Menu Plan Monday: The Breakfast Challenge

Meeting friends over the internet, lets us open ourselves to improvement and this menu plan will be focused on a breakfast challenge.

Whoever says you can't form real friendships over the internet is completely wrong. Toni, Kate, and I started our friendships through reading each other's blogs in February of 2008, and our friendships grew through our interaction on the internet. Then earlier this year we all met in person (and found out that we like each other in person, too!). We're still in contact on a daily basis and I consider them two of my closest friends.

I've recently been getting to know another wonderful blogger, Amanda over at Better Is Little. She and I have been doing a lot of late-night chatting over Google Chat lately. (Well, that's not entirely true. It's more like early-morning chats since we've been chatting well after midnight). Regardless of the time of day, through our conversations we've discovered we have a lot in common.

Unfortunately, one of those things we have in common is that we're both running out of energy and inspiration in the kitchen — well, for me I could say I have already completely run out of energy and inspiration in the kitchen. I haven't cooked more than a couple of times in the last month. And although my kids are getting fed, it's usually because they feed themselves. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I know I could be doing better. A lot better.

Last year (as you might remember) Toni and Kate gave me that encouragement during our 3 Moms, 3 Kitchens, 31 Days Challenge. I even discovered during that month that I really do like to cook!

But, unfortunately, I've slipped back into my old habits of not cooking. While my kids are learning independence in the kitchen as a result, I do miss preparing meals for them, and I'm sure they miss it, too.

So here's the deal. Both Amanda and I realize we need some encouragement and motivation, so we're embarking on a month-long challenge, similar to our 3 Moms challenge last May. But from experience, we both know that if we focus from the get-go on improving all three meals of the day, we're doomed to failure. So instead, we're focusing on just one meal each week. This week it's breakfast.

We've both come up with breakfast plans for each day this week, trying to find some recipes we've never used before. We plan to prepare those breakfasts as planned and to post recipes and pictures each day about how it turned out. By the end of the week we'll have, between the two of us, about 14 different breakfast options that we can add to our master menu plan which we both hope to have completed by the end of June.

If you've been looking for kitchen inspiration like Amanda and I have been, we'd love for you to join us in our breakfast challenge. Simply focus on preparing breakfast each day this week, and especially on trying out new recipes. Then next Monday we'll post a Mr. Linky where you can link up your breakfast recipes for the week.

(While Amanda and I hope that this challenge inspires you in the kitchen, we do have to confess that we have an ulterior motive: if you link up your breakfast recipes, we'll have more great recipes to choose from for our master menu plans!)

Here's the plan for breakfast this week:

• M: Corn cakes (from a Jiffy mix) & fruit
• Tu: Oven omelet
  
• W: Chocolate buttermilk bread (made into muffins)
• Th: Overnight whole wheat breakfast cake
• F: We'll be camping hopefully, so we're going to give breakfast burritos a try over the camp stove or campfire.
• Sa: Peanut butter baked oatmeal
• Su: Breakfast puffs

Come along for the ride as we face this breakfast challenge for this week.

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday.