Cupcakes in the Desert: Paleo Breakfasts

While I don't plan out each breakfast like I do for dinner, I do make sure to have a lot of options on hand for the morning. However, like most Paleo-eaters, eggs feature heavily in our breakfasts. The key is to find variety by having fresh fruits, veggies and breakfast meats on hand. Paleo muffins, breads and jellies can also help liven things up. We also tend to have larger breakfasts in our house, meaning we can go a bit lighter on lunch.

Due to certain picky factors, we do make breakfasts according to our own tastes (although we do try to share the same pans). One person may want scrambled eggs, sausage and pineapple every day of the week, while another wants a frittata, avocado and mango. Addie will either hop onto one of our meals, or have whole Greek yogurt with honey and/or fruit. Since she's Paleo + dairy, she gets a bit more variety.

A couple of tips when it comes to preparing for a week of Paleo breakfasts:

Have a LOT of eggs on hand. We buy 6 dozen per week.
Have a variety of fresh fruits and veggies on hand. Small packages of a lot of vegetables are better than large packages of just a few. We generally buy mushrooms, spinach, cherry tomatoes, a salad mix plus the veggies required for dinner from the grocery store and fresh fruit and avocados from Costco.
Read the ingredients label on bacon and sausage. Many include sugar.
Do your baking on the weekend.
The first time you make bacon, make the whole package. Refrigerate or freeze the leftovers and pop into the microwave for 15 seconds to reheat. This makes having bacon a lot more accessible. In my opinion, the easiest way to do this is to cover a cookie sheet in heavy duty tin foil (the kind that will extend around the sides of the cookie sheet without needing to overlap with another sheet of foil) and lay out the bacon side by side. Put in a cold oven, then set to 400 degrees. Cook for 17 - 19 minutes, depending on your preferred level of doneness. You may want to rotate the sheet midway through if your oven cooks unevenly like mine does. Pull out and set bacon aside on paper towels and consider saving the grease to cook with later.

Here are some samples of our more variable breakfasts.

Sauteed mushroom omelet with avocado and bacon

Paleo Banana Bread (I used this recipe, but didn't include the almond topping)

with fruit and a drizzle of honey

Note: we have yet to find the perfect banana bread. We've tried this one as well. Both seem dry and very dense and nether toast well. But both are tasty - they just don't emulate real banana bread as much as we'd like. We'll keep looking and I'll do a banana bread-centric post one day.

Sauteed mushrooms and tomato omelet with berries

Addie's Valentines breakfast: a fried egg and toasted Paleo bread

(or rather, sauteed in butter) with Paleo strawberry jelly

Note: Again, we aren't totally satisfied with the bread that we've made, but we're getting closer. Moisture, texture and weight are the main issues when cooking without flour. However, most breads seem to taste better when lathered in jelly.

Mushroom omelets are a fav! Plus bacon and fruit.

Paleo Pancakes topped with fresh berries and whipped coconut milk

Contrary to the other bread-like recipes, this one is a winner. We won't be looking for any other versions of pancakes since this version is so simple and so good.