breakfast blogger

I know it seems like all I eat for breakfast is big and sweet and or gooey and more than likely filled with oh so delicious fat! I think if I really ate that way all the time, I would have already had my first heart attack.
This is a more accurate example of my normal everyday breakfast. I figure if I eat well during the week, I can let loose on the weekends and have some fun with breakfast without TOO much guilt. I call this Super Oatmeal!

You start off with 2/3 cup of oatmeal, add 1/2 cup all bran cereal, 1/4 cup 7 grain cereal, a pinch of salt and about 1 1/2 cups water.

Throw it all in a pot and let it bubble away on medium heat until thick and gooey. When I’m feeling particularly wild and crazy, I’ll add in a handful of raisins or dried cranberries.

A little handful of brown sugar and VOILA! Super Oatmeal! It has almost zero fat, low sugar (until you throw your brown sugar on top!) and about 90% of your daily required fiber intake. Add a piece of fruit and some juice or milk and you are good to go!

MMmmmMmmmMm FIBER-LICIOUS!!!

Burp!

Super yummy breakfast step one:

Make french toast batter (egg, a snosh of milk and cinnamon) and throw a few handfuls of mixed frozen berries with a bit of orange juice into a pot and bring to a soft boil.

Step two:

Dip bread of choice in batter and cook on griddle until golden. Don’t forget to take advantage of griddle space and throw on some bacon or turkon.

Step three:

While toast and berries are a’cookin, whip up some cream cheese, a little drizzle of milk and a little powdered sugar until desired sweetness is reached. Beat the living b’jesus out of it until it’s fluffy and creamy delicious.

Step four:

Assemble in this order. Important! Do not deviate from plans!!

Lay 1 piece of toast on plate, smear desired amount of cream cheese goo on toast (the more the better). Spoon on a good dollop of hot reduced berry sauce on cream cheese. Add one more piece of toast. Top with more cheese goo, more berry sauce, an orange slice and generous amounts of whipped cream. Serve with bacon or turkon on the side for a little salty contrast. Repeat until stuffed beyond capacity.

Burp!

I think we can all agree that a breakfast is usually better when you don’t have to cook it yourself. Let me offer example: Last Sunday.

I will never regret getting involved with a man that can cook. After being chased from my kitchen a few dozen time for wanting to help prep, I conceded and allowed him full control of the kitchen and my camera. This is what I was given to blog:

Step one: Get stuff. Namely eggs, good mozza cheese, chorizo sausage, fresh baby spinach, chopped red, green and yellow peppers and some buttuh.

Step two: Beat eggs and chop stuff up.

Step three: Heat pan, give sausage and peppers a quick little sizzle to release oils and flavors. Set aside.

Step four: Slap some buttuh in pan and add beaten eggs. Sprinkle spinach on top. Let cook for a bit on lowish heat. Add sausage over half and mozza cheese on top of that. Flip non sausaged half over sausaged half. Cook until cheese melts.

Step five: Serve to loved ones.

(Be sure to explore the EXTREME stringability of a good mozza cheese. Please be sure to stretch with caution!! I was stretching a forkful to maximum arm length and it snapped and hit me in the eye and went up over the back of my head!! Delicious but dangerous!)

Not only did I not have to cook it, but it was super delicious to boot. The spicy chorizo added just the right amount of heat to the omlette and with the crunchy peppers, soft gooey cheese and super nutrient rich spinach, it covered all of my breakfast needs.

Now if I could only get out of doing the dishes after….

During the holidays, our friend Kate suggested that we make Pannetone french toast, so we did.

We used fresh farm eggs that we got from our CSA farm, which is why these eggs are all different colours and sizes.

We also made home fries. We baked these, not only to make them less unhealthy, but to not have to stir them and/or tend to them constantly. It also frees up more real estate on the stove. We simply threw cubes of potato into a big bowl and tossed them with some oil (olive and veg), salt, pepper, and whatever herbs or spices were handy - oregano and rosemary this time. After about 20 minutes we mixed them around, trying to flip as many pieces as possible.

Here they are in the oven:

We also made an apple compote to eat on the french toast.

Here is some cheese we had with our meal. There was a Comte from France and a Manchego from Spain. We invited a few people for this brunch, and they didn’t show up empty-handed, so there was an assortment of fruit and cheese and other goodies to enjoy before, during and after the Pannetone french toast.

The Pannetone french toast:

Yummy!

For dinner that evening, the lady and I made Pannetone french toast peanut butter banana sandwiches, with maple syrup.

Decadent.

