, I didn’t eat breakfast. I drank a glass of milk – and it had to be a glass glass, you understand – and was out the door in record time. As an adult, and especially as a nursing mother of twin toddlers, I simply cannot go without eating within the first hour of waking up. And an hour would be pushing it.

So, I eat a lot of cereal. Especially during the summer time, my family consumes crazy amounts of cereal. It’s fast, it’s light, it serves as breakfast meal, in-between meal, snacks, and even dessert. Not all in one day, of course. Well, not most days, anyway.

Here’s the problem:

As a frugality maven who is always looking for a better, more economical, money-saving way to do things, (balanced, of course, with how much time I actually have to put in to doing them,) buying cereal really pricks at my brain.

It is NOT a frugal option. It’s not cheap. And, most of the time, it’s not even very healthy. Even the whole wheat, iron-packed type versions aren’t exactly the most nutritious items on the shelf.

But really, what are my options?

I could get up a little earlier (or start our day a little later) and actually cook every day. Yeah, right. I could whip out the frozen waffles, which at least my 9 year old son does quite often and the rest of us do on occasion. In fact, if I had the extra time one Saturday, I could whip up a whole month’s worth of homemade waffles for the freezer and do double duty on the whole frugality mission. Or going with that theme, I could whip up some breakfast burritos or sausage biscuits and freeze them. The problem here is that I’m barely getting the bare home keeping minimum done every week, let alone having the chance to get ahead like that.

I’m telling you, though, that eating cereal twice daily every day for three or four months (yes, it’s hot that long in Texas, sometimes – often – longer) just really gets on my frugality nerve, not to mention it gets old really, really quickly.

I’ve even pondered the possibility of trying to learn to make my own cereal. I’m sure pinterest or your friendly search engine would turn up something. Wouldn’t it? But would it be practical, and most importantly would it still be frugal? I mean the nutritional value is important, but around here, right now, bottom dollar is the bottom line. I guess I won’t know until I search it, but it just seems like such a pointless exercise, spending hours and hours preparing something that the whole point of continuing to consume it is convenience and saving of time. I could spend the time I’d use making cereal simply doing one of those other options and freezing ahead of time.

It’s overwhelming me this week!

What do you eat for breakfast? What do you do when you’re in a hurry? What do you do when convenience AND money are applied to the decision? And, just for fun, what’s your very favorite breakfast item to cook or serve?