Breakfast wasn’t very exciting when I was a child; toast and cereal just about had it covered in our house, so once I started going to work early in the morning I dispensed with breakfast altogether and ate a couple of Kit Kats on the bus. Then I left home and moved up to London and breakfast became a cup of tea and a cigarette, followed by another cup of tea and a cigarette at the office. In fact, I didn’t really take breakfast seriously until I was pregnant for the first time in my twenties – and then it was a struggle to keep down one Weetabix.

Lots of people, especially children, dread eating first thing in the morning, but endless research has shown how important breakfast is. Having witnessed the effects of going without food on tired, listless and irritable kids, I agree that getting them to eat something before they leave the house makes a huge difference, not only to their happiness and well-being, but to the way they behave and perform at school, so it’s worth getting into good habits as soon as you can.

There’s nothing wrong with toast and cereal of course, but there are plenty of alternatives, so try and make breakfast a bit more interesting and less of a chore by ringing the changes and finding out what your children like, what they don’t like, and what they wouldn’t eat if it was the only thing between them and total starvation.

If you want them to eat something they haven’t tried before and you’re not sure how they’re going to react, give them the chance to try it first at the weekend, or in the holidays, rather than on a school morning when you’re pushed for time and already have a hundred-and-one things to worry about.

EVERYDAY BREAKFASTS

Cereal

I think it’s fair to say you can separate cereal into two camps; the goodies, made entirely from whole grains with little, or no, added salt and sugar, and the baddies, which contain a lot of extra sugar, and in some cases as much salt as you’d find in a bag of crisps.

I suppose any cereal has to be better than nothing because they all contain added vitamins and are eaten with milk (and if you get into the good habit of not giving children extra sugar from the very beginning, they’ll never miss it). There’s nothing to stop you reading the labels on every box in the supermarket if you feel like it but, as a general rule, the less fancy looking the cereal, the healthier it’s going to be. Anything frosted, flavoured, coloured, coated in honey or mixed with chocolate chips and other bits and pieces is certain to contain some or all of the things you want to avoid, so here’s a quick guide to your best bets.

PORRIDGE: All porridge, any porridge; from a box, from a bag, or an individual sachet. There shouldn’t be any added sugar in porridge oat cereals, even the one aimed specifically at children, and now porridge can be made in the microwave you don’t even have the bother of cleaning the saucepan afterwards.

KELLOGG’S ALL BRAN: Greatly improved since the days when it tasted exactly like minced cardboard, but if you still can’t bear to eat it on its own (I can’t), make a delicious fruit and bran loaf with it instead (see Wholesome Cakes in Chapter 8: Let Them Eat Cake).

SHREDDED WHEAT: The bite-size version is especially good for kids, and this is one cereal that doesn’t go soggy in the milk.

MUESLI: With or without added sugar, there are so many healthy ingredients in muesli, does it really matter?

WEETABIX: Make it more interesting for children by pouring on a fruit smoothie, or milk flavoured with a spoonful of Nesquik, rather than plain milk. (Take the Weetabix Challenge – you must have seen the TV adverts.)

Fruit

If you haven’t eaten fruit for breakfast before, because you’re worried you’ll be starving long before lunch, give it a try; I bet you find a good helping of fruit (especially with yoghurt) fills you up far more effectively than a bowl of soggy cereal.

In fact, fruit is a really easy option at breakfast time, especially in the spring and summer months, and I’ve found that even children who don’t normally go a bundle on fruit often find a few slices of banana with a small spoonful of yoghurt and honey less daunting than a piece of toast or a bowl of cereal. Not only does it look more inviting, it’s nice to have something sweet when you’ve got a dry, early morning taste in your mouth. (If you’re worried about brushing your teeth too soon after having fruit, eat a small piece of cheese to neutralise the acid in your mouth and protect the enamel, then wait a couple of minutes. The same rule applies any time you’ve eaten food containing a lot of acid; I always gave my children a piece of cheese after a marathon sweet-eating session – of which there were many – and it seems to have worked for them so far.)

