My Solution to Breakfast Hatred

I love food.  I have always loved food.  I love pretty much all the components of food; menu planning, grocery shopping, cooking it, eating it…photographing it.  The only part I don’t like is the dishes, but I don’t consider them to be food related, it's just the inevitable carnage that comes with cooking. 

Considering all this, you may be quite surprised to learn that I absolutely detest breakfast.  It repulses me in every way: the socially acceptable elements, the timing, the effort.

The elements of breakfast are my first complaint-literally everything involves eggs in some way.  As we all know, eggs are direct decedents from the devil.  Odorous, slimy, runny, yolky….I shudder just thinking of them.  The smell alone makes me want to vomit.  I never cook them for myself and can find other options at home, but it makes things mighty tricky when we go out to breakfast.  Next time you go out to breakfast, try ordering something off the menu that does NOT include eggs-it's a challenge.  (I don’t like pancakes either, but let’s save that for another time). Side note: am I a picky eater??  I say no.

Second is the timing.  Who in their right mind wakes up and is hungry first thing in the morning!?  This ties in with the effort because I also don’t generally want to wake up and put in all the energy preparing myself something to eat.  By prepare, I mean peeling the lid off my Greek yogurt.  All I want to do is sip my coffee, read my books and remind myself that mornings are opportunities to accomplish new things, not a means of torture.

Regardless of my excuses, I laced up my grownup shoes and committed to eating breakfast on a regular basis.  Intellectually, I know that there are numerous health benefits of starting the day with a healthy meal.  Not only does it help boost over-all metabolism, but I notice a huge difference in my workouts when I have been properly fueling my body throughout the day, starting in the morning. 

After some research, I found a solution to my problem.  I realized I was being high maintenance and decided to just get over myself and eat the stupid breakfast!  Just kidding, but that would have been very cool of me.  Instead, I found…baked oatmeal!!!!  What makes me the most excited about baked oatmeal are the innumerable variations and possibilities that it offers.  If you look up “baked oatmeal’ on Pinterest you will find enough recipes to eat a different oatmeal every morning for a year!

Below is a link to my favorite one so far.  I will cut down on the sugar in the future because it tastes more like a dessert than breakfast.  I have also used this as an opportunity to slip myself the things I generally don’t remember to eat; flaxseeds, chia seeds, collagen powder…

What I do NOT like in baked oatmeal is protein powder.  Like most Crossfitters and exercise freaks, I am obsessed with getting my daily protein and will look for any way to add more protein to whatever I am eating.  Protein powder has a delightful place in many areas of life, but I cannot handle it in oatmeal because the dish becomes so incredibly dense that I feel like I am eating a glue stick.  Which, for those of you who have never actually eaten a glue stick, is quite unpleasant.

Thus, I go forth; adulting so hard with my breakfasts…an aura of maturity surrounding me. 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/113997434295907228/

Quinoa Basil Soup

Creativity…is not one of my many, many gifts in life.  I am a good, nay, excellent instruction follower.  I prefer activities that provide structure and direction, such as: cooking (from a recipe), cross-stitching, exercise CLASSES, coloring etc.  I will read the entire manual when putting together a bookshelf from IKEA.  This is where I thrive.

Because of this, I am so proud of the fact that I do, indeed, have an original soup recipe to share.  Not only is it original; it is healthy AND delicious.

This recipe started out as a tortellini soup, but thanks to my Mother and her insanely strict healthy eating habits, 80% of the ingredients in the original soup were things she would never, ever consume.  One substitute at a time (and a horrible onion incident) the tortellini soup morphed in to what it is today: Quinoa Basil Soup.  Yes, I know the name is not creative, what did you expect from me?

Ingredients:

2 tbs butter

2-3 cloves garlic

8 cups chicken broth

1 lb ground turkey

Parmesan cheese

28oz can stewed tomatoes

1 bag baby spinach

1 box of Trader Joe’s basil

1 cups cooked quinoa

4 zucchini

2 tbs poultry seasoning

Salt

Pepper

A few caveats:  This is how the recipe is written, but I don’t always follow it exactly.

• Garlic-I probably use 6 cloves of garlic because I lurv garlic.  Use at your own discretion.
• Butter-I use a LOT of butter.  See above.  I also lurrrrv butter.
• Chicken broth-you are entitled to whatever chicken broth you want, but Trader Joes range free is the best.  Your choice.
• Basil-if you don’t want to or cannot go to Trader Joe’s then use about 2 cups of basil, don’t cut up the leave, just keep ‘em whole.
• Onions-do not EVER, upon pain of death, use onions in this soup.  I am a huge fan of onions, the hugest…but once upon a time my dear, dear mother added onions and we literally threw the soup away because it was so horrible.  So DON’T.
• Spinach-I pack in as much as I can fit because the spinach cooks down.

Now you are ready.

1. Melt butter and in a large sauce pan.  Add garlic, sauté until golden; about two minutes.  Add ground turkey, half of the poultry seasoning, salt and pepper to taste-cook until turkey is browned. 
2. Stir in chicken broth, remaining poultry seasoning and bring to boil.
3. While the broth is heating, blend tomatoes to desired consistency.  Personally, I cannot stand chunks of canned tomato.  No, just…no.  I blend the tomatoes to a frothy liquid.  Once your tomatoes are blended, add to the turkey and broth mixture and once again bring to a boil. 
4. Add sliced zucchini and simmer on low until tender.
5. Stir in cooked quinoa, spinach and basil.  Simmer until the basil and spinach is cooked to desired consistency (I like my spinach to be a bit wilted).
6. Serve and garish with Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper as needed.

I usually eat so much of this soup that I think I am going to die.  Just a warning.