I am the kind of person who likes to have a pretty intentional breakfast. If I don’t have a legitimate breakfast before work, then I’ll be so hungry at lunch time that I will eat all of the things.

To complicate matters, I have never really been a lover of cereal. In my formative years, I went dairy free for a while and during that time, I just never really developed a cereal-as-breakfast habit. Back in those days, soy milk and almond milk and other dairy-free options weren’t totally available in my tiny town grocery store. So my mom would stock up on boxes of rice milk whenever we went into town and I hated it. I could choke it down if I had to, and I probably wouldn’t mind it as much as an adult but I couldn’t bring myself to pour it on my cereal on the daily. I got real into toast, though. Mostly toast and peanut butter.

These days it’s toast and smashed avocado with a tiny sprinkling of sea salt. That’s my ideal breakfast. A close second is a scrambled egg and sliced tomato with salt and pepper. I don’t tend to steer toward sweets for breakfast unless they have a lot of, I guess, health food components that I know are going to keep me full and nourished. Like extra nuts or wheat germ or dried fruits. Oatmeal, by the way, totally falls under the “sweets” category for me but probably not for anyone else. So this is what I’ll eat in a perfect world. But that world doesn’t exist, today, because payday is tomorrow. Which means that the fridge is getting a smidge low and it’s time to get creative.

There are no eggs, no bread, obviously no avocado. All of the sugar cereal has been on my shelf for, not kidding, a year. So I’m not eating that. No oatmeal. But what’s that way back in my cupboard? Grits. Hmm… grits is essentially cream of wheat, right? And that’s totally a breakfast food. Okay. So, grits. So we’re having grits for breakfast. Like cowboys or something. I’m not really sure of the demographic that regularly noshes on grits for breakfast.

Then I went through my cupboard and pretty much took out a spoonful of anything that would offer me some nutritional benefit.

A spoonful of almond butter for protein, a big scoop of wheat germ for all of the things (I am an enormous advocate for wheat germ, add it to anything you can think of. I even put it on ice cream.), and a drizzle of agave because I want it to be a little sweet but I don’t want my blood sugar to go crazytown bananapants while I’m at work. And then I just threw in a few other things for flavor on whatever whim happened to stop by.

I have to tell you that I’m going to be adding grits to my regular breakfast routine. Necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention.

Grits for Breakfast for One

1 c. watter
1/4 c. quick cooking grits
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1 T. nut butter
1 T. wheat germ
1/4 t. cinnamon
1 t. agave nectar or honey

Bring water to a boil in a small pan, add vanilla extract and grits and stir. Turn heat down to low and continue to stir until grits reach desired consistency.Remove from heat, stir in extras and top with a splash of milk.

What else could we add to it?
Has necessity ever delivered you something delicious?