Breakfast for Dinner

[Chris Amirault]

After grilling for two nights straight in 90+F temps, it's finally cooled off. However, the family is still jet-lagged, and I'm thinking of a low-key dinner.

Thus my thoughts turn to breakfast-for-dinner. That usually means eggs and something, perhaps pancakes. Tonight we also have English muffins, which opens up the possibility of toasted cheese, egg, and bacon.

The rules at our house are pretty simple: nothing too fancy, no cold cereal, everyone gets to modify their own plate. Comfort food when you're wrung out.

Anyone else partake of breakfast-for-dinner? When do you do it? What do you serve?

[heidih]

As a kid the meatless Fridays often looked like breakfast without the bacon. My favorite was crepes (Palachinka). We could use jam or just powdered sugar and it felt like a super treat. Sometimes my mom would bake eggs in a muffin tin. The edges would get crispy and they just looked cool. Visual appeal is a big thing with youngsters.

My son often enjoyed scrambled eggs, bacon, and cinnamon toast for dinner.

[Chris Hennes]

Blueberries are in season, we've been doing blueberry pancakes for dinner once a week all month. Sometimes we even eat them with forks!

[Darienne]

Smoothies

[Lupinus]

How about "french toast" but made with the English muffins in place of the more traditional/standard breads?

Not to far out there but makes for something a little bit different.

[teagal]

We do it when I forget to thaw something for dinner and I can act like I planned it all along!! Pancakes are a favorite, and we always have bacon or sausage. I like to have scrambled eggs too, since I can have them with salsa or herbs and feel like I'm having a serving of vegetables!

[Kouign Aman]

Frittatas are pretty common dinners at our house, also eggs & chips.

[Beebs]

We do this frequently, once a week or so. Usually when there's nothing interesting in the fridge and we're too tired to shop for groceries or if we're not home till late in the evening. For myself, I'll have brekky for dinner when the spouse is away. It's great because it's fast and unfussy.

Usually, breakfast dinner is an omelette or frittata, maybe sausage or bacon, and a tossed salad. But other times we'll do the whole works - fried eggs, oatmeal, breakfast meat, pancakes, french toast, fruit, coffee, bagels (not all at the same time, of course!).

Oh, and it's a great post-drinking after-partying hangover-preventer!!

[Kim Shook]

We actually just finished eggs, bacon, fried potatoes and sliced tomatoes. We have breakfast for dinner a lot. It’s quick and easy and besides, one of our favorite meals. I don’t have time to make breakfast for breakfast more than once or twice a week, so we like to squeeze in an extra one when we can.

When our daughter (26 years old now) was a little girl, Friday night was pancake night. Pancakes (or waffles), eggs, bacon or sausage and fruit. After about 2 years, she asked plaintively one week, “Do we have to have breakfast for dinner every Friday?” I guess I overdid a good thing. She’s still not crazy about it.

[JeanneCake]

We love breakfast for dinner! Usually it's scrambled eggs or an omelet, toast, melon and berries if we have it, bacon on occasion (none of us has any willpower when it comes to perfectly cooked bacon!); I'm the only one in the family who likes french toast so I don't make it just for me. Husband and son like apple sausages on occasion.....

Usually it's once or twice a month, but it's been a long while since we've had breakfast for dinner so maybe tomorrow.....

[LindaK]

Do crepes count? They work for any meal, as far as I'm concerned.

[Chris Amirault]

I think that the rule here is that anything you serve as part of breakfast-for-dinner should undeniably be part of your actual breakfasts. At our house, for example, tossed salads violate that rule, as we never have salad in the morning. Crepes, though, pass muster.

ETA: We had blueberry cornmeal pancakes for dinner tonight.

Edited July 9, 2010 by Chris Amirault
dinner report -- CA (log)

[prasantrin]

I like eating grilled fish for dinner sometimes.

[nakji]

When I was growing up, my Dad used to make the full English for dinner sometimes, complete with beans and grilled mushrooms and tomatoes. But my husband doesn't like most western breakfast foods, so I don't ever do it for us. It's a shame though, because it is a great strategyvfor when you forget to take things out to thaw, as mentioned.

