Breakfast Of Champions

Breakfast around here is pretty consistent. Now that we have school many mornings and a bus with an early pick-up schedule, we are deviating even less from "the usual". In the past it's just been one of those "it works so why mess with it" kind of meals.

• Shreddies
• Cheerios
• Blackberries or Blueberries

Yes, all in one bowl. It works and is pretty healthy. We'll throw a little Kashi into the mix once in a blue moon. And, once in awhile there's a request for Steel Cut Oatmeal or Eggs but twenty-nine out of thirty days of the month we're a cereal and summer fruit, (a perk to island living as we pick 80% of it on our own street which = free) kinda clan.

A few days ago, the request for blackberry pancakes was thrown out there. It was a school morning and there was no time. It was promised as today's kick-off, start. Here's my issue with stereotypical, generic blackberry pancakes: they won't stick with a small active boy. We don't do the sugar thing around here so syrup and jam are unknowns. Peanut and almond butters can usually be found throughout our lunch, so there's no desire to duplicate earlier in the day on top.

The trick folks? Hide the rib-sticking-goodness within the pancake itself and beef it up with other fun stuff.

I got all creative and health crafty and stuff...well, I thought so for a 7:30am kind of concoction. I like to play this little game of "how much goodness can I hide and pack into one dish and still have it consumed by our small children quickly and with a resulting smile?". It's a fun game. Okay, so maybe I need to get a life but you can humour me for now.

I had a little gluten-free pancake mix left over and the directions were to add an egg, milk, and a little oil...but it needed some extras as it really was a small leftover amount of mix. Dumped into the above was an unmeasured amout each of spelt flour, flaxmeal, and a couple eyeballed tablespoons of almond butter - all hand mixed with a handful of blackberries tossed into the batter. No sugar, nothing crazy but they were "meaty" enough that these small boys are still rippin' their lego men around in their lego cars and it's lunch time.

On that note...