IS THERE ANYONE out there who hasn’t heard about the importance of breakfast?
Everyone from your grandmother to your neuroscientist is telling you that eating a nourishing breakfast, including protein and complex carbohydrates, is an essential ingredient of happiness, health and success.
This might be the only thing Americans can agree on, and yet research shows the preponderance of us, regardless of race, income, gender or political party, omit this morning certitude.
From Gen X’ers to boomers, ignoring this breakfast advice might be the single most unifying behavior in the U.S. today.
I myself have hit the snooze button on many a dark morning, wasting precious breakfast time while catching a few more minutes under the warm covers, only to rush out the door with nothing but dark coffee in a thermos mug.
Now that my youngest child is within a few months of leaving the nest, I am giving it one last heroic attempt to do right by breakfast.
Teenagers are notorious meal skippers.
Heading out the door, hair still wet from the shower, into the moonlit winter morning, she barely touches down until well past 8, busy with a list of after-school activities: work, volunteering, sports and friends.
Grabbing sporadic snacks gets her through the day.
My intention for last week was to once and for all finally concoct a breakfast that would be fast, fully nourishing and appealing to my teenager on the go.
And then to write about the winning recipe.
I went back over all the obvious breakfast standards: hot porridge made with whole grains, dried fruits and nuts; bacon, eggs and potatoes; smoothies; I even made a batch of nutty, grainy, squashy breakfast cookies (check out Nash’s website for the recipe).
Nothing met the mark.
Finally, Monday morning, I realized that the answer was sitting right there in a Tupperware on the bottom shelf of the fridge.
Leftovers.
Well-rounded, premade and delicious warmed up or right out of the fridge.
So here it is — my girl’s favorite grab-and-go, locally sourced, see-you-through-the-day breakfast.
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Betsy Wharton is a Port Angeles Farmers Market vendor, Washington State University Extension food preservation information assistant and a registered nurse at First Step Family Support Center. More about her pickling enterprise can be found at www.Clallam CanningCompany.com.
