Here is a short recap of what I made this week for breakfast:

• Monday – Fruit Loops, Corn Pops and Apple Jacks – Before Joy and I brainstormed our menu plan I had already bought 3 boxes of cereal for breakfast this morning.

• Tuesday – Everyone raved over Chocolate Chip Breakfast Biscuits. This will make my master menu plan, but I will most likely save it for special occasions.

• Wednesday – Layered Breakfast Bowl is another keeper as I have a 5 gallon bucket of grits. I see now why, when I placed my order, they asked if we like grits. Who knew how much 25 lbs of grits were!? Looks as if we’ll be eating them in eternity.

• Thursday – Another favorite headed to the master plan is Piggy Pudding. I was tempted to opt out of this breakfast because I was in a hurry to get out the door early to an appointment, but was happily surprised that it whipped up quickly enough. I put it in the oven to bake while I finished getting ready.

• Friday - Peanut Butter Banana Smoothies. This was a huge hit with my oldest son especially, who’s requested PB Banana Smoothies for every meal since! I am going to not only put this on my breakfast menu plan, I will be sure it’s on my list for a snack as well.

• Saturday – Apple Crisp. What can I say? This will go to the master plan too. Thankfully no breakfast this week was a scratch off.

• Sunday - Crockpot Oatmeal – I’m ashamed to say I was ill-prepared for this one. I even made a special trip to the store to get oatmeal, only to get it home and find out the oatmeal was quick cooking. Most recipe’s for overnight oatmeal call for steel cut oats. So I made do and cooked up a pot of oatmeal this morning, sprinkled with chocolate chips. For those of you who were interested in the recipe for cooking oatmeal in your crockpot overnight check it out here.

Please be sure to visit Joy and see how she summed up her week of breakfast.

Were you up for the challenge this week? What did you prepare? We’ve looked forward all week to seeing what your favorite breakfast recipes are. So please feel free to link up any breakfast recipes you’d like us to add to our master menu plan. If we choose to include your recipe on our Master Menu Plan, we’ll be sure to give you recognition at some point. {hint hint: free advertising!}

We’re beginning our Lunch Challenge on Monday. We’d love for you to participate with us. Just focus on making lunches each day this week, and maybe even trying out some new recipes. Then next Monday we’ll host another Mr. Linky where you can share your lunch recipes with the rest of us. If you don’t want to participate in the Lunch Challenge, we’d still love for  you to link up any delicious lunch recipes next week.

We added our raw milk to the bowl feeling somewhat redeemed that it wasn’t ALL bad and threw a banana in there for good measure.

Tomorrow’s breakfast should prove to be much more wholesome and yummy (Not that Corn Pops are not yummy!)…We’ll be having Kate’s Chocolate Chip Breakfast Biscuits.

Don’t forget to check out what Joy at Five J’s is doing for her part in this week’s Breakfast Challenge.

And if you are up for a challenge, or need some inspiration and motivation to get back in the kitchen and cook, we’d love for you to join us in this adventure.

Just focus on making breakfasts every day this week, trying out new recipes or bringing back some oldie-but-goodies. Then next Monday Joy and I will each host a Mr. Linky and you can link up your post talking about the breakfasts you tried this week (and of course including pictures and mouth-watering recipes!).

For the the following three weeks, the challenge will be lunches, then dinners, and then snacks. Then, at the end of this 4-week cooking challenge, Joy and I will be compiling master menu plans from which we can more easily plan our meals. So we’re both looking forward to some new meal ideas from our fabulous readers. We’d love for you to join us!

One of the things I like about blogging is making real friendships with other bloggers. I’ve recently made great friends with Joy over at Five J’s. Little did I know when she designed my blog that we would form such a special friendship!

We have been chatting a lot lately, and we’ve discovered we have a lot in common – one of those commonalities being that we’re both in a cooking rut (or shall we say a not-cooking rut).

Confession: My children have been in charge of breakfast too much lately and while I am happy for them to learn their way around the kitchen, we’ve had one too many peanut butter sandwiches in the a.m. Each week I start out with goals, but without motivation, encouragement and accountability it’s easy to slide backwards.

That’s what friends are for! So Joy and I decided that at least for the month of June we’d join forces and be a help to each other. And we thought perhaps you all could use a little accountability yourself as well as some great meal ideas!

But from experience, we know that it’s best to start small, so instead of trying to focus on all three meals right from the start, we’re starting with baby steps.

This week it’s breakfast. In addition to our Menu Plan Monday we will be posting daily, expounding on that day’s breakfast, including recipes and tips.

We’d love for you to join us in our endeavor. If you are feeling a little (or a lot) uninspired and are eating the same ole boring meals day after day, link up with your breakfast menu and the more who participate the more breakfast ideas we’ll have!

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 Joy 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!)

And without further ado here’s my week of breakfast for the week of June 1st:

• Monday Fruit Loops, Corn Pops and Apple Jacks – Before Joy and I brainstormed our menu plan I had already bought 3 boxes of cereal for breakfast this morning.
• Tuesday Chocolate Chip Breakfast Biscuits with fruit
• Wednesday Layered Breakfast Bowl (For lack of a better name!) Grits, sausage, egg and cheese
• Thursday Piggy Pudding
• Friday Peanut Butter Banana Smoothies
• Saturday Apple Crisp
• Sunday Crockpot Oatmeal

This post linked to Menu Plan Monday

Breakfast Cookies

1 cup natural peanut butter (crunchy is optional, I used creamy)
¾ cup raw honey
½ cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

Mix well in a large bowl.

Then add,

2 cups whole wheat flour (grinding the wheat on the pastry setting makes for a lighter, chewier cookie)
½ cup oatmeal (I used Wheat Montana’s 7 Grain oatmeal. You could use quick cooking or not)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt

Mix well. Then stir in

1 cup millet
1 cup chopped dried fruit
1 cup chopped nuts

Drop by tablespoons onto a buttered pan. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. Remove from pan to let cool. Store in an air-tight container.

For more real food recipes go visit Real Food Wednesday.