breakfast/ Fit Kids/ Kodiak Cakes/ Meal Prep/ Muscle Egg/ Nut Free

Kids Breakfast and Lunch Ideas 2016/17: Week 13 & 14

December 17, 2016

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‘Adorable and HEALTHY Christmas kids breakfast ideas to add to your food prep during the during holiday break!’

Unfortunately last year I missed out on A LOT of our usual holiday spirit because I was right in the middle of the worse period of my life with my medical condition. I was in so much pain I could barely breathe, function, beginning to see signs of depression surfacing, and almost entirely bed/couch bound. This time last year it had only been about 3 months since I had been diagnosed and I was nowhere near close to navigating around my feelings, the pain, or the huge changes that were happening in our lives’. I did what I could, but in all honesty I had NO desire to do anything at all (let alone be festive and merry)! The house was barely decorated, I didn’t/couldn’t partake in hanging one ornament (I watched from the couch), and I don’t even recall being able to make one dish when the family came over for Christmas!

Not this year though. Since I’ve been doing so much better, I had my heart set on having one of the best holiday seasons ever! After Thanksgiving I was on a mission to make up for all of the mommy & family “fails” I dealt with last year. I was going to go all out with holiday decorating, brand new ornaments, crafting, and themed food for Makena!

Of course I started with her breakfast prep… certainly you didn’t think we would skip our ” make ahead breakfast” series just because of the holidays right? Oh no no no no my friends. This time of year it’s especially important to do what you can to savor each and every single precious moment while your kids are home with you! Sure I could have simply made a fresh breakfast each day for the little since I’m feeling better, but prepping her breakfasts for the two weeks she’s off of school was an even better option in my opinion! The hardest part to these two weeks of breakfast prep was deciding what to make!!!

I still wanted to make sure the meals would be easy to make, quick to make, and to reheat so that no “extra” time was spent in the kitchen than necessary. As I’ve said on other breakfasts preps, pancakes (and french toast) are a few of my favorites because I can make a big batch of batter and cook them right on my big cast iron grill pan. Breakfast for 4-5 days is literally done within 10 minutes, no joke. So first week of Christmas vacation, it was ‘Santa Hat Pancake Stackers’!

Dear God, aren’t they cute???

The pancakes took a little bit more time in some ways because I had to portion them out into different sizes, but still easy! I used measuring spoons instead of a measuring cup to pour so that each layer would be a different size. Lots and lots of little pancake circles on the pan. The upside is cooking time was obviously shorter, so in the end prep ended up being relatively the same duration of time.

Once the pancakes were all cooked and ready to go, I just chopped some strawberries and grabbed a handful of mini marshmallows for the Santa’s “hat”. Then each morning I would reheat the pancakes (toaster oven is my favorite for reheating because it brings back the texture perfectly), assemble on a plate, sprinkle on some “snow” (I used unsweetened coconut flakes, but powdered sugar would work also), and serve with a tall glass of cold milk!

SANTA HAT PANCAKES RECIPE & INSTRUCTIONS

Add these ingredients to a large bowl or high speed blender:

1 cup Kodiak Cakes “Power Cakes”
4 scoops (roughly 4 tbsps) KidZShake ‘vanilla‘ protein powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large whole egg
1 1/2 cup milk of choice

Preheat a cast iron skillet and coat with non stick spray, butter, or coconut oil. Using different sizes of spoons, pour batter onto skillet Cook 1-2 minutes per side until golden brown. Stack your hats and top with a cut strawberry. To add a little white cap, use a mini marshmallow if desired. I “glued” mine with a little melted dark chocolate.

To help save even more time during “assembly” each morning, I just put the different sized pancakes into individual zip locks. Strawberry/marshmallow hats were also preassembled and stored neatly! All into the fridge and breakfast for a handful of days was ready to go each morning for the first week of Christmas break!

During the second week of vacation, I hit a little roadblock. Apparently I overdid it a bit the first part of the month and ended up in a little mini flare up. Nothing like last year and I was still able to function pretty well each, but energy was a bit lower and I just didn’t feel as optimal. So when it came time to prep for the week, I opted to go with an EASY tried and true classic… OATMEAL!

Despite going for something simple, I still wanted to make sure it was full of holiday spirit for my girl. Best way to dress up oats and make them a bit more special? Instead of using plain water or milk, use TEA! Yup, tea bags right from a box! I’ve been doing this for YEARS and to be honest with you, its the preferred method in our house now. Such a fun concept to add more flavor to oatmeal without any extra calories. There are also hundreds of different tea flavors readily available at any grocery store or Target, which makes it even more fun seasonally!

A few years ago, Makena and I discovered this little gem gracing the shelves of Target…

Oh. Em. Gee.

This flavor is SO so so good. Very subtle hint of sweetness, but the aroma is just like a regular sugar cookie! Using freshly steeped tea may add another step to making oats, BUT it will reward itself ten times over in flavor!

For LOTS of the tea flavor, I usually steep one tea bag per 6 ounces of water. Since I was doing a bigger batch of oatmeal for breakfast prep, I steeped 5 tea bags in approximately 2 1/2 cups of piping hot water and then let it sit for 10 minutes to really bring out all of the flavor from the tea. Once the tea was fully brewed, I started to make the actual oatmeal.

SUGAR COOKIE OATMEAL RECIPE & INSTRUCTIONS

Add these ingredients to a pot under low/medium heat:

2 cups of rolled oats (I use gluten free from Trader Joe’s) for roughly 4-5 small servings
6 tablespoons of hemp hearts (this adds more volume, healthy omega 3 & 6 fats, AND a whopping 20 grams of protein)
2 1/2 cups of freshly brewed Celestial Seasonings ‘Sugar Cookie Sleigh’ ride tea
vanilla stevia to taste (I think I used about 4-5 dropper fulls as I don’t add ANY other sweetener)

Cook for 8-10 minutes until oats are softened and all liquid has been absorbed. Remove from heat and let cool. Mixture will thicken even more and you’ll think to yourself “Ew. Those are some chunky oats!” Unless you are my son who prefers his oatmeal SUPER chunky, this is not the creamy luscious texture most people want in their oatmeal! Don’t fret. I had every intention of smoothing it out AND going to be adding even MORE flavor.

As the oats are nearly completely cooled, I also stir in 1/2 to 3/4 cups of ‘Cake Batter‘ MuscleEgg! These are pasteurized egg whites and completely safe to drink right from the carton. You’ll notice I use different flavors in a LOT of my recipes! Genius way to add flavor AND protein 🙂 If you rather not use the MuscleEgg just add some milk, water, or more brewed tea until you reach your desired texture. Then store in invidual mason jars in the fridge for easy access! These can be eaten hot OR cold… delicious either way and PERFECT when you need a meal “to go”!

It will thicken up even more after being refrigerated so when it comes time to eat your oatmeal, just stir in a bit more water, milk, or even more freshly brewed tea until you reach your desired consistency!

And to make these truly sugar cookie official, the only other addition you will need are SPRINKLES!!! I may not be able to eat sprinkles anymore on keto, but they sure do still make me happy when I see them! You don’t need a ton so don’t worry yourself too much about them, just find some really really cute holiday ones to make a bigger holiday impact!