good start

I have been ALL ABOUT BREAKFAST lately. My job is wearing me out, and I still am feeling guilt/sadness over not being able to be with my family.

That being said, having a quality breakfast and some peaceful time in the morning (tea sipping, sudoku-doing, mind wandering) has really helped me through the past coupla days.

Beautiful breakfast number one:

 

Yogurt bowl! A layer of plain nonfat. A layer of sliced banana. A layer of Life cereal (in the original flavor). A layer of strawberries for color. A layer of slivered almonds for crunch.

Beautiful tasty layers! It’s perfect, because the nonfat yogurt isn’t sweet but the fruit, cereal, and even almonds make for sweetness, as well as some tang/nuttiness/oatiness. Lovely flavor combination!

The star of this morning’s breakfast was more fruit:

I am seriously in danger of cutting out all other food groups. Summer fruit is just so perfect!

However, I balanced it out: bite-sized shredded wheat with milk, and an egg.

Isn’t there something about brown eggs that’s just… cuter?!

But back to the fruit!

This salad featured apple, banana, strawberry, kiwi, and cantaloupe. It was the PERFECT sweet/tart soft/crunchy balance. The sweet/tart was also complimented by the dressing- I usually do honey and lemon or lime juice. Today I mixed it up and did lemon juice, currant jelly, and a bit of cinnamon sugar. It was great!

So great, in fact, it made a return appearance at dinner.

Along with half a corn on the cob, salad, and the BBQ meatballs I made over the weekend.

The meatballs were KILLER! I did this batch with more of the wetted garlic bread breadcrumbs, and flavored it up with some fresh dill. They tasted like SMOKE! I love grilling so very much. And it’s an inherently healthy cooking technique- when you pan fry meatballs, you add fat to them. When you grill them, you take fat away!

I admired my plate because I did what you’re supposed to do. Make your plate mostly fruits and vegetables, and small portions of starch and protein.

The green salad was quite good, too—mixed greens (red raddichio and baby spinach), sliced cucs and shrooms, and a very simple dressing of dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper, fresh chives from the deck pot, and of course olive oil.