breakfast blogger

Lordy mama, what a great breakfast! Super thanks to Tania for pointing this place out to me. This one’s for you kiddo!

Milestone’s has a chain of locations in Ontario, Alberta and BC. They’ve got two here in Ottawa.. one on Sussex across the street of Chapter’s in the Market and one near the Ikea. I tried out the same one as Tania near the Ikea last Saturday morning and sat outside on the patio. They have a wonderful brunch menu that is served seven days a week till 4 PM. I had the Eggs Blackstone, a dish that Azureus’ mum happens to love:

They make a killer bechamel sauce.. and you have to admit, it looks great in that picture. Taking pictures outside in natural sunlight is such a treat!

The Eggs Blackstone, featuring double-smoked bacon, sliced roma tomatoes, fresh spinach and cream cheese went for $9.49..

A Montreal Classic. You can find this place on Laurier Avenue, 1 block west of St-Denis.

As the sign states, Chez Claudette serves breakfast “toute la journee”. They also serve ‘cuisine familiale’ - this means tortiere, shepherd’s pie, meat loaf, etc….
They also offer the unique choice of paying a little extra to transform your breakfast potatoes into a poutine. The beautiful thing here is that they still use the breakfast home fries for the ‘pout.

Here is some shots of the menu.

I ordered an orange/banana juice. Fresh.

After that, I ordered the ‘regulier’ with sausage and brown toast -and of course the poutine option.

This was delicious:

My lovely ladyfriend had the ‘regulier’ with bacon - no poutine, but I think she secretly regretted this error as she kept poking her fork into my poutine bowl.

All in all, a great Montreal breakfast experience. I hadn’t been here in a while, but Claudette is back in my little black book, and I will call on her regularly.

Very cool. This doesn’t exist yet, but what a great looking design! If I understand correctly, the glass would heat the toast. Found here.

Last Saturday I drove down the Elgin strip, checking out what last few places I’ve missed for breakfast. I should make a list of the places I’ve been to and ask you folks what places I have left to explore on this wonderful breakfast street.

Woody’s caught my eye so I parked nearby and went in. I was in the mood for the usual fare, but thought I’d try something I hadn’t had before. So I ordered the Stuffed French Toast, which is more like a French Toast sandwich, with fruit and creamcheese inside. The kind waitress braught me a bottle of Grolsch, which confused me for a second. Nope, beer doesn’t come with breakfast here, it was just my maple syrup, which I poured over my breakfast yummies:

T’was $7.99..

I have no doubts that I will be hit of the neighbourhood when my kiddo gets older. The kids are gunna love me.

After watching an odd chinese cooking show on mute where they were soaking boiled ducks eggs in all kinds of crazy saucy stuff, I got a brilliant idea. On this show they used a technique where they cracked the eggs shells before they soak the eggs in the sauce, leaving the shells on l. After an overnight soaking in the brine, the eggs were peeled and there was a pretty pattern where the cracks had let a brine seep through. Having watched it on mute, I had no idea what was in this mystery brown liquid, but I couldnt help but think that it would be just as easy to make eggs like that at home, but using food coloring, making bright pretty crackled eggs. So I tried it.

Step 1:

Boil eggs for 8 1/2 min. While eggs are boiling, fill a couple glasses with water and add a different color food coloring to each glass.

Step 2:

After eggs are cooked, run them in cool water till you can handle them and dont burn your finners. I learned that the hard way. I was too excited and didnt consider that something that just came out of boiling water might be hot. Ouch.

Step 3:

Crack the egg shells by hitting it with a spoon or cracking it on the counter. Just be gentle and try to keep it in one piece. The magic is all about the cracks.

Step 4:

Put one egg in each glass and let it soak. The longer you leave it in, the more color will be on the egg.

Step 5:

Remove from the food coloring and peel the shells off. Stand back for a moment and let the awe sweep over you, then eat. MMmmMMmm Dino-licious!

This was my first attempt. I only let it soak for about 20 min. The colors are there, but I was hoping for something a little more vibrant.

Attempt number 2 was more successful. I let it soak for about an hour and used more food coloring this time. More is definatly better in this instance. Either way, I thought it was a fun way to add some color to breakfast. Add some fosselized grain toast, some jurassic orange slices, a monsterous McCain hashbrown patty and a bowl of molten oatmeal and you have a perfectly prehistoric brekkie!

Enjoy!

*burp*

This sunday was truly a treat for me. My son was away on his first long distance sleep over with Grandma and Grandpa, hubby was in bed sleeping and the morning was all mine for the first time in over a year.

For once, breakfast didnt need to be rushed and designed around my young one and I could have anything my heart desired. I thought that I wanted crepes, but that just involved more effort that I really wanted to put forth and the thought of the pile of dishes after didn’t seem like a nice way to spend mothers day.

Instead I opted for a nice fresh semi-healthy breakfast of fresh baked alpine grain bread, fruit, and a big bowl of whipped cream for dipping. It was just what the doctor ordered.

I had visited the local produce the day before and loaded up on goodies. On my menu this morning was strawberries (you can’t have whipped cream without strawberries!), bananas, the biggest grapes I have EVER seen, some juicy sweet cantalope, tangelo, asian apple pear and even a couple squares of chocolate (hey, it’s mothers day, I’m allowed to have chocolate for breakfast!).

I laid my breakfast out for the usual blog shot on the kitchen table, but I eat there every day, I didnt feel like it this morning. Instead I opted for a nice warm sunbeam that was shining on my hammock outside.

The late morning sunshine along with the lake breeze and my fresh and delicious foodies, made for the best mother’s day breakfast ever. I lounged in my sunbeam and snacked to my hearts content for the better part of the early afternoon. Life just doesn’t get much better.

Happy belated mother’s day all!

There’s nothing like Eggs Benedict with a nice slab of peameal bacon:

My Aussie buddy Ez recently asked me about the different kinds of bacon that can be found out there so I sent her to the Wikipedia page about bacon here. Here’s some more info on peameal bacon from the USA (also known as Canadian Bacon) here.

From realcanadianbacon.com:

Peameal bacon is made from boneless pork loins, short cut from the leaner portions of the loin, to ensure a more uniform product. External fat is trimmed to within 1⁄8 inch. Smokeless and tender, this product is sweet pickle-cured and rolled in a traditional golden cornmeal coating, maintaining the processing tradition of real Canadian peameal bacon.

I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day! Cheers!

Three Oaks down, seven to go. Last Saturday may have been rainy, but my Breakfast Blogger buddy Nathanya was still up to treating me to some breakfast goodness. I’m not sure about the other Oaks, but this one only offers a regular two egg special on Saturdays, which is fine by me since it comes with the best potatoes I’ve had so far.

In other Breakfast Blogger news: We passed 50000 hits yesterday which doesn’t mean a heck of alot considering how much comment spam we’ve been getting lately. So for now, comments are still being moderated until I put in some sort anti-spam plugin. The videos are still broken but I’m working on getting that fixed before Steve comes over and video tapes me making something I call a Peabody Special. It’s something that I’ve been making for years and it’s evolved over time to become one hell of a good breakfast! Stay tuned!

Sweet!

Get one here.  Found on B3ta.com.

Here’s a stylin’ way to keep your bread fresh:

Check it out over at wheredidyoubuythat.com.  Found via BoingBoing.