Sweet Cinnamon Morning

How awesome is this to have for breakfast? Soft and fluffy cinnamon buns made by my sister with vanilla cream cheese frosting. mmmmMMMM.

Odds and Ends

The last eggs in the carton, the ends of the loaf of rye, and lox trimmings = eggs en cocotte.

Frenched, Toasted

This is the kind of French toast I grew up with. Quartered slices dipped in a mix of beaten eggs and sugar. No syrup. I love how vividly yellow these are from the orange yolks of free range eggs.

Breakfast of Champions

Awwwwwwww yeaaaah. Two perfectly soft-boiled eggs. Toasted multigrain bread slices rubbed with raw garlic and spread with anchovy butter. Baby, let's round this off with some fruit and a big cup of tea, shall we? And of course there's cream.

Sunday morning after

Check out the crema on this muthafuckin' brew!!!1!11!!!

Quiet post-Christmas morning with homemade speculaas cookies (a present) and a big bowl of frozen black grapes.

Because it is cold out

Eggs florentine with dill
Black kale, potato and onion soup
Thyme, ricotta and tomato tart with walnut and spinach salad

BLAT

Starting the day off with a B-L-A-T, juice and coffee because I am awesome.

Salmon Eggs Benedict

Ahhh, weekends. I made salmon eggs benedict, a popular spin on the classic eggs benny here in the Pacific Northwest. First off, I've never liked the overly spongy texture of English muffins, so I decided to use a potato base. I finely shredded a small Yukon gold with with my Benriner (a gift from my sister when she went to New York). After squeezing out the excess moisture from the potatoes, I lightly salted it and fried small cakes of in a shallow pan with grapeseed oil, a little like making potato latkes.

I alternated two potato cakes with slices of smoked salmon in between. Top with a perfectly poached egg, dill, and Hollandaise sauce. I tested out two different Hollandaise recipes (one with cream, the other without) over the weekend, and I'm still not completely satisfied. I think next weekend's project will be finding the perfect one!

Breakfast

Stuff on toast is the best. Fried some sausage, and with the bit of grease left in the pan, I threw in a handful of baby spinach (just the amount I needed to get rid of in my fridge), and a loosely beaten egg with some salt and pepper. Top the mix onto some pieces of toasted garlic-buttered rosemary & garlic bread.

Eggs, again

Hooray for these extra long weekends, because I can't stop. Especially when it comes to making full use of the ingredients I have on hand. Today, I layered asparagus stems along the bottom with proscuitto and parmesan, saving the spears to partially fence the outer rim. More parmesan on top. The possibilities are endless--I'm already looking forward to next weekend, when I can throw in some mushrooms and cream, or salami and basil!

Ramekin Eggs

Hooray for long weekends! Breakfast today consisted of eggs, tomato, spinach and proscuitto baked in ramekins. You can get the recipe here. I also had my usual big cup of coffee (with lots of cream), toast, and a sliced anjou pear.

Eggs on Toast

Lazy rainy day morning breakfast...scrambled eggs on buttered toast. Cup of coffee, bowl of cereal, and my news feeds.

Making it a Habit

A few months ago, I started making a concerted effort to regularly eat breakfast. I often claim I'm not a morning person, but really what I need is to spend a bit of time by myself in the morning. Weekends for me, mean the luxury of a greasy diner breakfast, a newspaper and/or blog feeds and caffeine. Now with discipline and a little effort, eating a real breakfast everyday is more of a habit. It also means I'm less of a crankypants at work.

I try to prep for mornings the night before. Cut up some bowls of fruit to set aside in the fridge, slice up bread, etc.

Now a typical weekday breakfast consists, at a minimum, of a bowl of yogurt (something which I've forced myself to start consuming) with some combination of bran, Weetabix and fruit, and toast. If I really get it together there's an egg over easy somewhere too. I'm also aiming to get up even earlier to make coffee instead of spending a weekly fortune to grab one from the damningly convenient Starbucks (oh why can't you be a JJ Bean?) located right where I transfer buses.

Breakfast

Morning Hash

Weekends are the time when I usually clear out my fridge, and they're also when I have the time to make a decent breakfast. Making a hash kills two birds with one stone, and today I have:

- a single leftover yellow nugget potato
- leftover scraps of BBQ salmon
- the few remaining non-shriveled grape tomatos from a week-old box

To this I add:

- a free range egg
- a tablespoon of pesto

I nuke the small nugget potato until done, then dice it. I heat up a tablespoon of oil in a pan and lightly fry the diced potato, tossing them every so often. I then halve the tomatos, break up the salmon, turn down the heat and throw those in the pan. Whoops, should've turned the heat down sooner—a side of the potatos are a bit burnt this time. I break a free range egg into the hash and gently fold it in. The vivid orange yolk colors the hash a rich yellowy color. As the egg starts go cook, I turn the heat off completely, add pesto and keep gently mixing. Fresh ground pepper and a side of greens dressed with vinaigrette, and it's done.

Saturday morning breakfast

So I said I would make my tomato & brie sandwich, but I decided to put a twist on it. Usually it's a generous slice of brie, a thick slice of tomato, mayo, lettuce and bacon. This morning I remembered I still had a little bit of cooked smoked salmon left over, so I replaced my usual salty bacon with the remainder of the salmon fillet.

1. Toast slices of french bread (I usually use whole wheat or dark rye)

2. Top one slice with brie and broil it until the cheese bubbles

3. Mayo, lettuce (I tore off a piece of Romaine today; ideally it would be butter lettuce), salmon and tomato.

This is my preferred order, as I want the mayo to adhere the lettuce to the sandwich, and the fresh tomato squishing up next to the hot, gooey cheese.

I nearly forgot to take a picture before it was all gone.