Workday Breakfasts to Go

This year I am trying something new. Every Sunday I make breakfast for work all at once. That's right. 5 days of breakfast stuffs that I trek to work. Between baking and eating, sometimes I'll have four dozen eggs in the fridge.

The basics

Hard-boiled eggs. I try to stay around $0.20-0.25/egg. This can range anywhere from bulk white eggs or brown eggs. I prefer brown eggs, but only because they're not white. And, I hate to break it to you but there is no such thing as "free range" for eggs nor chickens that bear them. Those happy chickens you see in all the farm-to-table marketing ads are just that.. marketing. In fact, a factory farm can still mass produce eggs and still call itself a "free range" farm. Anyhow, that's a topic for another day.

Put your 10 large eggs into a pot, fill it with enough water to cover, and put a lid on the pot. Bring the pot to a boil then let it simmer covered for 8-10 minutes. Once the timer is up, use a slotted spoon to scoop out the eggs into a large bowl filled with cold water. 

Some people like to wait. I do not. Immediately shell all the eggs and put them into a lidded container in the fridge. 70 calories per egg.

Next item.

Oatmeal with dried fruit. The dried fruit can be anything from chopped dried cherries, raisins, dried blueberries, or dried cranberries. This is one of the simplest recipes I have managed to replicate from Pinterest without a fail. About 136 calories.

1/3 c organic old fashioned oats
1 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp nonfat dry milk
5-8 raisins, cranberries, dried blueberries, or whatever (it's less than 1 tbsp)
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Put this all into an 8 oz mason jar. Put a lid on it and set it aside. Calories will vary by fruit used but not by much. At work, simply fill the jar with hot water, replace lid and screw the band so that the lid stays in place. After 15 minutes or so, the oatmeal will be done. I just eat it straight from the jar.

Organic yogurt. I am not so savvy that I own a yogurt maker. So, this is one of the many organic varieties that Trader Joe's carries. I am partial to the organic vanilla yogurt; though, the quart will only provide four days of yogurt (at 8 oz a day). 213 calories.

I supplement the fifth day with Trader Joe's mango/apricot Greek yogurt. Sure, it's a whopping 300 calories but it's also protein.

Plus coffee (50 calories). A little jolt of caffeine to start the day.

And there you have it. My weekly breakfast is just under 540 calories per morning. This lasts a lot longer than coffee and a bagel that's for sure.

Red Papaya and Kimchi Salad

Today, my salad has taken on a red theme. With the papaya salad dressing, it is slightly sweet and mildly spicy. I didn't even have to beat up green beans for this salad. That coupled with the inability to find fresh bean sprouts at the grocery store also prompted a different spin on papaya salad. I used a food processor's cheese grating disc (larger holes) to grate the entire papaya. This took about two minutes. Much better than grating it by hand.

Red Papaya and Kimchi Salad

Per serving:

1 c fresh, unripe papaya, peeled and grated
handful of ripe red plum or cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 c homemade kimchi
1-2 tbsp papaya salad dressing

Toss it all together in a bowl and eat.

Papaya Salad Dressing

I picked up an unripe red papaya from Trader Joe's the other day ($3.29 each large). It's typically used ripened, either as an eating fruit, in fruit cocktail, or sweetened and dried in a tropical trail mix. I thought it might be a good option for a papaya salad. I'm sure it's done. Most papaya salads call for shredded green papaya; I'm assuming that the flesh stays green through the ripening phase. The partially ripened red papaya looks like an evening sunset, mostly yellow on the outer part and that characteristic salmon red color towards the center. The papaya yielded about 4 tablespoons of seeds. 

Ingredients

1 c extra virgin olive oil
1/4 c rice vinegar
2 tbsp fresh papaya seeds
1 tbsp raw honey
2 scallions, white part only, minced
1 tsp dry mustard -or- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
pinch of sea salt

Directions

In the bowl of a food processor, add all ingredients except for the oil. Turn the food prep on and slowly drizzle in the olive oil until the dressing emulsifies.

Kitchen Notes: Cost to Make One Quart Almond Milk

People buy commercially available alternative milks because they believe it is healthier and as a convenience food. Here's the cost breakdown for the previous almond milk post:

• One 16 oz bottle of vanilla extract (from Costco, $6/bottle) = 96 teaspoons = $0.06/tsp
• 1 lb almond meal (from Trader Joe's, $6/lb) = 4.72 cups = $1.27/cup
• 2 Medjool dates (from Trader Joe's, $4.49/lb) = 1.25 oz = $0.35
• Assume cost of water is negligible

1 c almond meal = $1.27
1 tsp vanilla extract = $0.06
2 Medjool dates = $0.35

Total base cost: $1.33 per quart, unsweetened -or- $1.68 per quart, sweetened

About the same price as Trader Joe's private label unsweetened almond milk but without the fillers and vegetable-based thickeners.

Almond Milk Chia Beverage

I got tired of buying cans of 60% coconut cream. There are a few still in the pantry, but I thought I should try to make my afternoon chia beverage out of something other than coconut milk. This is what I did with the quart of almond milk I just made.

Per half-pint mason jar:

1 tbsp organic chia seeds
1 tsp raw honey
1 c fresh almond milk

Stir it together, then lid and band the jar. Put in fridge until later. Give it another stir or shake the jar before drinking.

If you want to make "pudding" out of this, simply double the amount of chia seeds.