Breakfast for Dinner

Five o'clock rolls around on Tuesday night. This is when I was planning to start dinner. But Caitlin needs help with a word problem. Then Talie needs me to pry some old purplish-gray Play Doh from its jar. Then Ellie can't find the dictionary. At 5:20, I know I am pushing my luck to get chicken, rice, and squash on the table in short order. So I scrap that plan and make it a Breakfast for Dinner night.

I'm a big fan of Breakfast for Dinner. Eggs, toast, pancakes and fruit are blissfully straightforward after a jam-packed day, which means dinner will most likely arrive on time. Also helpful, everyone will eat all of it, happily, and I won't end up wondering why I wasted time in the kitchen slaving over stuffed shells or spinach meatballs. All the better to have a couple of special recipes on hand that take breakfast a bit out of the ordinary and sneak in some extra nutrients.

I go with a tried and true favorite, pumpkin waffles. Once I mix the batter, there's plenty of time in between refilling the waffle iron to slice up bananas, pour milk, admire Talie's Play Doh "cookies," and attempt to help Caitlin figure out which airplane will arrive first.

In less than half an hour, dinner's ready. Even though the maple syrup is flowing, I feel good that everyone's getting a hit of fiber and some vitamin C, thanks to the pumpkin. Best of all, dinner starts off on a happy note, with a chorus of "Yay, waffles!" instead of "What's that stuff?"