[Snadra]

I love breakfast for dinner on a weeknight for many reasons, starting with the daily commute that has me getting home at 7pm on a good day (and my husband even later), and ending with the fact that I simply love breakfast foods. I mean, what's not to love about getting home at 7.30 and knowing that you can have toast and scrambled eggs on your plate inside of 10 minutes? Of course, my version of breakfast for dinner may vary from yours: I prefer savoury foods in the morning, and I'm not above having a cucumber or tomato sandwich for breakfast on a hot summer morning (or cretons if I've made a batch!).

Pancakes, either buckwheat & buttermilk or crepes, and french toast are enhanced by the stash of maple syrup my mother brought us on her last trip here, but when that runs out we like a topping of frozen raspberries or blueberries quickly cooked with a little sugar and water and served warm. I love a fried egg on the side, and bacon if it's in the house...it scandalises the locals to mix bacon, eggs and maple syrup, but I've brought my Aussie husband over to the dark side!

For a more savoury BFD scrambled eggs and sliced tomatoes with toast go down a treat and if I have time before the hungry Snadra-beast comes out I like to boil a potato to go with it (although I wouldn't boil a potato for breakfast unless I was desperate, I do love a buttered one with scrambled eggs). And there's little that can beat asparagus in season with a fried or poached egg for breakfast or dinner.

I lived on a farm in Schleswig-Holstein for a little while as a teenager: in my experience Fruhstuck is little different to Abendbrot. We do a similar meal at least once a month. There's an amazing polish deli I sometimes go to on Thursday evenings if I can time my trains right - we have rye bread and butter with some cheese, hams, sausages, cucumber and tomato, all washed down with tea. Lecker! Plus then I get to have polish ham on bread for my breakfast all weekend...

And on really desperate nights (when there's not even bread in the house to make a toastie) we've been known to have a big bowl of oatmeal with sultanas in it.

[KarenDW]

I grew up eating chow mein, or rice and veggies, for breakfast

At least 4 or 5 times a year, I serve French Toast Casserole as the entree at the community meal where I work. We add a side of sausage, and fruit salad, to round out the menu. This is usually precipitated by a donation of fruity breads from the neighborhood bakery. Eggs can be inexpensive for feeding 100+ people...

At home, I like a fritatta, as often as I can make one, and not annoy the husband too much. Although, I've heard that he often eats eggs and bacon for supper on the nights I work.

[suzilightning]

i tend to flip breakfast and dinner - something that with a lot of hard work and small meals has helped this almost 60 year old broad lose and keep off 65 lbs to date.

i would rather have more of the complex carbs with protein earlier in the day - leftover stir fried rice or pasta with some chicken for breakfast then dinner that night, usually before 6 whether i am at work or a day off, maybe some crepes with applesauce and fruit or a frittata with vegetables. during the rest of the day every 2-3 hours some yoghurt with fruit and some clear broths with some herbs and i am a happy camper.

when it is really hot and sticky i like the idea of cereal with cold, cold milk or a smoothy.

Edited July 9, 2010 by suzilightning (log)

[CKatCook]

Omelette for me is a favorite dinner when I don't feel like cooking a whole lot. My DH does not like pancakes too much, so that does not frequent our table much at breakfast, let alone at dinner. But growing up my mom would make pancakes and sausage for dinner. I do loves me some breakfast foods. Cold cereal makes a great dinner on hot nights in the summer.

[emilyr]

We just had BFD on Thursday. Biscuits and gravy, hash browns ad sausage. I didn't feel like scrambling a bunch of eggs, so I told everybody they had to make their own. I did over easy. Mom and dad scrambled. Little Sis decided to opt out. We also had tomatoes from the garden and plums.

We tend to do it when we get in the mood. Once every other month or so. Some times it's quiche or a big omelet when we have a lot of little leftovers to get rid of. A lot of times it's french toast and eggs. I like them without syrup, a little bit of powdered sugar and dipped into the centers of OE eggs.

[kayb]

I do it when I want something different, when "nothing sounds good," or when I don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It's often a frittata, an omelet, or a quiche. Occasionally pancakes.

When I was a kid, pancakes for dinner had cherry sauce, as opposed to pancakes for dinner that had syrup.

Oh, and bacon was always a breakfast (or bfd) meat, with two exceptions: the ubiquitous BLT, which I still adore, and bacon, canned tomatos, cracklin' cornbread and "new sorghum," when the first sorghum molasses of the season was available in the fall. I can taste it now....

[SobaAddict70]

Aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower curry) could go well with scrambled eggs, come to think of it.