For a few years now I’ve been getting a lot of my basic information about the foods I eat from The World’s Healthiest Foods, and then I generally do more research on whatever food I looked up and pull it all together for a better understanding of what I’m eating. I figured since I refer back to this site so often, I will try to blog through the list. The website actually lists 127 foods, I omitted the animal products from the list (meat, dairy & seafood), which leaves us with vegetables, fruits, beans & legumes, nuts, seeds & oils, grains, spices & herbs, natural sweeteners & drinks.

I will figure out a way to track which foods I’ve posted about with link back to them at some point, but for now, he’s a crazy quick breakfast that is equal parts healthy and tasty!

This includes both flax and banana and takes maaaaybe 5 minutes to prepare. The inspirational recipe I first saw (over at Some the Wiser) included Grape Nuts cereal and I didn’t use any in my version.

1 large, ripe banana
1 1/2 tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground flax
honey

Just mix up the cinnamon and flax in a small bowl. Spread natural peanut butter all over the banana and roll it in the flax/cinnamon mix. Then drizzle with honey. Voila!

Here’s the why behind ‘eat this, it’s good for you’.

Flax – Just two tablespoons over the course of a day (this recipe takes care of half of that first thing in the morning) gives you 132.9% of your daily value of omega 3, and a little less than 1/4 of your manganese, vitamin B1, and fiber for the day. By increasing our anti-inflammatory and antioxidant protection, flaxseeds can decrease our risks of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, asthma, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. Omega 3s make your cardiovascular system happy and the lignans in flax also help protect it from inflammatory damage. Vitamin B1 (also known as thiamine) is crazy important for proper functioning of the brain, nerves and muscles. Other notable positives for flax include cancer prevention, digestive health, and relief from post-menopausal symptoms.

Banana – 1 banana gives you 21% of your daily B6 (along with a decent dose of C). B6 is very helpful in reducing your risks of heart disease, and can help with depression and anxiety. Bananas have an antacid effect that can protect against ulcers, they also improve digestion, protect your eyesight, and promote kidney health! Not just a potassium kick!

I know Menu Monday is a concept meant to make dinners in busy households a little smoother, if only because you’re aware of what you’re doing before you open the pantry at 5 o’clock and I love that, I really do. I love only having to think about what I’m cooking once a week when I write the list and even then I just put together ideas and requests I’ve jotted down. While I do love serving something everyone loves (that hopefully looks pretty snazzy as well) to my fam every night, breakfast is my favorite meal to prepare for the Wee Ones.

I’m always up looong before them (occasionally, Wee One #3 will surprise all of us and get up when our alarms go off around 5am) so I have way more solo time to prep and set the table than I do in the evenings. Generally, they all wake up hungry. If they didn’t, they tend to develop an appetite when they smell whatever is going on that day. 🙂

To me, there are two important things about any meal but I try to be especially mindful of them at breakfast. It has to be packed with as many nutrients as possible and it has to be appealing enough for them to actually eat it. I mean, a bowl of Red River cereal is crazy good for you, it’s about as enticing to most people as a bowl of birdseed (my Daddy and one of my besties, Gill, however will happily sit down to a bowl of birdseed and go ‘mmmm, birdseed’). So, with that in mind, I set the table as pretty as I can with our hilarious extended vacation mismatched silverware and plates and fill their plates with fuel for the day. Kids need energy to squabble over board game rules and cover themselves head to toe in sidewalk chalk, dontchaknow!

As you know from last year, I’ve gotten sneaky with a lot of my cooking and baking so there are untraditional ingredients in a lot of their muffins and breads, but they all work in their favor and the kids either don’t know or don’t care so I keep at it. I generally serve it buffet-style. So I set out plates full of food and then each kid gets their own plate to pick and choose what they want. One of my kids will eat and eat and eat at each meal AND snack all day – my other two have supermodel appetites so they wont each as much at a meal, but they’ll come back half an hour later and ask for a snack so I just offer them breakfast again and again till lunch!

Breakfast this Week (July 16 – 22)

Sunday – Berry Smoothie (with spinach and parsley), Cinnamon Buns, Monkey Bread and maybe Apple Fritter Muffins

I know I have been singing serious praises for this cookbook all year but it really is everything I’m hyping it up to be and no one is even asking me to do it!

Another winner from this book, this time a breakfast treat. Even one of me wee ones that isn’t really into pears was down with this. You probably have everything you need for these already and if you don’t own a waffle maker (aside from this recipe being a good excuse to buy yourself one), I’m betting you could easily make pancakes from this batter as well.

So what’s so great about pears? Well, let’s get into it. They’re high in vitamin c and copper, which are both antioxidant nutrients. Aside from that, vitamin c is mega important for general immune function, it’s the boss guy that gets your white blood cells ready to fight infections and kills off bacteria and viruses. That’s pretty serious! It also helps to regenerate vitamin e (an antioxidant for fat-soluable areas, as opposed to vitamin c being an antioxidant for water-soluable parts of the body). Pears also pack a good fiber punch, and fiber has been shown to lower high cholesterol levels. It also binds to cancer-causing chemicals in the colon, preventing them from damaging colon cells. There are also studies that suggest that fruit fiber as a whole helps prevent post-menopausal breast cancer and macular degeneration (aka, your eyes). So eat up!!

Don’t forget about our giveaway with Keeley Behling Studios! Like the Keeley Behling Studios Facebook page and leave a comment there about something in her Etsy shop to enter. It wouldn’t hurt if you liked the So Very Domestic Facebook page too. 😉

This is the 8th recipe from Peas and Thank You and again, so far so good. This recipe, like seven others before it, came together easily! The directions are simple, the ingredients rad (as usual) and the taste was great. There are short stories about life in the Pea household before each recipe and this one totally resembled my feelings on french toast before this recipe. Maybe yours too? You know how there is almost always a piece of cooked egg hanging off the side of your french toast? Ugh. Not possible in this vegan version! Ha!

I ate my piece, 2/3 of the children ate theirs and my husband passed, but to be fair, he very rarely east breakfast and always passes on french toast. Maybe this will make him a convert the next time I do ‘breakfast for dinner’.

I will remind you again, no recipe for you this time around but I will be making a few recipeas (har har) that are available for free so I’ll post those here! I honestly think this is a cookbook worth buying.

If you use anything at all, let it be actual maple syrup!

In this post, I’m participating in Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, Tuesday Night Supper Club, and Hearth ‘n Soul.

I was looking forward to making this because I love French Toast and the kids usually do too. I say usually because if you add too much to it it’s not always acceptable to their discerning palettes, dontcha know?

Not sure exactly why one would need to hide bananas in other foods (I thought all kids loved bananas), but she also offered up pineapple, sweet potato, carrot, butternut squash and pumpkin as alternatives). I went with banana even though I just made fun of it because I didn’t have any purees on hand and making a banana puree is well, the easiest thing in the world.

French Toast (with banana) – from Deceptively Delicious (p. 49)

So, of course, start by whisking your eggs with your banana puree and cinnamon. Once it’s blended well together, plunk your bread in.

Some people have trouble with how long to leave the bread in the egg mixture or they get hung up in which is the correct tool for flipping the bread. Leave it in a few seconds past ‘just wet’ and use a fork!

Just a few minutes each side and it’s done!! French Toast is so fast! I love it! By now, the house smells like cinnamon and banana (and really strong coffee) and at around 150 cals per piece I was game to have one with the kids.

I was a little nervous they’d think the banana taste was weird by they were down and all three wee ones at it up like it was a tray of pancakes! Hey pancakes! I bet I could hide things in there too!!

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