Breakfast of champions

I have never been a big fan of breakfast. I love breakfast food -- waffles and pancakes and bacon and eggs and english muffins and french toast and yogurt with fruit and smoothies are some of my FAVORITE foods -- but actual breakfast time itself? It's tough for me.

The most likely reason is because I like to stay up late most nights, and generally end up sleeping until the last possible moment before I must drag myself from my bed, get physically ready for and drive myself to work/rehearsal/other activities.

Then again, even when I don't have anywhere to go immediately after deciding to get out of bed, I usually don't eat breakfast right away. The truth is, I'm just not hungry right away! I know that's not a good reason to not eat, but there it is.

So, I usually end up taking something breakfast-y to work and eating it there, or in the car if I'm on the way to something else, like rehearsal. These meals usually involve something like yogurt, or a banana, or peanut butter and honey toast. I just don't have time to make waffles or french toast...

I think this is why I love breakfast-for-dinner so much.

In an effort to try something different, and add more protein and vegetables to my diet, I pulled out The South Beach Diet book and browsed through the breakfast recipes. I found something that looked just right: Vegetable Quiche Cups To Go (click the link for the recipe). Easy to make, freezable and easy to reheat, easy to eat, small portions. BINGO!

Here is the end result, still frozen

The recipe says that you can replace their suggested vegetables with any that you like. I decided to make it up as written this time, and unfortunately, I forgot how much I despise the brand of frozen spinach that I bought.

Oh. My. Gosh. These cups things are DISGUSTING!!

That spinach is AWFUL!! I can't taste anything else because I'm too busy trying not to think about the hideous texture. I don't mind spinach in general, but the rest of the food in the recipe is so bland there isn't anything to help it along, and cooked spinach definitely needs something.

The recipe makes twelve cupcake-sized portions, and like I said you can freeze them for later, so at least I didn't have the eat the darn things all at once. I made them at 1 a.m. (remember I said I like to stay up late?) so I don't know if they were any better freshly-made, but I don't think it would have made a difference.

I will eat them all anyway. I gag them down with vegetable juice, and chew about 80 times which seems to help. There's no way I'm throwing away perfectly good, nutritious food. That would be even more depressing.

I will also be making them again. I'll skip the spinach next time, of course, but maybe I'll add mushrooms and broccoli or asparagus or more peppers or something... oh, that sounds good.

This experiment wasn't an outright failure, but it was pretty bad. Now I know what not to do next time, and at least I have some breakfasts ready to go... and I can eat one in about three bites... and I AM actually eating breakfast like I'm supposed to. C'mon, body! Give me some credit for trying to do right by you!

How about you? What do you eat for breakfast? Are you a breakfast-skipper like I used to be? Do you prefer breakfast-for-dinner instead of at breakfast time? Do you eat cold pizza for breakfast as much as you can (mmmm... cold pizza)?