Breakfast: Superfoods Style

As I embark on incorporating more Superfoods into our diet, I am finding that many of my recipes lend themselves to the ingredients.  I just have to tweak them a bit.  Since breakfast is the most important meal of the day (or at least that's what people say), I thought I'd start there.



Chocolate Chip Walnut



Granola bars are a great place to start.  However many granola bars on the market are less than health food.  Many rival candy bars in grams of sugar, overall carbohydrates and calories.  Hopefully mine will do a little better than that.  I originally got my recipe from a blog, but as I cut and pasted the recipe, I didn't inclue the blog.  Oops!  Since then, I've seen the recipe in several places including Allrecipes.com where they are called Playgroup Granola Bars.  I've tweaked the recipe a bit to make it more to my liking.

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup wheat germ

1 cup white whole wheat flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

Cranberry Almond

1/4 cup natural sugar (to make it more like brown sugar, I add 1 tsp. molasses)

1/2 cup honey

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup coconut oil (or butter)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For oatmeal raisin bars, add 3/4 cup raisins, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

For chocolate chip bars, add 3/4 cup chocolate chips (I like mini chips), 1/2 cup chopped peanuts or walnuts

For cranberry bars, add 3/4 cup dried cranberries, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 cup chopped almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Generously grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

1. In a large bowl, mix together the first 5 ingredients. Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, oil and vanilla. Mix well.  Wet hands, and pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.
2. Bake for 15-18 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges. Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm.

Superfoods used:  oats (and other whole grains), walnuts (or peanuts, almonds) and possibly berries (cranberries)


Of course you will need something to wash this down, so I would suggest a smoothie.  My measurements are what is needed to fill my blender.  That ends up being about 4 adult portions, so you can scale the recipe down if you don't need this much.

Into a blender, pour 2 cups yogurt (I use homemade plain yogurt) and 1 cup of orange juice.  Add approximately 2 cups of frozen fruit (strawberries and /or blueberries would be good superfood choices, but we also peaches, bananas or mangoes).  Then I add fresh items (spinach, steamed carrots, bananas, pineapple, melon are all great choices).  I blend it all together and take a taste.  If it needs to be sweetened, I add some honey or homemade jelly/jam that didn't get thick enough.  Yes, I'm thrifty enough to use the things I make even if they don't turn out well for their original purpose! :)

Superfoods used:  yogurt, oranges, blueberries (and/or strawberries), spinach, steamed carrots

If I wanted to really ramp up my smoothie, I could add wheat germ or flaxseed.  But in one meal I've already had 7 different superfood groups.  There's no reason to be a show-off! LOL