What's in my Freezer? Breakfast

Shawn is the true breakfast cook in our family.  Most weekends he wakes up before me, gets Nicole up and cooks us all something completely delicious.  My only job is to keep eggs in the fridge, a variety of breakfast meats in the freezer and have plenty of hash browns on hand.  Waking up to a hot and delicious breakfast is one of my favorite marital perks and being able to sleep in when time (and children) allow is always a complete and total gift. 

Even though Shawn willingly shoulders all weekend breakfast cooking, most of the weekday breakfast responsibilities fall on me and I will be the first to admit that I strongly dislike having to wake up and cook.  I have fumbled and stumbled my way through breakfast for years because mornings are not my best time of the day.   We go to bed almost every night with a clean kitchen and I hate the idea of messing it up again before my day has begun.   Furthermore, I would much rather start my day with my eyes on my children, rather than on the stove.  All of that to say, I have been compensating for my breakfast shortcomings by working on pre-cooking breakfast for the last couple of years.  What started as a necessary experiment to preserve my sanity and keep everyone fed, has resulted in numerous family favorites that I can pull together any time of day and have on hand for the morning.

Jonah, 3 weeks old 

While the idea of having a fridge and freezer full of pre-made breakfast items is not new in our household, the volume of breakfast that I made prior to Jonah's arrival is.   You will quickly notice that we eat lots of baked oatmeal, primarily because it's inexpensive, good for us and really easy to re-heat.   We do our best to start our days free of refined sugar so I make all of the oatmeals listed below with either maple syrup or honey and choose to omit suggested add-ins like chocolate chips or dried fruit.  We've eaten dozens and dozens of pans of baked oatmeal over the years so I've had many opportunities to round these recipes up and figure out which ones we are all happy to dig into day after day.

Here's what's in our freezer:

Breakfast Burritos 
My sister Angela first introduced me to breakfast burritos when she made a big batch of them to feed our family the weekend of our sister Anna's wedding.  Ever since that fateful weekend, I have been whipping up batch after batch based loosely on the recipe above.  These burritos are highly customizable, which I take full liberty to do on a regular basis.   I have found that my most successful batches of burritos happen when I follow the tips this tutorial offers on cooling all ingredients before assembly and adhering to the specific order of ingredient layering described in the recipe.

Homemade Whole Grain Pancake Mix 
I would never describe us as regular pancake eaters, especially because I tend to steer away from any breakfast food that requires too much time at the stove.  However, I was intrigued by the idea of having a homemade pancake mix on hand so I gave this recipe a try.  Each one of us loved the results of my experimenting and I can now highly recommend that you go ahead and make yourself a batch of this pancake mix as well.  It takes almost all of the work out of making pancakes from scratch.

Simple Homemade Breakfast Sausage 
I have been making this recipe since I first stumbled across it online in fall of 2015.  I don't usually go through the trouble of forming it into patties though - we eat the "bulk" version the most so I just make a batch of the seasoned meat anytime ground pork is on sale and freeze it in 1/2 pound quantities.

Slow Cooker Granola
This is one of the very first recipes I made in our Texas kitchen and I have been making double batches of it at least monthly since we moved.  It's one of Shawn's preferred bedtime snacks and it's one of Nicole's most-requested breakfasts.

And lots and lots of baked oatmeal: 

Apple Cherry Baked Oatmeal
This recipe doesn't have the same staying power as some of our other favorite baked oatmeal recipes because it only contains a fraction of the oats, but we love it because it bakes up to mimic the consistency of cake, as opposed to oatmeal.

Baked Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal 
This one tops the chart as my personal favorite baked oatmeal recipe but I make a much less fancy version than recipe suggests.   I mash all bananas instead of saving one for slicing on top and I have never even attempted to drizzle warm peanut butter over mine.   It still tastes great though!

Brownie Baked Oatmeal 
This recipe is know an "chocolate oatmeal" in our house and happens to be Nicole's favorite food.  While it is relatively new to our rotation, I've probably made it more times than any of the other baked oatmeals combined.  I happen to have a pint-sized helper who loves to pour, mix and sample each and every ingredient that goes into the bowl including ground flax seed, raw oats and of course, the honey.  Because of the extensive "sampling" that my tiny helper does during the assembly process, this recipe has yet to turn out the same way twice.  It's still been good each time though leading me to believe that it was created with toddler helpers in mind.  We use honey to sweeten ours (Nicole's absolute favorite part) and omit the chocolate chips.  I prefer to make it in a slightly smaller 2 quart baking dish as opposed to a 9x13 pan but I've done both and either works!

Making chocolate oatmeal with Mommy.  

Strawberry Banana Baked Oatmeal 
I really like fruit in my oatmeal so I really like this recipe.  Some days Nicole shares my enthusiasm for the plump strawberries tucked inside each square of yummy oatmeal but other days she won't even touch the oatmeal that turned slightly pink from being baked next to a strawberry.   I generally have a strict "you eat what the family is eating" policy as it relates to meal times but since I strive to always have at least 2-3 breakfast options on hand at all times, I don't have a problem starting our day out on a harmonious note and allowing Nicole to eat "chocolate oatmeal" while I dip into my stash of this stuff.