Breakfast..hold the eggs, please!

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!"  That was the mantra in my house growing up, second only to, "Finish your plate because there are people starving in China."  Growing up, breakfast was a challenge because I didn't like eggs, cereal or pancakes for that matter.  My father was the son of two Irish immigrants and anyone who has ever been to Ireland has more than likely has experienced a big Irish breakfast.  He felt it was his duty to ensure a proper start to the day for both my brother and I. 


As a child I would sit in front of my breakfast until it turned cold.  I usually smothered it in ketchup, because ketchup made everything more palatable. But I think my parents were a bit overzealous in the portion sizes they would serve me.  So there I sat, waiting for them to leave the room so I could feed my uneaten breakfast to my beagle, Tippy.  She was so good at catching my food; it rarely ever made it to the floor. Whatever did land on the floor was cleaned up instantly and voraciously...Tippy never ratted me out. 


Years later, research showed that too many eggs were not healthy and resulted in high cholesterol, a fate my father (and my dog) suffered from.  My dad humbly apologized and admitted he may have been a bit too "gung-ho" on the eggs and he changed his breakfast to become a healthy bowl of raisin bran.


When I went to New Hampshire for Orientation, one of the meals I had to prepare for 23 other people was breakfast.  Half of our group were vegetarians, so eggs were an important protein for this group.  To make matters even more challenging, my breakfast assignment was on the last day of class and the internship directors understandably, asked if we might "use up" the leftovers so we didn't throw away a lot of food.  I was actually a bit encouraged by this concept because there seemed to be an abundance of healthy cereals, bananas, peanut butter, raisins and some chocolate which brought to mind a recipe for frozen granola bars my son Brian shared with me.  However, when we got to the last day, the bananas had mysteriously disappeared, the chocolate and most of the cereal had been eaten.  That meant breakfast would have to include eggs... One of my classmates, Roda, pitched in to help me by using egg whites, spinach and feta cheese to make a Frittata.  Alexia made the scrambled and hard boiled eggs, leaving me to make the breakfast sausage (turkey sausage of course).  It all worked out, but when I came home I decided to make those frozen granola bars.  With a little finesse and a handful of napkins, you can actually eat them in the car, on the way to work.  Here's the recipe:


Frozen Granola Bars
1 banana (peeled and mashed)
1/4 light peanut butter
1 cup low fat granola or Kashi cereal
1/4 cup raisins (or other dried fruit, if you prefer)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
Mash the above ingredients together and spoon into bar shapes in wax paper.  (I make about six with the above ingredients, but you could make four if you like a bigger breakfast.)  Freeze and grab in the morning with a piece of fruit and coffee.