Little back-story to the title “Mush”.

Thanks to my mother, growing up I had a very limited diet.  I was a “vegetarian” by default till I was 17 or 18.  Not because of any health benefits or feeling sorry for animals, I just had no desire to eat meat as it was never in my diet growing up.  Food, at the time, wasn’t a focus and was only a bi product to sustain me.  For the most part, I ate a total of 10 different combination of meals MAX till my 1st year of college.  My dinners for years (think 6+) was a plate of plain pasta with butter and a side of mixed veggies (frozen kind with corn, peas and carrots).  This would be every night, week after week, year after year.  Before my years of pasta and butter it was mashed potatoes with mixed veggies.  Both of these meals would be cooked on Sunday night in bulk and heated in the microwave throughout the week.  The only variation in the meal was the occasional french fry meal (remember, I didn’t eat meat) on Friday or Saturday night.  From vivid memories, I would get to pick my fast food location for the best french fries and order ONLY that!  Mush, as it would become would actually be my sustaining balanced food source for nearly my whole childhood.  If you can imagine, I was damn healthy growing up, not an ounce of body fat, no sugar at all, very minimal salt intake, and on the lower end of weight for my age and height.

Now, for the first 18 years of my life I ate the same morning meal, nicknamed by myself and people that knew me as “mush”.  Mainly because when mixed up, it looks like something you might feed your pig.  Just a bunch of ingredients that shouldn’t be put together, let alone heated up and then eaten!  This meal, 25 years ago, before mixology shakes, kale morning mixes, etc was a crazy concept.  Somewhere in the country side of Ireland (I was born there but moved away when I was 6) my mother conjured up this mix of fruits and cereal for her growing children.  Trying to get picky me to eat anything that wasn’t potatoes (Irish, come on now!) or pancakes was a challenge.  My mother was a genius for this!

Recently I’ve recently started making Mush when I have free time in the mornings.  For sustained energy it pretty much has it all.  AND the kicker, it seriously tastes amazing!

Here is the run down on Mush:

1 Kiwi Fruit – Peeled
1 Full Banana
Approx. 1 Cup of Bran Flakes (I used the Kroger brand, super cheap)
1 Cup of Milk (I use 1% Milk but can use any varience you’d like)
1 Hardboiled Egg (I use just the egg whites as I don’t really like the yoke part)
2 Tablespoons of wheatgerm (originally added in by my mother to get wholegrains in my diet)

Simple instructions:

Step 1: Peel that kiwi, not sure who would really want to try and eat that skin.  Chop it up into a few smaller pieces.  Take your banana and do the same, smaller pieces work the best
Step 2: Mash it all up so it looks like baby food as seen in picture below
Step 3: Add in your Bran Flakes, wheatgerm and milk.  Make sure to mix and mash as best as possible.  Easiest to let it sit for a few minutes to let the Bran Flakes soak up the milk and make them mushy
Step 4: Hardboil your egg (8-10 minutes on boil, cool with cold water)
Step 5: Take your mash and heat it in the microwave for 2 minutes, once heated, add in your peeled hardboiled egg and mash some more
Step 6:  Let cool and enjoy your life sustaining super healthy and energy packed breakfast!!!