Meal Time Sanity Part 1: Breakfast

As a wife and stay-at-home mom of 5 who homeschools, I have 7 people ( including myself ) that rely on me to cook or put together...every meal...every snack...every day...the only exceptions are when hubby works his shifts at the station ( and I sometimes cook food and send it even then ), when we occasionally eat out, or when we eat with friends or family. Needless to say I spend A LOT of time in my kitchen...don't get me started on how many dishes I do ;) 

So I'm going to share with you how I make meal times around my house a little less crazy for me. I  will have a separate post on lunches then on suppers...if you aren't from the south you may call supper: dinner ;) Dinner in the south can either mean lunch or supper...ANYWAY...Today I'm going to share with you how I make breakfast time easier, and I NEED easy mornings :) I'm not a cheery, or even fully awake human most mornings. Coffee is my friend. With a lot of creamer. I'm pale, my coffee needs to match me :)

Breakfasts are always pretty simple on school mornings. Our normal monthly rotation is: oatmeal, cereal, bagels with cream cheese, yogurt with a banana, smoothies with toast, and twice a month I resort to poptarts...yeah I said it ;) Some days I'm feeling super ambitious and try a new Pinterest recipe...but when you're a zombie in the mornings that doesn't happen very often ;) On days that daddy wakes up with us at home and doesn't have to go to the station we have brunches. To fire families these days are basically what 9-5rs call weekends. We only have "normal" weekends when his shifts off actually fall on the entire weekend, which is rare. I love those mornings, we don't have school on most of those days so we all sleep late. Then when we do get up we stay in our PJ's turn on some bluegrass and head to the kitchen. Hubby and I cook breakfast together while the kiddos play. We usually cook a variation of eggs with bacon or sausage and toast but sometimes we make waffles, or pancakes with homemade strawberry or blueberry syrup.

 ( YUM ) 

Back to making school mornings easy:

Obviously most meals are grab and go making them SUPER easy.

My biggest time saver when making oatmeal is making it with a little help from my tea pot. I fill up and put my full teapot of water on the stove, then I set out my bowls in an assembly line manner and add 1/2 cup of plain one minute oats to them along with a little sugar and butter or maple syrup, whichever kind the kiddos want that morning ( the variations are endless ) Once my water is boiling I add enough of it to each bowl to get the right consistency and stir. Done. Easy. The boiling water cooks the oats right then and there. It's awesome. We do our morning chores while we wait for the water to boil and the oats to cool. I start my dishwater for the kids to put their bowls in after they finish so I don't have hard crusty dried oatmeal to chisel off of the bowls  if I'm not able to wash them right after breakfast...and news flash: I have a toddler and a 3 month old SO that pretty much never happens :) Hence: the reason I know that oatmeal gets hard and crusty and has to be chiseled ;) if you don't have a teapot you can boil a pot of water and ladle the water into the bowls. This also works with oatmeal packets.

I put bowls, spoons and cups on the table the night before to save even more time for oatmeal and cereal. For quick smoothies I do some prep ahead of time. I peel over ripe bananas and put them in a plastic baggie, I also wash and put whole frozen strawberries in baggies too ( tops=extra vitamins and less prep ) I buy whatever other kinds of fresh or frozen fruit I can find that is either on sale or reduced and can be frozen. I add a Greek yogurt and either milk or juice and sometimes some fresh fruit or carrots to the frozen fruit and blend in my ninja pulse ( those things are well worth the money...this statement is coming from a very frugal woman ) I serve these with toast ( whatever variation that the kiddos want that morning ). Basically I just keep breakfast simple. Simple=quick. My post on lunches is next, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve for lunches :) 

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