Breakfast! The most important meal of the day (2004-2011)

[emmalish]

Buttermilk waffles with maple syrup...

[Kim Shook]

emmalish – what gorgeous, crisp, brown waffles! I am just loving all your stuff lately (see my response to your cookies on the dessert thread!)

Easter breakfast:

Baked eggs w/ cream and Cheddar, Neuske’s pepper bacon and my MIL’s hot cross buns.

[emmalish]

Kim, it's mutual (see my posts immediately following yours in the baking and dinner threads).

Your meals are always so much more elaborate with multiple elements – I'm almost ashamed to post mine! My dinners are usually just a bowl of glop on top of some other glop... and breakfast is just pureed glop or an egg on toast. *sigh*

[rarerollingobject]

A mighty tasty Japanese-Korean hybrid breakfast; rice, mackerel marinated in saikyo miso, mirin and sake and then grilled, and parboiled spinach with garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, black pepper and green onion.

[Rico]

Biscuits and gravy today. And fruit because the gf said something about it being good for you. So I loaded it with cream and sugar just because that seemed to make sense.

[Darienne]

Here it is, warts and all. Nuff said.

This is THE most incredible French Toast recipe I have ever tasted. Boozy Baked French Toast from Smitten Kitchen. This is the second time I have made it, this time using a bread machine Challah loaf I made yesterday. The dish is assembled the night before, left covered in the fridge, baked 1/2 hour in the am.

I left out the 'booze', used orange zest and a bit of vanilla, pecans, boozy fruit from the 'not yet made' Black Rum Cake, etc. This is all preparatory to making it for the Annual Dog Weekend humans in August. Two pans. Maybe I won't slightly burn the bottom then...but no one will care.

Question: will this freeze well? I AM intending to try freezing it in portions right now because we are only two and don't really want to eat it for the next four days in a row. Can anyone tell me ahead of time whether it is likely to freeze well or not? It's Challah, milk, eggs, butter plus bits and bobs.

Thanks. (Omigawd, it is delicious)

[Kim Shook]

Here it is, warts and all. Nuff said.

This is THE most incredible French Toast recipe I have ever tasted. Boozy Baked French Toast from Smitten Kitchen. This is the second time I have made it, this time using a bread machine Challah loaf I made yesterday. The dish is assembled the night before, left covered in the fridge, baked 1/2 hour in the am.

I left out the 'booze', used orange zest and a bit of vanilla, pecans, boozy fruit from the 'not yet made' Black Rum Cake, etc. This is all preparatory to making it for the Annual Dog Weekend humans in August. Two pans. Maybe I won't slightly burn the bottom then...but no one will care.

Question: will this freeze well? I AM intending to try freezing it in portions right now because we are only two and don't really want to eat it for the next four days in a row. Can anyone tell me ahead of time whether it is likely to freeze well or not? It's Challah, milk, eggs, butter plus bits and bobs.

Thanks. (Omigawd, it is delicious)

That looks great, Darienne! I think that it should freeze just fine. You're doing a test freeze anyway, right? But, as long as its cooked first, I can't imagine that it would be a problem. The only thing that might happen is some drying out, and I always find oven French toast a little too damp anyway - I prefer it leftover rather than fresh out of the oven.

[Darienne]

That looks great, Darienne! I think that it should freeze just fine. You're doing a test freeze anyway, right? But, as long as its cooked first, I can't imagine that it would be a problem. The only thing that might happen is some drying out, and I always find oven French toast a little too damp anyway - I prefer it leftover rather than fresh out of the oven.

Thanks Kim. I don't have a vacuum sealer but it's on my list.

This toast I did not find too damp. In fact, it called for a 'loaf of Challah' and 3 of eggs, cups of milk, tablespoons of sugar. I looked at it...added a fourth of each. And the top was still too dry after cooking. Turned the top slices over, dumped about a half a cup of milk on them for the last few minutes.

How big is a load of bread anyway?????

