Make-ahead breakfasts

When you have to get up in the morning and get right to it, what do you eat? 

I'm not into "instant foods" (and they require some morning prep, that's what I'm trying to avoid entirely).

I'd like to see methods for making real, whole foods the night before. 

Leave-it-in-the-oven-til-morning type of stuff. 

I'm doing potato casseroles and slow cooked grains, and they're really good, but I'd like to expand the possibilities.  And hear your ideas!

I do not eat breakfast - long bad habit, and because I don't eat it you know I don't want to stop and cook it.  So here's what I do for the kids....

I use milk kefir grains and make a gallon of kefir yogurt at a time.  I keep this in the fridge and then the kids just add a scoop or two of homemade jam, nuts or raisins to their yogurt-bowl in the morning.

I mix up a batch of muffins with goodies like raisins and nuts and allow them to soak (Sally Fallon style) and then later pour the mix into a square cake pan and bake while I'm making dinner.  Cut them up into squares after cooling for easy breakfast bars.  They last and store well for people on the go.  Also along this line of breakfast bar I make a soaked oatmeal bar to vary things a bit.

And lastly, because my son has allergies to gluten, dairy, etc.  my daughter and I are always making batches of soaked whole grain tortillas, biscuits, crackers and such, which the kids love to warm up and embellish for breakfast.

Pre-made waffles used to be a big favorite to just pop in the toaster, but in moving from the non-stick type iron to cast iron - iron I've not yet worked out the kinks for using this tool on my flat glass stove top - sigh, I'll have to get back to that project now that it's cool in the kitchen again.

Jook is a good breakfast. It's basically a cooked-overnight rice porridge; in the morning, you can add meat or eggs or veggies or go the sweet route with fruit and cinnamon. Most recipes use white rice, but brown works fine. You basically bring rice up to a boil with plenty of water for fifteen or twenty minutes—I don't know the precise proportions for this method; might take some experimentation—and then cover it and stick it in the oven or a haybox overnight. In the morning, just add whatever you feel like adding to it. You can do that the night before, too, if your flavorings won't suffer from being warm all night, but I often don't know what I'll be in the mood for until I get up.

Chia soaked in enough coconut milk to make a pudding-like consistency, plus some fresh fruit.

Grilled cheese sandwiches (a little longer prep in the morning, but can be eaten while driving etc.).

Leftovers from dinner, especially pizza, mashed potatoes, or mild-flavored meat dishes.

Bircher muesli: soak rolled oats and any combination of nuts, seeds, drid fruit, coconut etc overnight in apple juice.
Grate apple and/or add berries over it in the morning and serve with any combination of yoghurt, keffir, milk, cream or more juice.
A sprinkle of cinnamon's good too.

Leila Macbeth wrote:
Bircher muesli: soak rolled oats and any combination of nuts, seeds, drid fruit, coconut etc overnight in apple juice.
Grate apple and/or add berries over it in the morning and serve with any combination of yoghurt, keffir, milk, cream or more juice.
A sprinkle of cinnamon's good too.

I second this but go for the zero morning prep. Combine rolled oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, grated apple and enough yoghurt (or kefir) to really soak the mixture. Store in the fridge. The mixture will be good for ages (at least as long as the yogurt use by). We make up five litres or this at a time and gradually eat it over a week or two before making another batch. All the ingredients really soak up the yoghurt and the taste is so much better than preparing it just before you eat it.

I also enjoy the yogurt muesli combo much more on the third or more day of it being in contact with the yogurt.  I can't handle raw oats at all.  Gives me a stomach ache and I feel hungry in an hour besides.  A long soak with yogurt or milk kefir is the way to go for me. 

Thanks for the varied suggestions!  Good thread! 

I was reading Tartine Bread yesterday at the bookstore, and found in it a recipe for French toast unlike any I've seen before.

It starts the usual way, with soaking a thick (1.5 ") slice of bread in raw custard for an hour or so and frying it in a skillet. However, it's important to push down on it as it's cooking, to really seal it down to the pan. The remaining custard is ladled into the bread, and some more pressing-down happens if it hadn't quite sealed. When the bottom is browned enough, it goes into the oven and slowly bakes like a souffle. The top is never browned: the dish is just plated caramelized-side up.

I wonder if that recipe could be adapted to run overnight. It might require putting a tight lid on, so that the whole thing doesn't dry out.

Whoa, that sounds really fun!  I'll have to do some test runs NOT overnight to play with that french bread recipe.