After a enchilada feed 2 nights previous, I found that I had a bit of a surplus of leftover black beans in my fridge. Now I’m a big fan of the delicious little high fiber bean beasties, so why not add them to breakfast. So I did. May I present: spicy egg and black bean breakfast wrap.

I beat up some eggs and mixed in some chili seasoning, chive, salt and pepper and some other spicy stuff and made a spicy scramble.

I pan fried the beans to warm them through and threw the eggs, beans, some old cheddar cheese ( and by old I mean aged. I have issues with moldy cheese) and a splat of hot sauce in for good measure into a nice whole wheat wrap.

Add that to the book du jour and it was a most satisfying and fiber rich mid week breaky.

*Burp!*

 If ever there was a use for milk that wasn’t going to be drank in time, it’s making a batch of sunday morning crepes.

 For a change, I had my whole little family home for breakfast this morning, so a nice big breakfast was definatly on the menu. I sent my man and the boy child out on a mercy run for coffee, cream cheese and whipped cream while I prepared the crepes.

 Now for those faithful readers out there, you know crepes are my thing. Since I was a young lass, I was always in the kitchen with my father on saturday or sunday making crepes. After so many years, I have gotten a feel for the batter and can’t even remember if there even was a recipe anymore. I will share with you, as best I can, how to make them.

I start with about 2-2.5ish cups of flour, about a tablespoon of baking powder, a goodly pinch of salt and about 3/4 of a handful of sugar. Mix in a big bowl. In another largish bowl beat 4 eggs and about a litre of milk and a splash of vanilla. Add to flour and whisk to get the lumps out. a few little lumps are ok though.  It should be fairly thin, like a cream soup. I like to let it sit for a bit on the counter, or even overnight in the fridge is ok. Be sure to skim the frothy junk from the top before cooking. It’s personal choice if you want to add some melted butter to the batter. Butter never hurt anything!

 Now there is a lot of crepe cooking devices out there, but I’ve always used just a large frying pan. A little cup of melted butter and pastry brush are needed beside the pan too. I keep it on the stove top so the butter stays melted. A quick brush on a hot (med-high) frying pan and you are ready to pour in your batter. Pour in about 3/4 of a ladle full and twist and turn the pan to coat the bottom. There should only be enough batter to make a thin layer in the bottom. You can just pour off the excess. The batter should stick if the pan is hot enough, if it doesn’t, turn up the heat. Let cook for about 30 sec or until it starts to go light golden. Now some of us can flip by just flicking the pan, I strongly suggest using a flipper. Only a few seconds more on the other side and off to the plate in the warming oven. (just turn on your oven as low as it goes). Then repeat, repeat, repeat… This makes a fairly large stack, enough for 4-6 people comfortably, possibly more. I always make a large batch for snacking on.

 Then the fun; filling and topping! There is no limit but your imagination. You can make them sweet with fruit fillings, jams, cottage cheese, my childhood fav of butter and sugar, butter lemon juice and sugar, maple syrup, fried bananas and rum, etc. Or savoury with scrambled eggs, ham, greens peppers and onions, cheese, seasoned meats, etc.

 This morning was homemade strawberry and blueberry compote with cream cheese and whipped cream. The compote was nothing but a couple handfuls each of stawberries and blueberries, a couple tablespoons of sugar and a little splash of fresh OJ, cooked slow and low until it reduces.

 We had a nice assembly line set up on the table. My son perfers his with butter and sugar and a little maple syrup. 4 crepes later, he rolled himself from the table.

Myself, on the other hand, prefers something a little more. I started with some nice soft cream cheese, threw on a dollup of the berry compote and rolled it into a nice tight bundle, then repeated 2 more times.

Topped off with more fruit sauce and whipped cream and served with a glass of sparkling orange juice and a coffee, it was a perfect lazy sunday breakfast.

And just like magic…

*POOF* they’re gone!

*burp*

As you may know, you can Frenchify just about anything. In the past, I’ve made french toast danishes and stuffed french toast sandwiches. I happened to have some sunflower seed bread kicking around and decided to give it a shot.

I just love this bread to bits. I get it at the IGA grocery store here in Hull. If someone knows where you can get this in Ottawa, please let me know!

My french toast mix is simple… a few eggs, a bit of milk, cinnamon and vanilla extract. As you can probably tell, this morning’s mix happened to get quite a bit of vanilla extract!

I threw them on to my new griddle which I’ve been meaning to blog about… it’s over 2 feet wide and can be submerged in water for cleaning. I’m totally in love with it.