Just a few slices or chunks of fruit, or a combination of fruits, e.g. banana, apple, pear, melon, kiwi fruit, grapes or berries, with live yoghurt (natural or fruit) and a teaspoonful of honey drizzled over the top.

Half a grapefruit or an orange cut into segments and sprinkled with a very little sugar. Flash the fruit under the grill to melt the sugar and take the chill off if you like, especially in the winter when cold fruit isn’t so appealing. (If you buy the sweeter varieties of grapefruit you shouldn’t even need to add sugar.)

Tinned prunes. Soft, sweet and easy to eat. Most tinned prunes I’ve come across aren’t even particularly wrinkled, despite what their bad reputation suggests. (Eat five, then if you do ‘Tinker, Tailor’ with the stones, it always come out ‘rich man’.)

Fruit smoothies. The possibilities are endless (see Chapter 7: Can’t Cook? Don’t Cook!).

Cake

Cake is the answer to a parent’s prayers on those cold, dark winter mornings when it’s an effort getting out of bed on time, no one fancies fruit, and you don’t want to make anything more complicated than a cup of tea. When you think about it, plenty of Europeans with far fewer health problems than we have in this country eat cakes, croissants and jam for breakfast all the time, and I don’t see a problem as long as children have a small glass of milk or fresh juice with it.

Bran loaf, rock buns, fruit and muesli muffins, bread pudding, flapjacks, apple, ginger, carrot or plum cake (see Wholesome Cakes in Chapter 8: Let Them Eat Cake) or cheese and courgette scones (see Cooking with Children in Chapter 8: Let Them Eat Cake) all do the trick.

Eggs

Eggs are so versatile, and in their simplest forms they only take a very few minutes to cook.

BOILED: Everyone has a theory on the best way to boil an egg, and now there’s more than one gadget on the market to do the job for you. Assuming you’re not spoilt and selfish enough to have your butler produce six boiled eggs in a row for you to choose from, all you have to do is start with cold water, a teaspoon of salt and a drop of vinegar in the smallest saucepan you’ve got; then bring to the boil and simmer gently for 2 1/2 minutes for a very soft boiled egg, i.e. white just firm and yolk very runny. If you’re doing several eggs at once and everyone likes their egg a different way, follow the same procedure and remove all the eggs from the water at the same time. Eggs carry on cooking in their shells, so take the tops off the ‘soft’ eggs straight away; anyone who wants a harder egg can wait another two minutes while they eat a piece of toast, before taking the top off their egg.

POACHED EGGS: I’ve tried poaching eggs in the microwave as well as in a pan specially designed for the job, but I still think the easiest way by far is just to break the egg into a cup and drop it straight into a saucepan of lightly salted, gently boiling water; about 2 minutes for a firm white and soft yolk, 3 – 4 minutes for a firm yolk.

OPEN HOUSE EGGS: Warm enough oil to just cover the bottom of a frying pan; cut a hole in a piece of bread with a cup or glass and put both pieces of bread into the pan. Break an egg into a cup and drop it into the hole in the slice of bread. After a couple of minutes, flip everything over and fry for another couple of minutes. Squeeze tomato sauce onto the egg, replace the circle and serve.

SCRAMBLED EGGS: Add a good splash of milk to make the eggs go further (for me, scrambled eggs without milk are too rich anyway) and for speed, scramble them in a large, non-stick, shallow frying pan – as opposed to a regular, deep-sided saucepan – with a tablespoonful of melted butter.

Kippers

Boil-in-the-bag kippers take about 10 minutes; sprinkle them with lemon juice (and dried parsley) and eat with brown bread and butter.

Avocado Sandwiches

Mash an avocado (or two, according to how many sandwiches you want to make), spread on brown bread and butter and cut the crusts off. Avocados are the perfect good mood food; nice and easy for little mouths to swallow first thing in the morning.

Pancakes

If you can’t bring yourself to make batter and get a pan dirty before breakfast on a school morning, make a stack of pancakes in advance and freeze them.

