Top Five: Breakfasts

Continuing on with the "these are a few of my favorite things" theme, I give you breakfast!  We eat a lot of cereal around here- some of them are naturally gluten free, and some of them have been revamped to be that way and still taste good.  There are a few others, like Rice Krispies, that have a gluten free version in addition to their regular one.  Fail on that.  I've seen commercials where they talk about how "whole grain brown rice makes it gluten free".  No.  Rice of any sort is naturally gf.  It was the sweetener that was the problem.  Kellogg's puts barley malt syrup in their regular rice krispies, and whatever they replaced it with in the gluten free version is gross.  It makes me mad when a company keeps the "real, yummy" version and throws a nasty bone at the gluten free community.  Do it like Chex!!  Chex, on the other hand, redid their recipe completely, threw out ALL the barley malt, and made rice, corn, cinnamon, honey nut, and chocolate Chex all gluten free.  They taste GOOD too.

We eat:

•  Chex, all varieties but the wheat
• Kix, and I've just recently realized we could eat Trix too.  I don't buy it much though
• Dora the Explorer (I buy it for daycare but it's good so we all eat it.)
• Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles and Chocolate Lucky Charms ( but not regular) are GF too but again, I try not to buy sugary ones too much.  My kids are on it like white on rice and bug me til it's gone)

We also eat a lot of fruit and yogurt and toast.  I won't get into my love of weird leftovers for breakfast, but bbq and baked beans do cross my lips on occasion too.

Top five hot breakfast recipes:

Baked Oatmeal
This is the most requested breakfast at my house- a favorite among family, friends, and the daycare.  I make it pretty much how the recipe says, except I ALWAYS double it and put it in a 9x13. I use cinnamon and throw out the orange zest and five spice.  I also don't put the baking powder in.  I can't tell the difference and it's just easier to have one less thing.  I've made it with tons of different variations- it's good with cinnamon, butterscotch, or vanilla chips instead of chocolate, or with no chips at all.  It's good with blueberries, nectarines, blackberries, peaches, and a can of tropical fruit once when I was desperate.  I'd say I make this twice a week on average.  I get Bob's Red Mill gluten free rolled oats and that's the only necessary modification.

Beach House Lasagna
This recipe really does taste a lot better when you can make it the night before and let it sit in the fridge, but I almost never do.  And usually I use slices of lunchmeat instead of ham cubes, and don't usually put the cornflakes and butter on top like I mentioned in the comments on that post.
I use heels of bread loaves for this, or else half loaves of bread I bought that we didn't like enough to eat as sandwiches.  I stick them in the freezer and just make this casserole whenever the bread bags start to fall out on me.

Tater Tot Casserole
I had posted that recipe awhile back, and now it's sort of a template.   If I'm feeling guilty about calories and fat, I use shredded hash browns instead of tater tots, and make my own sauce instead of using the boxed soup.  For breakfast I put turkey sausage links, or the crumbles, or else cubed turkey ham.  If it's lunchtime I use ground beef and throw in a can of creamed corn with the sauce.  You can pretty much do anything to it and my kids are willing to eat it any meal of the day.

Waffles/Pancakes
The recipe I use is from the Culinary Institute of America gluten free baking book.   I do put less sugar than it calls for- they were crazy sweet the first time I made them.  They still are sweet this way but not too bad.  I eat them plain- no syrup needed so I figure it balances out in the end.

1 1/3 cups CIA flour blend #5
1/3 cup sugar (or less)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Mix dry stuff in bowl.  In separate bowl, mix wet stuff:
4 tbsp melted butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla (if you want.  I don't think it called for this originally but we like it better)

Add to dry bowl.  Mix and use.  I use this batter both on my pancake griddle and in my waffle iron.

Okay, I lied about top five.  Top four.  I'm still looking for a baked french toast recipe that I LOVE.  The ones I've tried so far are just okay.  Oh wait, I've only made them twice but I really do like these savory corn cakes too.  Now you got five.  :)