Starting Right

I am a firm believer in breakfast. Not a shove a prepackaged overly sweet something in your mouth as your run out the door breakfast, but a full course meal with multiple food groups-keep yourself full until lunch breakfast. It does a body good. My favorite cold and hot breakfast go together to create a full meal with all the food groups.

First, cold. Get shredded wheat (not frosted), add sliced bananas and another fruit cut into bite sized pieces. I like apples and especially peaches or nectarines. Of course, berries would work great as well. I think I even had kiwi once, but decided kiwi needs it's own plate.

My best friend's mom would always have fresh fruit on the table in the morning ready to eat. The oranges would be peeled, apples sliced, kiwi cut. I can't have a kiwi without remembering when I spent the night and noticed the fruit the first time. Even as a kid I thought it was a great idea to get us to eat more fruit. Now as a mom, I think it's a great idea to use up fruit that is about to go bad. Continuing with the recipe...

Top with chopped nuts, mixed nuts are great, just be sure to leave out the peanuts, their flavor is too strong. For a while I had some Brazilian nuts that needed to be used, that was good when mixed with another hard nut, like chestnuts. Add as much cinnamon and nutmeg as you want. Remember, cinnamon is good for you in 3+grams/day (it controls blood sugar, and studies show it improves "cognitive processing", among other things). I've added cardamom before for variety. Pour your milk, enjoy. This was vegan, so I had rice milk this day. But I noticed the carton said "rice beverage" made me smile.

I love omelets. I never cook them perfectly, I always add too many veggies to fold it in thirds, but I don't think you can ever have too many sauteed veggies. Although I would like to figure out how to keep the outside of the egg not burned and the inside completely cooked. My timing is never perfect.

Pair this vegetable omelet with my fruit cereal and you have a perfectly complete meal. Dairy, check; grains, check; veggies, fruit and protein, check! You even have some good fats with the nuts. If only all my meals were this great...