Put up or shut up (II): Meal planning, breakfast edition.

A few days ago I explained my upcoming 6-week habit reboot, intended to put the last annoying pregnancy weight behind me for good. I started general meal planning by making a list of dinners that would work with the kind of schedule I will be keeping over those summer weeks. I didn't assign dinners to dates yet, though -- I will do specific meal planning week by week when I make my grocery lists.

Today I attacked the same problem, only for breakfast. Normally I do not plan breakfasts ahead of time. I usually just have whatever I feel like having, typically some combination of eggs or yogurt, toast, and fruit or V-8. I probably don't have to do this, because I rarely have an excessive breakfast, but I thought I would make a list anyway and then I would at least have portions all figured out.

I figured that I have four kinds of mornings coming up:

• Five breakfasts out by myself, early on a Saturday morning.


• Seven weekend breakfasts at home with the family. This calls for muffins, pancakes, or similar.


• Thirteen weekday breakfasts soon after shopping, when we still have fresh fruit around.


• Twenty weekday breakfasts after I can expect all the fresh fruit to be gone.

Breakfasts out by myself need a strategy, not a plan, and I already have such a strategy. At the Ordinary Breakfast Place I always have buttered pumpernickel toast, one egg, and a big glass of tomato juice. At the Fancy Breakfast Place I usually order the delicious breakfast quesadilla, on a house-made sprouted tortilla with black beans, spinach, and guacamole, and take half of it home for later.

I raided my cookbooks for some good weekend-morning breakfasts, around 400 calories, and came up with this list:

• Lemon-blueberry muffin (150 cal), scrambled egg + eggwhite + onions + mushrooms, 2/3 c whole milk


• Coffee cake muffin (220 cal), 1/2 c plain yogurt, 1 c berries


• Chocolate-chip scone (160 cal), 1 c strawberries, 1/2 c yogurt or cottage cheese, 1 Tbsp sliced almonds


• 1 waffle with blueberries and 1 Tbsp maple syrup, 2/3 c whole milk


• 2 cornmeal pancakes (1/4 c batter each) with 1 c blueberries and 6 oz blueberry yogurt

Why the 2/3 cup of whole milk everywhere? Well, published meal plans always call for 1 cup of skim milk. Bleah. I like whole milk, so I only pour 2/3 of a cup.

I think the best plan for weekday breakfasts is to eat the same breakfast a few days in a row; change it to something else when I run out of fresh fruit; then, change it again when I buy more fresh fruit a few days later.

 

My "there is fresh fruit in the house" weekday breakfasts might include

 

• Toasted whole wheat English muffin, 2 tsp whipped butter, 2/3 cup plain yogurt with a teaspoon of honey, and 1 cup sliced strawberries


• 1 egg scrambled with bell pepper, tomato, 1.5 oz turkey kielbasa, red onion, garlic; 1 slice wheat toast, 1 cup blueberries


• 2 eggs scrambled with cream and spinach or broccoli and bell pepper, half an English muffin, butter


• Ham, egg, and cheese (or bacon, egg, no cheese) sandwich on an English muffin with tomato and a cup of fruit salad


• 3/4 cup plain whole Greek yogurt, 3/4 cup chopped fruit or berries, 1/4 cup granola or other crunchy cereal, drizzle of honey

 

After the fresh berries run out, I could have one of these:

• 2-egg frittata with green pepper, onion, cheese, and salsa; 1 slice toast; half a grapefruit or some canned mandarin oranges


• Toasted English muffin with 4 tsp peanut butter, half a banana, and 2/3 c whole milk


• Toasted English muffin half, spread with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese; hard boiled egg; fruited yogurt cup; tomato juice or V-8


• 3 ounces of bagel (e.g., mini or half), 2 Tbsp hummus, cucumber and tomato, 1/2 c canned fruit


• 2 soft-boiled eggs, (six minutes for me), 1 slice of toast with plenty of butter, glass of V-8 or tomato juice


• 2 scrambled eggs with cream and butter, half an English muffin with a bit of honey, glass of V-8

You might notice the total absence of bowls of cereal in this breakfast plan. This is because once I start eating bowls of cereal, I usually fall into an iterative loop of "Oops, I ate all the cereal but there is still milk in the bowl; add cereal" followed by "Oops, there is no more milk in the bowl but I still have cereal; add milk." I do better with oatmeal, but I don't really want that in the summer.

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Comments

[Christy P]

I will mention this now, despite planning to see you IRL in a few hours becuase the husbands may not be interested in the comment and I might forget.

I have come around to the notion of breakfast = deliberately left-over salad or veg from the night before + fried egg with a liberal dousing of Frank's Red Hot or Sriracha (whichever makes more sense). Perhaps in my house it is easier to plan for leftovers, since there are fewer people. I might even portion out the breakfast, or sometimes lunch, before putting dinner out to be sure that there is some.

Other thought, it is fascinating to me to observe the variety of ways in which American families eat. I have said it many times since my Asian sojurn - one of the miracles of America is the variety of food available. You can have Korean food today, but you could have Mexican or Italian or Thai just as easily. Wow!

[Bearing]

Oh, definitely. Probably my favorite breakfast in all the world is leftover grain-bean side dish (whatever -- red beans and rice, moors and christians, pilafs, etc) with a fried egg on top. Closely followed by greens with a fried egg on top! However, as you noted, the quantity of leftovers can be unpredictable. Also, unfortunately, I must avoid planning tasty grain-bean dinners for a while as they represent an advanced level of portion control on the order of homemade garlic-bread-crumb-topped macaroni and cheese.

So, all this represents my efforts to Have A Plan But Be Flexible.