[rarerollingobject]

Not the most appetising looking plate, but none of my photos are! Breakfast of champions, aka cheater's congee; oatmeal cooked in chicken stock with white pepper, soy sauce, crispy fried shallots, chopped green onions, a spoonful of leek flower sauce, lao gan ma chilli oil (in this case, the one with peanuts and sichuan peppercorns), and a honking good dollop of goose fat in the centre.

Edited April 18, 2010 by rarerollingobject (log)

[percyn]

Nice looking French Toast (though missing the most important part - booze) and Congee.

Today I wanted Spanish Chorizo with Soft Scrambled Eggs

[kayb]

Challah French toast.

[Darienne]

Looks delicious. The Challah French Toast.

[Darienne]

Nice looking French Toast (though missing the most important part - booze)

We never drink before the yard arm is over the whatever it is supposed to be over. I'll put booze into it for the Dog Weekend. For the humans...not the dogs. What do you suggest? A cream liqueur? Grand Marnier? Chambord? I love Chambord. But then I love almost all liqueurs which aren't mint.

[Kim Shook]

Our breakfast this morning was Mini Ham and Cheese Frittatas – a Taste of Home recipe:

We also had Kerry Cornmeal Griddle Bread from Darina Allen’s Forgotten Skills of Cooking:

The griddle cakes tasted great, but I think that I did something wrong. They were too thick, I think. The recipe was unclear, but indicated that you were to use all of the batter to make one cake and maybe I should have made 2 or more.

[percyn]

Nice looking French Toast (though missing the most important part - booze)

We never drink before the yard arm is over the whatever it is supposed to be over. I'll put booze into it for the Dog Weekend. For the humans...not the dogs. What do you suggest? A cream liqueur? Grand Marnier? Chambord? I love Chambord. But then I love almost all liqueurs which aren't mint.

I am partial to Grand Marnier and Armagnac on french toasts (or bread pudding) but why not put a little bit of each liqueur on different sections and see which you like the best.

[Darienne]

I am partial to Grand Marnier and Armagnac on french toasts (or bread pudding) but why not put a little bit of each liqueur on different sections and see which you like the best.

Sounds good. I have to make quite a lot to feed the entire gang and I could try that. Maybe little flags to designate the particular liqueur used. Thanks.

[Blether]

Great stuff, everyone. Lovely picture of a good-looking breakfast there, Kim, ditto yours, kayb.

I was split between turning left and picking up 2 sausage muffins from McDonald's, or going right and putting in some effort. I put in some effort, picking up another two salted aji and a pack of komatsuna. Komatsuna's somewhat like spinach, and has a nice mustardy flavour, so three heads got spinach-like treatment, as a rustic salad dressed with some heated up bacon fat from the pan sat on the stove for a couple of days, cut with a splash of konbu ponzu and a chopped home-produced chilli from the freezer.

I reckon that's a pretty good bacon surf'n'turf; backstop of coffee and breadmaker 100% wholewheat not pictured.

Delicious ! I spent less at point of purchase than I would have for the single meal from McD, and I've got two of these breakfasts and plenty of leaves left over. Bye, Ronald.

In the fine print, the aji pack says, processed in Numazu (Shizuoka prefecture) using super-duper water from Mt Fuji and specially selected salt; using fish produced in... Holland. Four bucks for two. As a treat, I resisted the clearance stock on the same shelf at half price.

Edited April 30, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Kim Shook]

kayb – your French toast looks so perfect. I’m jealous, mine never gets that evenly toasty!

Blether – your fish looks delicious with those little crispy blisters! And Komatsuna sounds like a green I would like a lot!

Breakfast this morning was very simple:

Scrambled eggs, cantaloupe, sausage and croissant

[Jmahl]

Fresh eggs laid by a friend's chickens gently cooked in butter.

She says that her girls run free without a care in the world. Eggs eaten with fresh baked sesame seed bread and Belgian butter. Don't know if we can ever eat commercial eggs again.

[cathyeats]

It's spring, so I whipped up a frittata with asparagus and leeks. Made with mostly egg whites, since I need to keep things very heart-healthy. And I didn't miss the yolks at all!

