What is a 'proper' meal? This is something that has come up a lot in the last week in my house.
When I was growing up breakfast was cereal with cow's milk or white toast with jam or white flour pancakes or sometimes bacon and eggs. My mother ALWAYS said, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
Breakfast is the meal where you break your fast- the 12 hours, or so, that you didn't eat during the night. It is probably as important as any other meal.
We have discovered wonderful gluten free cereal that we eat with soymilk, but it is expensive (about $8/750g) and wouldn't be something that I could reasonably afford to feed six people every morning.
We made friends with the people from the bulk department of our local grocery store and they ordered some grains for us. I can buy them one little scoop at a time, but I have to be careful about not running out before the week is up. I can also get a much better price on things if I buy them a case at a time.
The cases are not very large- most under 5 kgs each- and reasonably priced/ Kg. I measured it all so I know how much each cup costs- which may be a little too compulsive for some, but it helps keep me on track budget-wise. The long grain brown rice is the exception as it comes in an 18.40 Kg (40 lb) bag. I had never even SEEN that much brown rice before!
And that brings me back to breakfast which is the whole point of this post! I made a large pot of brown rice and I know it cost a dollar to make it. I made the rice and everyone had it the way they wanted.
I had leftover egg salad and rice with a little butter on it. A little fatty perhaps, but I'm cold!
DH had rice and egg fried together with a little cheese and two slices of pepper ham on the side.
Brown bear had the same minus the ham.
Sunshine Girl had cheese on hers.
Everyone got what they wanted and had a hot, gluten-free breakfast for a lot less than the $7/ meal that is the maximum that the budget will allow.
We all had a discussion about it this morning, though. Is it a proper breakfast? It isn't really any different than eating oatmeal for breakfast, in my opinion, but a couple of the kids declined. It's okay because the rest of the rice is still there and they will just get it for lunch instead. :-)
A long, but interesting history of breakfast for those that are interested.
I was just thinking of breakfasts also! Growing up, my mother always made bacon, eggs and toast every morning. It always sustained me until lunch, but I didn't carry the tradition into my marriage. Hubby & I were always on the run and Hubby grew up with cold cereal and milk, so that's what we usually had too. I think it was a giant step backward though.
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