Busy Bee Breakfast Bites

This has been the world's craziest week. I switched venues at work which is awesome, but the transition caused me to work a ton of extra hours. Not to mention, my new coworkers are badass, and they encourage a little bad behavior (I think I was hungover for 3 days straight). Oh and it's finals week.

I like having a busy life. I get really bored and confused when I have too much free time, but there are a few things that get sacrificed because I just don't have the time. One of those things is breakfast. I never ever ever skip breakfast because I would probably starve to death and pass out after like an hour of being awake, but I've been grabbing food while I'm out a lot lately, which is getting really expensive. 

I am just not a morning person. I'll hit the snooze button 8 times before I actually get up, and then I'm running around like a crazy person trying to get ready in time (never happens). So the last thing I want to do when I do peel myself out of bed is make a healthy breakfast. Now, thanks to the magic of Pinterest, I've found a solution!! I saw these little baked oatmeal cups that you can freeze and just heat up in the morning. I wasn't a huge fan of the recipe she used so modified it and came up with my own. And I thought, while I'm at it, I can make a couple other things to freeze. Now I have lots of pre-made breakfasts that I can grab and run out the door. And are you ready for this?? I have 4 different quick breakfast ideas for you today!! I like them because you can basically add whatever you like to them, and it's one less thing to think about in the morning.

Oatmeal Cups

5 cups old-fashioned oats

3 cups almond milk

2 cups apple sauce

2 eggs

3 tsp baking soda

And whatever topping you like!!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners and spray them with cooking spray (I didn't do this on my first trial run and the batter stuck to the liners). Mix all the ingredients up in a big bowl. Add your desired toppings to the oatmeal, and dispense 1/4 cup of the oats to each little muffin tin. I split my batter into 4 batches and added 4 different kinds of toppings to each. I added chocolate chips and walnuts to one, dried fruit and almonds to another, apples and cinnamon to a third, and mashed bananas and walnuts to the last one. Bake them for about 20 minutes. This recipe made about 28 oatmeal cups with about 200 calories each. 

While I was waiting for those to bake, I whipped up breakfast number 2. I literally threw every vegetable I had on hand in these (which was a lot because I just went grocery shopping), but you can use whatever you like or have. 

Mini Frittatas

12 eggs

2 tbsp milk 

1 cup shredded cheese

4 cups chopped vegetables (I used tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms and peppers)

1/4 cup fresh herbs (I used basil and dill)

1 tbsp oil

salt and pepper

Keep your oven at 350 and line some more muffin tins. Spray these with cooking spray too. Crack all your eggs into a big bowl and add the milk. Whisk them up until they are light and fluffy. Add the fresh herbs and salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the veggies and cook for about 5 minutes. This allows some of the water to be released so when you add them to the eggs, they don't get runny. Let them cool for about 5 minutes and add them to the eggs. Add 1/4 cup batter to each tin and bake them for about 20 minutes or until they're firm. This batch made 24 little frittatas. Everything just looks cuter in a cupcake liner. 

If you haven't had enough yet, I made these too!!

Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

4 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1 egg

1 1/2 cups milk 

3 tbsp oil

2 sliced bananas (You could also use blueberries or chocolate chips or strawberries or anything you want. I just like banana pancakes because of the Jack Johnson song.)

Most recipes would probably tell you to mix the dry ingredients and then the wet and add them, but I don't think it really matters here. Just mix it all up and pour a little batter onto a hot griddle and cook them for about a minute and a half on each side. You should flip them when the bottom is golden brown and there are little bubbles on the top. When you're all done, spread them with crunchy peanut butter. Yumm :)

This last idea isn't really a recipe and it's really lazy that I even do this, but like I said, mornings are rough. When I go grocery shopping, I like to take everything home and have it ready to use whenever I want to cook. I'll precut veggies, individually season and package chicken breasts, or my new great idea, make little smoothie kits out of frozen fruit. I portion out enough fruit to fit in my blender cup and put it in a bag in the freezer. Then on a lazy Sunday morning (this takes more than 30 seconds, so it's pretty much the only day I would attempt this) I can just throw the fruit in the blender with a little almond milk and have breakfast ready! I like having all my food pre-packaged when I get home for two reasons. First, it helps me with portion control so I'm not just mindlessly eating. And second, it helps me make sure nothing goes to waste. Throwing away food it like throwing away money and that's just no fun. 

So I hope my little tips help you in the mornings!! Each recipe makes about 200 calorie portions, so you can mix and match 2 items for a yummy on the go breakfast. Everything freezes really well so for the first 3 things, all you have to do is warm them up. I'm going to sleep now so I can wake up and eat!! :)

P.S. One day I'm going to use my actual camera and have good pictures instead of these crappy cell phone pictures.