Breakfast time on the homeschool range...

This family is a family of breakfast eaters. My husband is of the firm opinion that if a man doesn't eat breakfast it's because a female in the family trained him out of it. He (and almost all our children) wake up with food on their mind.

During the summer no one is sitting at the table ready to eat at 8:00 a.m. However, once school starts I wants breakfast cleaned up and forgotten by 8:30 a.m. so we can get the business of the day in full swing.

Some of the menu ideas we like are:

• Ham, Sausage or Bacon with fried eggs and bread of some kind. (toast, pancakes, waffles, muffins, sweet rolls or biscuits.


• Sausage gravy and biscuits


• English muffins with egg, meat of some kind and cheese made into a sandwich


• A big skillet of scrambled eggs topped with cheese and served with Cinnamon Raisin Biscuits


• Omelettes made to order


• Quiche


• Overnight Breakfast casserole


• French toast

If you make breakfast you know how long it takes to make waffles or muffins or coffee cake in the morning. Here are a few of the things I do to make shortcuts and not have to get up at 4:00 a.m. :) to have a good breakfast for the family.

• Keep ziplock bags full of diced peppers in your freezer and a ziplock bag full of diced onion in the fridge. When you're making omelettes it's just as simple as getting the bags out and sprinkling what you want on each person's omelette.


• Have all the items for quiche ready to go the night before where you just put them in the pie shell and stick it in the oven at the right time.


• Make the cinnamon rolls from Pioneer woman's site (they're wonderful) and keep them in your freezer. The night before set them out to thaw and the next morning warm them in the oven. (It makes 7 round pans of them!)http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/ Any yeast bread will do fine being frozen ahead of time. (Have I mentioned my all time favorite sweet bread called Cream Cheese Braids?


• When you make biscuits double or triple your recipe and freeze the extra ones. Then use them just like the ones you buy at WalMart and pay too much money for!


• Prefry your sausage for the sausage gravy and stick it in a freezer cup for when you need it. Put it in the fridge the night before and your good to go!


• Make up powdered milk and stick it in the fridge for cooking. I use it for gravies too.


• Make a double batch of waffles (just keep baking them during breakfast) and put the extras in gallon freezer bags. Then on a busy day you can just toast the frozen ones! (and don't forget to do all kinds of varieties with the waffles. Our last ones had banana, nuts and cinnamon in them.....mmmm.

Breakfast is brain food. Starting the day with a good meal is a good habit to get to develop for the family. It also starts the day around the table together. It makes good memories for the children. (Later they'll realize how special this really was.)

With fall coming I'm already pulling out the recipes for Pumpkin Drop Doughnuts, Monkey Bread, Apple Cinnamon Rolls and other fall favorites. Start a breakfast file in your cookbook today!