If It's Scrambled Eggs, It Must Be Tuesday

One of the traditions I inherited from my mother is a breakfast schedule--every day had an assigned food for breakfast. It was a pretty deeply ingrained habit. Shortly after I got married and moved away, we came home for a visit. When I came in the kitchen for breakfast, my mother was serving oatmeal (we called it mush) and I said something negative about it, not being a big fan. So my mother said, "Paula, if you didn't want mush, you shouldn't have come on a Thursday!"

The breakfast schedule has actually been really helpful to me as I've carried on the tradition with my own children. The advantages are no daily decision-making about what you're going to have for breakfast plus greater variety in the foods you eat. I don't think I could handle eating the same thing for breakfast every day.

Here's our schedule:

Monday and Thursday: oatmeal

Tuesday and Friday: eggs

Wednesday and Sunday: cold cereal

Saturday: waffles or pancakes--my husband makes this for us and does a great job.

If I have time (and ingredients), I'll saute some mushrooms to go with the eggs for extra yumminess. It can time-consuming though.

I drink a cup of Spiced Apple Cider just about every weekday morning in the winter. It gets me through the winter.

Most days we also have toast because my husband is a big fan, especially of homemade bread. He'll eat 3-5 pieces of toast most mornings. In the last few years, I have started adding some kind of fruit for better nutrition. We have bananas most of the year with oatmeal and cereal or frozen berries if I'm out of bananas. I'll serves oranges and grapefruit with eggs in the winter; cantaloupe or some other fresh fruit in the summer. I make a smoothie on Wednesdays with our cold cereal.

My personal favorite breakfast is when we have fresh peaches during August and September. I'll cut them up and put them on the oatmeal and it's like dessert. Too bad I don't have a picture.

Grapefruit is also one of my favorites but time-consuming to cut for everyone.

This breakfast schedule might look involved and it definitely does take some time. Some days I think I should simplify it a little. But right now, I have time, energy and interest in doing it. And it feels like maybe my children are eating a little better for one meal of the day.

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