B is for Breakfast Ideas

Last week I wrote A is for Arranging Meals and I talked about how I was planning meals around the principles of Trim Healthy Mama.  This week for #abcblogging I’m rambling on about breakfast.

I’ve known for years that I needed to reduce my carb count.  I knew that eating whole grains was healthy but even those whole grains needed to be reduced. The problem? Breakfast.  Here’s what we would eat in a typical week:

Monday: Baked Oatmeal or “Swedish Pancake” (think dutch hats)

Tuesday:  Eggs!  But eggs with toast. Fried eggs or scrambled eggs but always with toast.

Wednesday: Muffins such as banana chocolate chip (home made) or chocolate chocolate chip (from Costco! Yum!)

Thursday: usually cold cereal.  Sometimes we’d have healthy cereal but I did sometimes buy the so-very-good-but-really-bad-for-you sugar sweetened junk.

Friday: Our favorite Friday breakfast was bagels.  Toasted and spread with cream cheese (except during Lent)

Saturday: These were are “bigger” or more involved breakfasts and often included bacon or sausage.  Eggs, hash browns, toast and bacon.  Pancakes with bacon or sausage.  Waffles with or without meat.

Do you see a trend? I love my breakfast breads.  If I cut out or cut back on starchy grain based carbs what on earth was I going to eat for breakfast!  (Oh you’ve noticed that I skipped Sunday? That’s because we don’t eat breakfast on Sundays.  As Orthodox Christians we fast in preparation for receiving communion.)

Then along comes Trim Healthy Mama.  I was very skeptical of this idea of not eating carb based foods at the same time as fat laden fare. I want my toast! With Butter! and Jam!  The last piece of toast I ate with butter and jam was exactly 3 weeks ago today.  Wow. I haven’t had toast in 3 weeks and I’m alive to tell the story!

So if I’ve been following Trim Healthy Mamas for nearly 3 weeks what have I been eating for breakfast?

• Pancakes.  Yes, pancakes.  Trim Healthy Mama pancakes made with egg whites, cottage cheese and oat meal. They taste incredible. Yes I miss maple flavored sugar water drizzled over them and I miss butter even more but these babies are fabulous with some nonfat plain yogurt (sweetened with Truvia) and some frozen berries warmed up (also sweetened with Truvia)
• eggs ~  I’ve decided I really really really don’t like omelets made from egg whites so if I’m using egg whites as my protein source it’s going to be in things like the pancakes.  I had scrambled eggs sprinkled with cheddar cheese and a couple of slices of bacon one morning this week.  We’ve done fried eggs (and there is a variation of the pancakes if you eat one of them with your fried eggs you *almost* don’t miss the toast!) I’ll be exploring lots of different ways to make eggs. 
• oatmeal ~ old fashioned rolled oats cooked on the stove.  Then I sprinkle in cinnamon and stir in 1/4-1/2 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt and some Truvia.  I could throw in some berries but I haven’t yet.

I found a biscuit recipe that I want to try.  It’s  low-carb no grain biscuit and it would go well, I think with any of the egg dishes.  I tried the Muffin-in-a-Mug recipe but my cocoa powder is bitter.  Bitter cocoa with Truvia means yucky bitter aftertaste.  And I’m not sure about the texture. I might have to keep experimenting because I would love to have my muffin back for breakfast!

I need variety and I think I can get that by having eggs two to three times a week but varying what kind of eggs and alternating egg dishes with the fabulous pancakes and oatmeal.

Do you have some high protein, low carb breakfast ideas?  Please share!