Nourish

This week’s installation of solutions for hectic weeknight dinners features one of my family’s favorites: breakfast for dinner.

Breakfast for dinner works well on hectic weeknights for several reasons. You generally always have some sort of breakfast food on hand or the ingredients to make it. Breakfast food is cheap. Even picky eaters can usually find something they like at breakfast. And breakfast food can be made and on the table in a flash.

It is quite easy to make a well-rounded, nourishing, yummy meal in no time flat. Scrambled eggs with cheese, raisin toast and fruit smoothies. Waffles (frozen are fine) topped with fresh berries, bacon, milk to drink. French toast, sausages, fruit with yogurt dipping sauce.

This week, the menu request came from my husband. He doesn’t cook (except for his annual turkey nachos, which are delicious) but loves to watch the Food Network and read books and magazines about food and cooking. I always found this odd, but I have since learned that my husband is not alone in his love of food as a spectator sport. Right now he is reading Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin and asked if we could have the macaroni and cheese pancakes from the recipe in the book.

These were insanely delicious and super-easy. And a good breakfast/dinner transitional food (half pancake, half mac ‘n cheese). I served them with cinnamon apples and Morningstar Farms Veggie Sausage Links. We are not vegetarians, but we actually like the fake sausage, it is a great source of lean protein and quite convenient on rushed school mornings. And while I usually prefer to make whole-grain pancakes, the white-flour version seemed to be called for here.

• Mac and Cheese Pancakes
• Cinnamon Apples