For most of us, our early life has us eating breakfast out of a bowl. I ate Kellogg’s corn flakes by the boxload. I added some sugar to them, of course. I am old enough so I can remember a “new” product: frosted flakes. I added sugar to those to. I had an inattentive mother.
And then, for most of us, breakfast begins to decline in importance. We don’t eat it at all, or we call a cup of coffee “breakfast.” Caroline Griffiths is an Australian food writer of imagination and creativity. Breakfast Bowls offers 52 nourishing recipes to, as she says, kick start your day. The ideas here as far from Kellogg as the US is from Australia. And that is a very good thing.
The book has four chapters, each offering a most distinct breed of bowls.
Smoothie Bowls offer comfort food anointed with flavor and texture:
Acai Smoothie Bowl with Crunchy Granola
Carob and Almond Brownie Smoothie
Banana Berrylicious Smoothie
Carrot Cake Smoothie
These dishes have a base of yogurt with mounds of fruit and spices to generate a complex breakfast beginning.
Seed & Grain Bowls shift by adding more crunch, more texture:
Chocolate Gingerbread Chia Pudding
Crunchy Citrus Toasted Granola
Coconut Amaranth and Millet Bowl with Warm Berries
Black Rice Breakfast Bowl with Tropical Fruit
Classic Bowls strike notes “closer to home.”
Homemade Natural Yogurt
Seasonal Fruit and Yogurt
Caramelized Apple and Blueberry Crumble
Rhubarb and Pear Crumble
Now, if something has crumble, it is automatically healthy. As well as delicious.
Australia may be far from the US, but is close to Asia and Asian influences appear in the final Comfort Bowls chapter:
Chicken Congee
Chicken Pho
Chili Bacon & eggs with Sweet Potato Hash
Japanese Miso Bowl with Pumpkin and Spinach
Now, for me, my corn flake days are long past. I have become an espresso + roll guy. Okay not just a roll but surely a cinnamon roll. I like sweetness and substance. So the bowls here replete with berries and fruit and coconut, those bowls have immediate appeal. And the comfort food bowls, reflecting the preference in Asia for a breakfast with protein content, are “must try” items. How can you deny something with Sweet Potato Hash?
You’ve been told all your life that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I’m not going to lecture you. But, I am going to say that breakfast can be the most delicious meal of the day. One bowl at a time. There has to be, has to, a bowl or two or three that you fall in love with in Breakfast Bowls. Just like the corn flakes.