Hi friends,

Happy holiday season!  I hope you are feeling more peaceful and organized than I am — my To Do Before Christmas list seems to be getting longer not shorter!  Still, it’s my favourite time of year and I’m looking forward to Christmas full of family time and good food!

I’ve already introduced you to my friend Kimmy, a holistic nutritionist who blogs at Rock My Vegan Socks.  I have invited her to join me at Earthgiven Kitchen with a guest post on healthy eating.  Read on below as she shares her tips to break out of a food rut with six gluten-free, soy-free vegan recipes to supercharge your breakfast.  Think outside the cereal box!  (Especially if it’s full of sugar, salt and additives like many of them out there.)   I don’t know about you, but I pretty much stick to the same three options for breakfast: smoothie, green juice or granola.   Thanks to these great recipes, I’ll be changing it up!   And starting the day off first with a nice glass of warm water and lemon juice. Thanks, Kimmy!

Breaking the Breakfast Routine
guest post by Kimmy from Rocky My Vegan Socks

Are you guilty of having the same thing for breaky, day in and day out?  Or do you perhaps grab something in your mad rush out the door after having promised yourself to make time the previous morning as your rushed out the door?  I know, I know – you are busy!  You have a job to get to, and kidlets to get out the door and breakfast isn’t exactly one of your priorities.  I get it, trust me.

What if I helped you get out of that breakfast rut and back in love with the most important meal of the day?  I have the magic!  I have loads of great ideas for super quick and easy breakfasts, along with a few more complicated ones when you’re in the mood and have time.

Before we get to the good stuff, let’s take a closer look at breakfast and mornings.  When you get up in the morning, your body has just finished detoxing after (hopefully) a good night’s sleep.  Your body wants a gentle wake up, so instead of jolting it awake with caffeine, try a nice cup of warm water with some fresh squeezed lemon.  This will help get your digestive juices flowing.  While you’re getting ready, try pausing to drink a glass of water to rehydrate yourself (this helps with energy for the day as well as keep your joints lubricated and help combat dry skin).  Try waiting until you feel true hunger before eating your breakfast.  This may mean having to take it to go, which is fine, just be sure to eat it in a calm & relaxed environment and to thoroughly chew it.  This will give you energy and keep you going until lunch if you just don’t have time for a mid-morning snack.  And it’ll keep you from grabbing a doughnut to stave off your hunger.

If you just don’t have time to make breakfast in the morning, make it the night before and take it with you.  I adapted this recipe from Oh She Glows’ Easy Vegan Overnight Oats.

Chocominty Overnight Oats

1 medium banana
1/3 cup gluten free oats
3/4 cup almond milk
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp carob powder
a few drops of mint extract

Before going to bed, place the banana in your favourite breakfast bowl and mash up a banana.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir really well.  Pop in your fridge until the next morning and enjoy cold.  This one is a nice spin on my favourite chocolate mint combination but is stimulant free.

If you have even just a few minutes in the morning, make yourself a nice, green smoothie. This is also something you could make the night before and have in the morning before you head out (or take with you).

Another important tip for breakfast fare (and all day eating) is the importance of rotating your grains.  Do you remember not being able to bring peanut butter to school when you were a kid?  It was unheard of when I went to school, but seems to be some sort of epidemic nowadays.  Food sensitivities are on the rise and one of the largest contributing factors is overeating a particular food.  Switch it up!  Don’t eat the same things day in and day out.  Try a 4-day rotation with your grains.  Have Millet Mondays and Teff-rific Tuesdays.  Try some new grains like teff and amaranth and buckwheat, which all make wonderful breakfast options.  You could even just have a large serving of fresh fruit for breakfast some days.  Get creative and have fun!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Millet Porridge

1/2 cup millet
1 cup coconut milk
1 tsp maple syrup or agave
cinnamon to taste (optional)
toppings: fresh fruit, nuts, coconut, etc.

Cook up the millet in the coconut milk and add maple syrup or agave.  I like adding cinnamon to mine as well.  Bring it to a boil then simmer for 15 minutes or until most of the liquid is gone.  Put it into a bowl and add some fresh fruit and chopped nuts (I also added flaked unsweetened coconut).

Amaranth Pudding

1/4 amaranth
1 cup liquid (I used 1/4 cup almond milk and 3/4 cup of water)
1/2 tsp maple syrup or sweetener or your choice
topping: chopped nuts, hemp seeds, etc.

Place  amaranth into 1 cup of liquid.  Bring this mixture to a boil, stirring frequently and then simmer it on low-medium heat for 15-20 minutes until liquid is mostly gone.  Add 1/2 tsp maple syrup (or sweetener of your choice) with some chopped nuts.  Try adding some flax or hemp seeds.

Green Smoothie

I’m sure you have your own ideas for smoothies, here are a few more for you to consider.  Start with some greens (spinach, romaine, mixed, kale), add some frozen fruit, some almond milk and some add-ins (flax seeds, chia seeds, goji berries, hemp seeds, maca powder, lacuma powder, spirulina, cinnamon, carob or cacao powder, coconut flakes etc) and blend away.  I always seem to buy too many berries when I head to the market on Saturdays and always have some leftover by the end of the week which I like freezing for smoothies.

Buckwheat Parfait

I love soaking and dehydrating buckwheat as it is so versatile!  You can add buckwheat to smoothies, cereal, trail mix or make your own little breakfast out of it. This is coconut yogurt layered with fresh fruit and dehydrated buckwheat.  I got this idea from Sarina of course =) Check out her recipe here.

Homemade Cereal (adapted from Oh She Glows)

1/3 cup oats
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp maple syrup
chopped nuts
topping: fresh fruit

I also got this idea from Oh She Glows. I start with oats and add a pinch of sea salt, cinnamon (careful – if you aren’t used to adding cinnamon, start out small and work your way up), maple syrup and I chop whatever nuts I have on hand (I’m always pretty psyched if I have almonds, pecans, walnuts and cashews all on hand) and mix it with the oats and then add some chopped fresh fruit on top.

Bon Appétit!

The Chocominty Overnight Oats were submitted to Wellness Weekends blog hop.