It’s no secret that our household loves to cook and eat. We love food, we love communing around food, and I (particularly) love reading about food. Food memoirs are high on my list of favorite things to read. So here’s a little confession: We don’t do family dinner.

This season of our life makes family dinner unrealistic most nights. Instead, the boys get a “kid meal” (sometimes it’s boxed mac-n-cheese, sometimes it’s leftovers from what their dad and I ate the night before) and are in bed before Steve and I even start our own dinner. Then he and I eat our food while it’s still hot, and mostly without interruption.

Where we come together over food is breakfast. Most days, the four of us are at the table. We talk about the news, what we expect our days to be like, all of the things families talk about. We introduce new foods into familiar dishes, and we make sure we’re fueling up for the busy days ahead.

We save waffles for the special mornings – when we can linger a little longer. Lately we’ve reserved them for the Monument Races – a series of the 5 oldest and hardest pro-cycling races spread out over the season. Monument Waffles is a morning we all look forward to.

Some of our favorite breakfasts include overnight oats: steel cut oats left to simmer on the stove overnight and then flavored with milk, almond milk, nuts, dried cranberries, raisins, molasses, honey, cinnamon, brown sugar…we just set out all of the jars on the counter and everyone picks their add-ins. We also enjoy pancakes (Alton Brown’s Almost-Instant Pancake mix is almost always in the cupboard – it works for waffles as well as pancakes). We enjoy turning overnight oats into leftover oatmeal muffins – both SouleMama and Molly Wizenberg have good recipes.

Of course eggs, sausage, cereal, bacon, grits (my mom’s grits casserole is always a hit), hash of some kind or another (lately it’s been a mix of potatos, eggs, and sausage)…and because they’re my children we never say no to donuts or pastries.

I would have coffee and a chocolate croissant every morning if I wasn’t trying to convince the kids I’m a Responsible Adult.

What are some of your favorite breakfast or brunch dishes? What food do you and your loved ones come together over these days?

Happy Breakfasting!