Breakfast Menu

"Mummy, I really appreciate you making the effort to make interesting breakfasts for me every morning!", says my 10-year old son.

Music to my ears really.  While I hardly ever have difficulty coming up with lunch or dinner menus, breakfast eludes me.  For some unfathomable reason, many times at breakfast, I am at a loss at what to serve my hungry family. 

I find myself looking at breakfast cookbooks or the breakfast section of the cookbooks, looking for inspiration.  Although the current repertoire of breakfast foods I have seems extensive, some of these are similar foods e.g. pancakes, french toast and waffles are all served with maple syrup, so you cannot really serve them on consecutive days.  In fact, I am even reluctant in serving them on the same week.  However, my kids does not mind eating pancakes every week.  Funny how they seek the comfort in familiar favourites.

After much experimenting and researching, here are the ways I try to make normal breakfast food interesting.  I am sure you have your own ways too.

1  Oatmeal
Other than serving them plain, I add on raisins, sliced bananas and/or strawberries.  I also serve it once with lightly fried honey baked ham.  I like oatmeal as it is healthy and easy to prepare.

2  Pancakes/Waffles/French Toast
Maple syrup is a staple with these.  I also tried chocolate, caramel and strawberry sauces with success.  After I introduced the kids to eating pancakes with maple syrup and fried ham/bacon, they constantly ask me for the savory sides.  I recently saw a friend's Facebook post on how to make personalised pancakes and tried them one morning (probably good for another post).  I still have room for improvement.

3  Bread/Bruschetta
Other than butter and peanut butter on bread, I have also tried toasted cheese sandwiches, tuna fish sandwiches, jam spreads (including the local kaya, which is coconut jam).  If I have some rustic country loaf, I would slice them and dry toast them on a dry pan, then top with sauteed portobello mushrooms with garlic or scrambled eggs with salt and pepper.

4  American Breakfast
This one would include an assortment of ham, sausages, eggs (all ways), sauteed button mushrooms with cherry tomatoes, hash, all served with toasted sliced bread on a large plate. 

5  Store Bought Baked Goods
This one is used a lot by my husband.  In Singapore, other than finding a cafe or coffee shop at every turn, is a confectionery shop.  This is usually a bakery that sells bread of every kind, cakes and even local snacks like curry puffs or kueh (sweet usually steamed cakes).  This is great for variety when we are tired or if we have run out of ideas what to serve.

6  Local Favourites
I have also done the local favourites like "ju gwei" (steam rice cakes with minced stew preserved radish) and "chee cheong fun" (steam rice rolls with sweet sauce and toasted sesame seeds).  These are bought cold and stored in the fridge until needed.  They don't keep so I have to use them within 2 days of buying them.  I would steam them for 5 mins in boiling water, then served with the appropriate condiments.  Sometimes I would also include dim sum items like "har gao" (prawn dumpling) and "siew mai" (meat dumpling) that could be bought from the chiller section of the supermarkets.

7  Sliced Fruit
My family loves fruit.  I would cut a variety of fruits and serve them during breakfast as a side to the main breakfast dish.  This is also my favourite item should I be travelling for business and eating at the hotel buffet.

These are some of the more common items on our family's breakfast menus.  Some of the other items I have tried with some success are breakfast burritos (scrambled eggs and cubed sausages wrapped in tortillas), quesadillas (shredded roast chicken with mozzarella cheese, toasted on dry pan between 2 tortillas), brie slices on plain water crackers, although they prefer the latter 2 items for supper.

All in all, my kids love their breakfasts and are always challenging me to make something different.  So, I will continue to go where no working mother has gone before on the breakfast frontier.  Who's with me?