TO MAKE ABOUT A PINT OF BATTER (6 – 12 PANCAKES, DEPENDING ON THICKNESS OF PANCAKES AND SIZE OF PAN):
4–5 very heaped tablespoons of plain flour
2 eggs
1/2 pint (250 ml)

METHOD

• 1.Sift the flour into a bowl or a large mixing jug (2 pint plus), make a well in the centre, add the eggs and about half the milk, start whisking with a small hand whisk or fork and gradually add the rest of the milk. Thin with a little more milk if necessary. Transfer the batter into a jug, which will make it easier to pour into the frying pan.
• 2.The secret of perfect pancakes is a very hot pan and no surplus oil sloshing around, so warm enough oil to cover the bottom of the frying pan, then pour the oil into a clean cup to be used again, and give the pan a quick wipe over with kitchen roll.
• 3.Pour in enough batter to make a pancake, tipping the pan as you go to get the bottom of the pan covered as quickly as possible.
• 4.As soon as the surface of the pancake is completely dry, run a knife around the edge and turn it over, or toss it by holding the pan away from you, shaking the pancake towards the far end as far as it will go without falling out, and flipping it over in one deft movement. (N.B. Pour a little more oil from the cup into the pan after every couple of pancakes, heat thoroughly, then wipe the pan almost dry with kitchen roll.)

TO FREEZE:

• 1.Make the pancakes as described above, layer them with clingfilm when they’ve cooled (which only takes a few minutes), then put the whole lot in a large food bag and freeze.
• 2.No need to defrost them; place each pancake on a plate – or two pancakes on one plate, a little apart – and microwave on high for 1 – 2 minutes.

PEANUT BUTTER PANCAKES:

I thought of making pancakes with peanut butter as a way of adding protein, otherwise pancakes can be a bit lightweight when you’ve got a busy day ahead and no way of knowing when you’ll be able to eat again.

I use smooth peanut butter – it blends easily with the batter in seconds – but I don’t see why you couldn’t use crunchy peanut butter instead if you prefer it.

• 1.Make batter in the usual way, with a bit less milk, and use a fork to whisk a dessert spoonful of peanut butter into the mixture at the end – roughly 1 dessert spoon for 1/2 pint (250 ml) of batter. (Add more milk if the batter needs thinning.)
• 2.Make pancakes in the usual way and serve with slices of banana and maple or golden syrup.

WEEKEND BREAKFASTS

Unless you’re super-efficient and get up at the crack of dawn, some breakfasts are better left until the weekend.

Eggs Florentine

Make cheese sauce in the usual way; mixing a heaped tablespoon of flour with about 1oz (25g) of melted butter in a saucepan, cooking for a minute, then adding approximately 1/2 pint (250 ml) of milk, a handful of grated cheese and whisking continually until the sauce thickens. Keep the sauce warm and cover with clingfilm or a couple of tablespoons of milk to prevent a skin forming while you wash and cook the spinach, preferably in the microwave in a casserole dish with a lid, and poach the eggs in boiling water. Serve the eggs on a bed of spinach with the cheese sauce poured over the top.

Hash Browns, Bacon & Beans

As an alternative to grilling or frying, place bacon on a lightly greased tray at the top of the oven and cook on Gas Mark 6 (200°C) for about 20 minutes – no need to turn it over. If you’re making hash browns, fry them lightly on both sides and finish them off in the middle of the oven, warming the baked beans up in a casserole dish with a lid on at the bottom. Needless to say, homemade hash browns are infinitely superior to their supermarket equivalent (see Chapter 9: Not Only But Also).

The Healthiest ‘Fry-up’ Possible (with the least amount of washing up)

• 1.Cook sausages in the oven in a very large ovenproof dish (preferably Pyrex, it’s easier to clean), adding the bacon about halfway through the sausages’ cooking time.
• 2.Put baked beans and tinned plum tomatoes in a casserole dish with a lid on at the bottom of the oven 10 minutes after you put the bacon in.
• 3.Half-fill a large saucepan with boiling water from the kettle and put it on a low heat while you make toast.
• 4.Poach the eggs in the boiling water for a very few minutes, by which time everything should be ready – and that’s it!

ALSO TRY...

Baked Apples (see Chapter 6: Join the Pudding Club), Kedgeree and Cheese & Onion Tomatoes (see Chapter 3: Make Dinner, Not Excuses).