Guest Blogger – Breakfast MyPlate Meal Idea

Today’s post comes from a great friend and fellow supermarket dietitian, Kaitlin Anderson. Her and I actually started our supermarket jobs at about the same time, and now almost five years later, we are still inspiring each other. Kaitlin was excited about the United States of MyPlates Challenge and volunteered to be my first MyPlate guest blogger. She shares how she feeds her family the MyPlate way (and she has the cutest son, read to the end of her post to see him!) Take it away, Kaitlin!

I couldn’t agree more with Jen’s mention of MyPlate Mania. She’s right—everything you eat and do can be centered around the MyPlate principles. As a dietitian, I mention MyPlate on a daily basis in conversations with customers. As a mom, I do my best to feed my family the MyPlate way, every day and every meal.

I seem to get the most questions about the use of MyPlate at breakfast. Customers seem to understand its use at dinnertime, but breakfast seems to have them stumped.

My birthday was just a few weeks ago and I was excited to receive a waffle-maker as a gift. I often include kitchen appliances on my gift wish lists because cooking is one of my favorite hobbies. So, this past weekend, I set out on a mission to test my skills making homemade waffles. But I also challenged myself to include every food group in our special Sunday-morning breakfast.

Waffle Maker

Grains: I started with a recipe search for whole-grain waffles. Using inspiration from a couple Betty Crocker recipes, I decided on the following version:

Kaitlin’s Whole Grain Waffles
Makes 3 whole waffles.

All you need
½ cup whole-wheat flour
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup oats
1 heaping tablespoon milled flax-seed
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ¼ cups skim milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon canola oil

All you do
1. Heat nonstick waffle maker. In large bowl, mix all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, oats, flax and baking powder.
2. In small bowl, mix milk, egg and oil until well blended. Add to flour mixture all at once; stir just until large lumps disappear.
3. Spread batter in hot waffle maker; bake until waffle is golden brown and steaming stops.

Waffle Batter

Protein: We chose scrambled eggs as our protein since my son loves them and my husband takes pride in his self-proclaimed title of “egg master.”

Fruits: I cut up whatever fruit was on hand that day: Pink Lady apples, Cara Cara oranges and a banana.

Veggies: This was the trickiest part of the breakfast MyPlate challenge. It’s easy for me to throw a bag of frozen veggies in the microwave at dinnertime, but steamed broccoli wasn’t going to fly at breakfast. I recently bought a bag of spinach for our fruit smoothies, so we decided to throw some in the eggs. My husband was impressed by the creativity because we had never tried it before, and we were both impressed with the final product. In fact, I loved it so much that I repeated it for a dinner meal a few days later.

Scrambled Eggs with Spinach

Dairy: We included sharp cheddar cheese in the eggs, plus a glass (or sippy-cup) of skim milk to round out the meal. And yes, those are ice cubes in my glass—I only drink ice-cold milk!

MyPlate Breakfast Meal

Overall, it was a fun, delicious and healthy Sunday breakfast.

Final thoughts:
Daddy—I told you I am the Egg Master! These eggs are perfect!
Dietitian Mommy—This was just the right combination of protein and fiber to help me feel full all morning. No stomach growling during church for once!
Little Owen—WOW, Mommy, eating healthy is delicious!

Owen

Thank you to Kaitlin for sharing a super simple breakfast idea, don’t stop serving this meal in the morning though!  Breakfast for dinner is always a hit in our house!

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