What's for breakfast?

As part of our "starvation diet" a big issue to overcome was the dilemma of what to serve for breakfast.  I take no shame in saying, a box of cereal is just easy and what Matt and I grew up on.  Strangely enough, I had noticed in the past that I had more energy on the days that I made green smoothies and we did not eat cereal, but that was hard to pin solely on what I ate as so many other factors could influence energy levels. 

If we were eating eggs, our breakfast options would be endless, but alas The Tornado reacted to eggs when we put them back in the diet.  After a year long elimination from his sister's diet, she was able to eat them again, but never wants to.  So the two of them remain egg free, as does our baking, however, for a quick meal, the other three of us will eat a fried egg every once in a while.

Yesterday, I took one of our favorite breakfast recipes from my favoritist of favorite cookbooks, What the Bible Says about Healthy Living Cookbook and amended it to better fit with our current diet.  Before I share our recipe, I want to offer a commercial for this cookbook (with no incentive from the author or Amazon to do so!).  Every single recipe I have made from this cookbook has been well received by the family, which anyone who is cooking for kids knows is a difficult thing to do!  It is filled with simple and healthy eating options, and in my opinion a wonderful starting place for anyone interested in improving your diet without going super extreme as we are right now.  I have enjoyed this cookbook so much that I bought it for my three sisters, my mom and my grandma.  One of my sisters went on to buy a copy for her best friend.

After realizing that we needed specially grown, gluten free oats, we cut them out of the diet for about a week while waiting for the gluten free variety to arrival.  When we ate oatmeal with the gluten free oats, all but one of us got a tummy ache and therefore, we have not eaten them for several weeks.  I have gone back and forth on my opinion about the need to soak grains.  There are sooooo many theories on diet out there that it is really difficult to sift through and determine what is valid and what is junk science.  However, now that our diet is very basic, it is quite easy to determine when what we eat affects us, good or bad.  I soaked our gluten free oats to make our oatmeal bake and everyone was able to eat it without discomfort.

Our Favorite Oatmeal Bake

• 3 cups oats soaked overnight with just enough water to cover and the juice of 1/2 large lemon

In the morning, rinse drain the oats well.  Set aside while preparing the additions. I leave them in my strainer dripping into a bowl to get as much liquid out as possible.  In a separate bowl, add:

• 4-5  Medjool Dates, chopped
• 3/4 cup flaked, unsweetened, unsulphured coconut

Pit and chop the dates into small pieces.  Drop into the coconut as you chop to keep them from becoming a big, sticky ball of sweetness.  This step is really worth the extra effort!!  Add to coconut and dates:

• 1/2 cup organic raisins (or craisins, but we actually prefer raisins)
• 2 heaping teaspoons of cinnamon (to taste, we love extra cinnamon)
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Stir well so that cinnamon and salt are well mixed.  Add in the oats.  Mix again.  Finally, add in:

• 1 cup organic applesauce
• 3/4 - 1 cup of coconut milk (the beverage variety, not the canned variety - we used to use cow's milk-rice or almond milk would likely work too, but we love the flavor with coconut!)
• 1/4 ish cup of honey or maple syrup
• 2 granny smith apples, chopped (I use my corer/peeler to make quick work of the apple)

Stir.  Press into a greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

This makes enough that we have some leftovers to snack on throughout the day.  If I served it with a smoothie, it would be enough to feed us for two mornings.  The original recipe had dates as being optional.  I only used them once and a used pre-chopped variety.  After making it with freshly chopped dates, we find the dates are not optional and make it the yummiest breakfast ever!!

 

Comments

[Denise]

We just had this for breakfast and it was amazing! It's so hard to find meals that fit our allergy needs *and* that everyone likes. This one fits the bill. Thank you!