[nikkib]

apricots and prunes soaked in earl grey tea, natural yoghurt and shop bought granola

with freshly squeezed orange juice

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Today I got the day off work, so I felt like making porridge (as it's getting cold now in Melbourne, Aus, and it's something I don't usually have time to make if it's a work day).

And I had some leftover salted caramel sauce, which just seemed to call out to me from the fridge

A few toasted almonds, a drizzle of cream... felt a bit indulgent but hit the spot this particular morning. (As did the additional spoonfuls of caramel I ate after!).

[emmalish]

Wow. I'm not a big porridge fan, but that looks like a breakfast I can get behind!

[Blether]

Yes, wow ! Nice one, Stuart.

This is kind of a story of Tuesday's breakfast, and kind of a story of making a breakfast staple, and kind of a story of kitchen improvisation. I really couldn't think where to post it, but finally, breakfast it is.

We had a plan for the Golden Week holiday, leaving early Saturday morning, and I've had this season's natsumikan marmalade on my mind. I got access to a tree with a much later crop than the one I usually use (mid-March harvest) but had missed this year because of the timing. On Friday I was full of beans and resolved to have a go at taking the necessary stuff with me and making the marmalade on the run, despite having to carry all my luggage by train and on foot.

I took this partial photo of marmalade-kit packing after the event: natsumikan, empty jars and single-burner gas stove and canister not shown. I wrapped up my knives in a couple of pieces of leather I've had lying around for years, since the time I was experimenting with leatherworking. I think the old brown shoelaces add a touch of class (short knives shown pulled out for clarity):

We left Tokyo by train to sail my friend's boat from the Pacific coast of Chiba round to the Shonan coast in Sagami Bay. Cruising's fun, of course, but leaves ample opportunity for free time, depending on the weather conditions. With a stock of plastic bags, I was able to break down the fruit into peel, shredded peel & (everything else), little by little as time allowed. My usual approach in the kitchen is to juice the fruit, then separate into peel and (everything else). On the move, it seemed to make sense just to separate the peel, keep segments and pith together and juice by hand later just by squeezing the segments in my fist. In the end you're suspending the pith, seeds & pulp in a net in the (juice and water) in the pot, before finally removing the net and squeezing out the liquid from that - so the juice will work either way.

I started cutting, paring and shredding at our first port of call, near Tateyama:

Made progress on the second day on the water:

... and finished preparing the fruit on deck in the marina at the second port of call. Eyeballing the volume of water, I boiled the peel and bags of fruit discard till the peel was soft (actually I think having kept the peel and shredded peel in plastic bags as I prepped it meant the peel was more easily and more quickly softened, though I think having very ripe fruit helped, too (shook the tree rather than picking individual fruit)).

I'd worked out my sugar proportions on paper and given away enough pieces of natsumikan to bring the total weight to a good match for the 1kg of sugar I picked up before we sailed (no weight or volume measures on board; I weighed the fruit before leaving home). I boiled to 105C and poured straight from the pot into the washed jars, using the funnel I'd brought (in fact bought, a few years back) for the purpose.

Yes, we can:

Finally, breakfast on Tuesday, our third day on board:

The skipper was making an expert job of showing how to cater for four people on a 25' boat, using only a single burner (the ship had its own; I'd brought mine unexpectedly). This breakfast was eggs poached two at a time, free-form, in a square tamagoyaki pan, and served over delicious brown bread (our first day's pilot owns a bakery company !) with processed cheeses slices and Japanese-style pre-cooked bacon; and vegetables steamed in their own juice and mixed with a tin of anchovies. This was also a demonstration of a piece of Le Creuset used in a proper application for its true properties - getting it hot over the gas ring, then leaving the veggies to steam and stay warm while the eggs were cooked. Of course the not-completely full jar of marmalade came out for the remaining bread, and the three full jars made a nice present for each hand.

Edited May 7, 2010 by Blether (log)

[deensiebat]

Blether, I love your on-board marmalade!

A friend of mine owns a pizza cart, and sometimes bakes flatbreads out of leftover dough at the end of the night. I topped one with a mashed-up hard-poached egg, dried mint, smoked paprika, and a sprinkling of salt: