Power Breakfast! (Paleo)

Hello friends!  I’ve been sitting on these pictures for a week now and I’ve been meaning to write up this post.  I’m still struggling with fitting in time for blogging now that I’m in a new (bigger) job.  And I have a confession to make.  I’m having a hard time making myself get out my laptop at night!  It’s so quick and easy to check email from an ipad or iphone… but unfortunately the Blogger app is not very good, so I really can’t use my mobile devices to blog.  But this morning I made myself finish up this post to share with all of you!

Let’s talk about breakfast and how it is my favorite meal of the day.  I never, ever, ever skip it.  Do you?  We’ve all been hearing for years about how breakfast is so important.  Here are just a couple of fast facts that I thought were interesting:

• If you and your kids regularly skip breakfast in the interest of saving time, calories, or getting a few more minutes of sleep, remember that eating a wholesome, nutritious morning meal will probably save you time in the long run. By recharging the brain and body, you'll be more efficient in just about everything you do.
• Some people skip breakfast in an effort to lose weight, but the practice is more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss. Skipping breakfast is strongly linked to the development of obesity. Studies show that overweight and obese children, adolescents, and adults are less likely to break the fast each morning than their thinner counterparts.

(Source: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/most-important-meal)

And here is another great article which explains why a breakfast with protein is important.

Prior to this year, I almost always ate a breakfast of primarily carbs.  I usually have to take my breakfast with me and eat it either on the way to work or at work. Many times this included peanut butter toast or PB waffles.  Sometimes I ate cereal or oatmeal.  However, I have noticed that those breakfasts don’t always stick with me until lunchtime. 

During my Whole30, I discovered that a breakfast hash is a great way to get in some veggies early in the morning, and I can also fit in some good-for-me sweet potatoes. 

Ingredients:

• 1 shredded sweet potato (you can use a regular cheese grater, but my food processor will shred a sweet potato in under a minute)
• 1 diced yellow onion
• 1 lb. breakfast sausage
• optional: baby spinach
• optional: fried egg

 

Preparation:

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add sausage and brown.  Once the sausage is cooked through, I add in  the sweet potato and onion, and cook until soft (about 5 minutes).  Drain excess fat.  Now, you could be done at this point—because you’ve now got sausage, sweet potato, and onion hash, and it makes a great breakfast.  However, if you like spinach, you could throw in a giant handful or two at this point and cook over low heat until it wilts.  And if you like (and want the extra protein at breakfast) you can fry an egg and put it on top of your breakfast hash.  That’s also delicious.

(breakfast hash sans spinach)

 

(breakfast hash topped with a fried egg)

 

If you are like me and have to take your breakfast with you, then you can make a big skillet of this hash and portion it out for the week.  (It makes about 4-5 servings.)

I’d love to hear about your favorite breakfasts!  Do you have great ideas for portable breakfasts?  Post comments and tell mw what your faves are.  I am sure we would all love to get some new ideas.  If you are a blogger and have posts, please leave links so we can visit your blog for more ideas!