Dessert for Breakfast

With today's fast-paced lifestyles, it's no wonder that busy moms can be tempted to rely on high-priced, sugar-coated cold cereals that are low in nutrition. Oatmeal, and that other old stand-by, hot cereals, are both nutritious and frugal, but reliance on them for more than one or two breakfasts per week is almost certain to cause rebellion in the ranks.

Healthy, Easy, Frugal and Good!
How about dessert for breakfast? Feeding your children (or your husband or yourself, for that matter) dessert for breakfast doesn't sound very healthy, does it? How about feeding your children fresh fruit, cottage cheese, eggs and plain yogurt for breakfast, accompanied by whole-grain bread? That sounds a lot better, doesn't it? But your child wouldn't eat fresh fruit, cottage cheese, eggs and plain yogurt for breakfast? I bet she'll really enjoy the Banana Cheese Pie recipe given below.

And it gets even better. Besides being both healthy and frugal, the four "dessert for breakfast" recipes below can all be made the night before. Three of them only take a very few minutes to prepare, and the fourth -- the muffins -- can be frozen and popped in the microwave when you're ready for warm, fresh muffins.

Banana Cheese Pie
I use my food processor to make this nutritious and tasty-but-light pie, but if you don't have a food processor, you can use a blender. In that case, you'll probably need to mix the ingredients in a bowl first, then blend them in two or three batches. A stick blender could also be used.

Ingredients:
2 medium-sized ripe bananas
1 cup non-fat or low-fat cottage cheese
1 cup plain non-fat or low-fat yogurt
2 eggs
Juice of 1/2 lemon (1 tablespoon of lemon juice)
3 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9-inch pie pan lightly with cooking spray or oil the pan. Put all ingredients in a food processor and process until very, very smooth, turning off the processor and scraping down the sides occasionally. Pour mixture into the pie pan and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool, then refrigerate several hours, at least, or overnight.

Old-Fashioned Bread Pudding
The ingredient list calls for bread cubes, but I just tear the bread up into little pieces with my hands. This is simple and fast. Whole-wheat bread makes a more nutritious pudding, but a mixture of white and whole-wheat is good too. Bread pudding is equally good warm or cold.

Ingredients:
2 slightly beaten eggs
2 1/4 cups milk (lowfat milk is fine)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups bread cubes
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup raisins

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a round glass casserole dish lightly with cooking spray, or oil it. Combine eggs, milk, vanilla and cinnamon. Whisk until well-blended. Stir in bread cubes, brown sugar, and raisins. Pour mixture into a round casserole dish. Place casserole in a large shallow baking dish and pour hot water into the baking dish to a depth of about one inch. Bake about 45 minutes or until knife inserted in the middle of the pudding comes out clean. Let cool, then refrigerate.

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