Breakfast Quick!

Are you a mid-afternoon kind of person? I am. I hate mornings. Take this morning. I was awake at 6:30am. However, I did not get out of my bed until 7:30am. Jackson came into our room, crawled into bed, I turned on the TV and snoozed. I just couldn't get out of bed, even though my To-Do List is about a mile long and I know it all has to be done or left undone by noon tomorrow. Sleeping is too precious to me to be a morning person. :)

Well, that being said, my son on the other hand is a morning person! He wakes up and starts asking for his breakfast! Somedays it's pancakes, waffles, or cinnamon rolls that he is craving. We found yesterday that he will eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch- score one for an easy breakfast! But most days he wants his glass of milk, banana, and pancake/waffle. So, not being a morning person I had to think of a way to make this stuff quick.

While I was working, I bought frozen pancakes and frozen waffles. However, those are EXPENSIVE!! Especially when you are serving waffles or pancakes everyday! Plus, the servings are small and my little man is a big breakfast eater!

So, I remembered back to a friend who told me about warming up leftover pancakes in the toaster and we decided to try it! It's GREAT! AND at less than $2 per box of pancake mix (I buy whatever is on sale), it's cost effective!

I usually make my big batches on the weekends, because Andy is around to keep the kiddo occupied while I am cooking. I just make up the biggest batch the box says. We eat what we want and then I freeze the rest. I do this with waffles, pancakes, and French Toast (I was getting tired of throwing out bread when it was going bad-- so I tried it, it's actually really good!).

Here's my steps:

1. Make your batch of your chosen breakfast. I have an electric griddle, which allows me to make about 4 pancakes and 4 pieces of French Toast at the same time. It also is non-stick, so I don't have to use any butter or sprays on it. Making everything just a little healthier.
2. Cool each piece before stacking- I lay them out on a big cookie sheet. For French toast, I have tried cutting it into sticks- Jman loved this!
3. After each piece is cooled:
* pancakes and waffles: place a small piece of wax paper in between each piece. Although, you don't have to, it just makes it harder to get the pancakes apart.
* French Toast Sticks: Put in small sandwhich bags
4. In large FREEZER bags (make sure you label with the date)stack your pancakes/waffles/French Toast and make sure you get as much of the air out as possible (smooshing is OK).
5. I then leave the bag on the counter a little longer to make sure it's all cooled before sticking them in the freezer.

To Re-heat:
take out your desired breakfast you can toast them or microwave. I perfer the toaster, it makes them crisper. You may have to play with your toaster to figure out where it needs to be set in order to cook the middle. I have mine about 3/4 of the way to burn. :) If you perfer the microwave pop it into the microwave for a few seconds.

ENJOY!

Etsy

My favorite site these days is www.etsy.com. This is an awesome sight full of fun hand-made crafts! I love just "pouncing" to see new items and new stores. I think at some point in 2011 I will come up with some crafty things that I am making and sell them... of course tons of my ideas are other people's ideas... Not sure how to do that. Anyway... here is a fun little clip of some of the fun things I have either bought or LOVE from etsy.com