It's Mother's Day, so I'll pose this question to you - Which would you prefer - a true, traditional breakfast, as in eggs and some sort of meat, or perhaps today's more health-conscience choice of cereal or yogurt with fruit, OR do you wanna sleep in and treat yourself to a leisurely brunch, featuring more savory items, like a quiche, strata, or salads, and perhaps a mimosa for added good measure?
The Mother's Day breakfast I asked for (and luckily hubby and younger daughter prepared) included salty, smoky, thick-cut bacon to go along with Kellogg's Corn Flakes-crusted thick slices of French toast with raspberries, strawberries, maple syrup, and whipped cream (and the iced remains of my triple-shot Venti Mocha from Starbucks). Yummy!
Answer this week's poll in the next couple of days, so that next weekend I will prepare one of the recipes for your enjoyment, using Gale Gand's Brunch! These days, I relish sitting down with someone else for breakfast. Saturday or Sunday are the only times we can all be together and make it worth the time and effort to prepare something more tasty than just cereal or instant oatmeal.
Who wants to make pancakes or waffles for one person? It's almost impossible to cut those recipes down for a single person and have the food taste good, because a pancake or other batter recipe typically calls for one egg per four servings. While that's possible when merely cutting your recipe in half for 2 people instead of 4, there's way too much waste when you tried to measure out 1/2 ounce of an egg (most large eggs weigh 2 ounces). Thankfully, once I've measured out the amount of egg I need for my recipe, my male kitty, Kona, enjoys lapping up the remains of my leftover whisked egg.
I'll be deciding upon another recipe for this week - one decidedly NOT for breakfast - and will post on that choice a bit later. If there is any type of food you've always wanted to prepare yourself, but never got around to for whatever reason, leave me a comment and I'll do my best to search for any recipes I have similar to it and see what we come up with for ideas.
Ciao for now!
For a special occasion breakfast, I would always go for eggs over medium with pancakes, topped with REAL Ohio maple syrup. Yummy! I am easy to please when it comes to breakfast I would also love a croissant and would love to learn to make them myself (they are pricey in the stores), but I'm afraid I'd fail miserably. I'm not the best baker in the world. I recently discovered Vital Wheat Gluten and have been adding it to bread recipes, and it's making a noticeable difference in the texture and rise of the breads I make. Have you ever tried VWG? I use the one made by Honeyville Farms. I believe the ratio is adding one TBS of it to every three cups of flour. As for what I'd like to see a recipe and steps on, anything you do and write about is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments! I've never tried VWG, and actually should be varying the types of flours I use. I typically use AP or cake flour, but also use semolina or durum when making pasta (I'm working on 2 posts right now about pasta). I'm not using whole wheat, rice, etc. very often, but it's something I want to experiment with soon.
ReplyDeleteMy 3 absolute favorite breakfasts involve French toast. For any of them, if you decide the night before that you want French toast the next morning, the best thing is to slice your bread pieces so they can dry out a little overnight, which will help them absorb more of the egg batter in the morning before you fry them, rendering a creamier inside texture for you to enjoy.
Rise and shine - your first step is melting butter on a griddle or large skillet. With the 1st recipe, make a semi-circle of slivered almonds in the pan (or you could use crushed pistachios or other nuts), slice a croissant in half, dip it in your egg batter, then lay it on top of the nuts. The 2nd is cutting slices of Panettone bread - easy to find at Big Lots, etc. during the winter holidays. I like the one with chocolate chips, but the more typical one with dried fruits is good, also. Dip it in egg batter, and fry it in the skillet. OR the 3rd delectable option is slicing a thick piece of hearty bread, dipping in the egg batter, then patting it onto a plate of crushed corn flakes, placing it in the skillet, and topping it off with more flakes on the upper side. Of course, then any of these selections should be topped with pure maple syrup and some sort of sliced berry mix (I love raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries), and if you're feeling decadent, a nice nob of honey butter would be great, too!
Oh, and one more slightly unique item - ebelskivers. Basically, they are round pancakes, similar to Swedish pancakes, where you beat your egg whites separately and fold them in so the batter puffs up more. They do require a special pan, but it's fun to fill it halfway, drop in a small ball of cream cheese and a piece of chocolate, or jam, then top w/more batter. You end up with a round ball, slightly smaller than a racquetball, that's filled like a jelly doughnut.