Using What I Have Journal Entry #4: Variations on a Theme with Muffins
I love muffins. You know this. I keep my freezer stocked with them, and they turn up in so many of my breakfasts. Recently, I made a half-batch of chocolate-glazed lemon poppy seed muffins (recipe from Feasting on Fruit) to get me through a week's worth of breakfasts. I have that huge bag of poppy seeds, after all, and I had the other ingredients on hand.
I did end up with 7 muffins rather than 6, which was fine! I gave one to someone else, ate one as a snack, and had the rest for 5 workday mornings.
But I'm me, so I couldn't just have the same breakfast every day for a week. Here's how I varied the theme and used some of my superfood powders to boot. (P.S. Those muffins are gluten free, if you need such an option, and therefore all of these breakfasts are gluten free, too.)
Here, the muffin was alongside a Cara Cara orange (likely one of the last of this season, alas) and a blue butterfly peaflower soy latte with some dragonfruit powder as a garnish. Perfectly delightful, but I had other ideas, too.
A clementine appeared alongside my morning kiwi, a muffin, and hot cocoa made from soy milk. And there I had five easy breakfasts, over five days, that were neither the same, nor really different. They were just breakfast.
I like having *some* variety in what I eat, but if the rest of my life is Full Of New Things that I am absorbing and responding to, and if Every Day Is Different, then I stop being interested At All in changing up breakfasts and lunches and go for a streamlined, low-thought system that covers the most basic of the nutrition necessities; functional, does not need to be fun/interesting. The Steve Jobs Turtleneck of breakfasts, if you will (albeit without the income and international influence and laundry service).
ReplyDeleteI assume some people are probably more Variety/Novelty Seeking at base and some are more Same Is Fine/Good at base, either across all life categories or within a particular one [i.e. re-reading books, wearing the same clothes, preferring not to redecorate, enjoying re-runs, revisiting a known and loved location for vacations]. So there's that, with food, sometimes, as a base level if all else is normal/stable. But I also think people can crave familiarity or control [which sometimes manifests itself as Things Must Be Exactly The Same, and sometimes manifests itself as Things Must Be Different] especially during times of upheaval or times when we lack agency elsewhere. Anyway, whichever direction your body/brain are craving, self-nurturing via delicious, nutritious food is good, whether it is same-same or all different!
This seems like a delightful way of not using a *ton* of energy cooking+thinking, but still ending up with tastebud-tempting, texturally-interesting, nutritious treats for breakfast!
I am definitely finding that as the world seems to be spinning out of control, I'm a bit less interested in tons of variety. Same but different is a good compromise in such times. I could probably just eat peanut butter ramen three times a day, though, when I'm really feeling overwhelmed.
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