Since the bread was thick, I let it fry for a while…

I just added a touch of maple syrup, took some pictures, then went to town. The texture of the sunflower seeds really makes this quite delightful. The extra time I took frying these suckers up meant that they just had a hint of crispiness too.

YUM :-)

What better use for leftover mashed taters than pancakes. Making fried mashed potatoes for breakfast is pretty good too, but I was in the mood for tater cakes this morning.

Once again, my trusty bag of Krusteaz pancakes mix come to the rescue. I added 1 part leftover mashed taters to 1.5 parts Krusteaz pancake mix and added just enough water to make a thick batter.

The potatoes tend to soften up and spread when they cook, so I made the batter a little on the thick side. I also threw in some chives, parsley and paprika for a little interest.

They are also really good plain, or I think they would go well with cheese chunks in them too. MmmmMmm cheese. Everything is better with cheese.

I then added far too much butter to my griddle and slapped on my cakes. I’m usually trying to cut corners on fat and such, but there is just something about tater cakes that screams crispy edges! Take note of the fat bubbling around the edges. Sometimes it must be done! And so it was. And they were golden and crispy and perfect, and they were glad and rejoiced.

Now tater cakes are great on their own, but I’m more of a full meal deal type of person when it comes to breakfast. There happened to be just enough room for a couple strips of turkon on the griddle and a mess of scrambled eggs with cheese. There was even some grape tomaters left on the counter from one of the last pickings I will get form my plants this year too. And so there was breakfast, in all it’s potato pancaked glory.

Just incase you feel that there was one needed, here is an…

EXTREME BREAKFAST CLOSEUP!!!

Burp!

And delicious ones, at that.

I made these donuts- FOR BREAKFAST- this morning. They were easy to make, and quick to fry, though I wouldn’t suggest making these if you can’t be trusted with a pot of hot oil first thing in the morning. You could make them the night before, keep them in the fridge and then frost them right before serving, or you could omit the frosting entirely and roll them in powdered sugar, or a mixture of cinnamon and granulated sugar. They’re tasty however you make ‘em.

Here’s the recipe-

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Set aside
In a larger bowl, whisk the egg until its solid yellow, about 2 minutes. Gradually add the sugar, making a light buttery yellow emulsion. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the melted butter, then more flour, then half the milk, then more flour, followed by the second half of the milk and vanilla extract, and finished with the last of the flour. You should have a fairly firm dough ball. Turn it out onto a lightly floured board and roll it out to about 1/2 an inch thick, or slightly thicker. Use a donut cutter or a large round biscuit cutter and a small biscuit cutter, to cut out donut rounds.

Heat a quart of oil to about 375 degrees in a large high sided dutch oven or deep fryer. Drop the donuts in the hot oil one at a time, being careful not to crowd the fryer. I try to stick with two or three donuts at a time, so I can keep track of them and they won’t get burnt. Fry the donuts for about a minute on each side. Remove from the hot oil with a slotted spoon and drain on several layers of paper towels, or on a wire cooling grid.  Allow to cool before frosting. If you’re going to roll them in sugar or cinnamon sugar, do it while they’re hot.

I made my icing with a mixture of about 1 cup powdered sugar and a tablespoon of milk plus a few drops of strawberry extract. Mix until you’ve got a thick paste, and pipe it on top of the cooled donuts. Smooth out the tops with a small icing spatula dipped in milk or water, and sprinkle with your choice of sprinkles!

I couldn’t resist eating one! I made mine pretty small, just a step above bite size. They’re fun, and like I said before, you can make them ahead of time if you know you’ve got a morning sweet tooth, or if you want a quick pick me up with your morning coffee.

..We can’t always be so healthy.. *smile*

-A.

Alright, so it has been cooling down a tad around here, but its still summer. The weather in the northwest is anything but predictable, so its always a good idea to start the day off producing as little heat as possible, just incase the temperature starts sky rocketing before the house gets a chance to cool down.

So these waffles, they take a little bit more work, and a few more dishes, but they’re a great addition to a sweet breakfast or brunch, and well worth any extra effort they entail.

Cinnamon caramel pecan waffles-

Covered in a rich maple cinnamon caramel glaze.

Each bite is full of delicious bits of pecans and caramel, and the smell these things put off while they’re baking makes your whole kitchen smell like you’ve been hard at work for hours, thanks to the heavy dose of cinnamon.

I recommend eating these things with a nice big glass of milk. They’re tasty, and you might not be able to stop with just a few. I ate a whole stack myself!

For both recipes, stop over at Never Bashful with Butter.

And don’t you worry, I’ll be back with more waffler recipes soon!

-A.