Saturday, February 7, 2015

Breakfast


LUCY BURDETTE: Most days I eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast--the good stuff, Barbara's shredded oats. (Did you try them yet Hallie?)

But on vacation, I cut loose and eat large. And in Australia, that's really large. Here's the plate we were served in one of our B and B's:


Isn't that gorgeous? In case you can't tell, it includes fried tomatoes, English bacon, sauteed mushrooms, and eggs on wilted spinach and toast. This turns out to be the standard "brekkie" combination in Australia, and one of the best I've ever had.

There was a stretch of a few days when we decided we must cut back. We ate corn flakes until we ran out of them, and then bought a box of Australian granola. 

John to me the next morning: "This is the worst cereal I've ever eaten."

I took a mouthful--chewy like a cud, and pasty, too. We ground our way through our bowls, but I had to agree.

Then I thought to read the box: Cook for five minutes in water to cover...imagine eating raw steel cut oatmeal and you'll get the picture. We threw that out and went back to bacon and eggs.

What's for breakfast at your house Reds?

24 comments:

  1. What's for breakfast depends on the day of the week and who is here. If our Colorado daughter is visiting, there will be a breakfast of corned beef hash and one of biscuits and gravy. Both are on her "favorites" list.
    If the Virginia grandchildren are here, it's breakfast pizza because that is their favorite of favorites.
    For ourselves, John likes cereal and often eats a bowl before he heads off to work. Me, I despise the stuff and never touch it.
    If we are both home, breakfast might be eggs and bacon; sometimes I'll make eggs benedict for special days. [They're especially good with capicola.] We try to eat reasonably healthy, but bacon is always a good thing to find on your plate . . . .

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  2. Most days, my breakfast is a banana and frozen fruit in yogurt. On weekends, I usually have frozen waffles until I need to get out to door to somewhere (like a mud run), in which case it's banana and yogurt.

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  3. Okay Joan, we nominate you breakfast cook to JRW! I bet even Mark would eat what you rustle up!

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  4. Best story of the year, Rob! Ha. How you could finish the bowl is beyond me, though. What persistence!

    I'm a sucker for Eggs Benedict. If it's really good, I've ordered another round.

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  5. At home it's always just whole wheat or rye toast and coffee, but if I'm at a hotel with a breakfast buffet I have to confess to loading up on the bacon. Once a month or so, we do a breakfast type meal with French toast or waffles or scrambled eggs with bacon or sausage or ham as supper.

    Kathy/Kaitlyn

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  6. Most days it's Grape Nuts cereal, either with milk or mixed in to coconut Fage Greek yogurt. Weekend in the winter it might be steel cut oats (cooked, thank you very much). On days I want to splurge I'll make omelets with whatever ingredients I can find in the fridge. Usually ham, onions and Cheddar, sometimes sausage, broccoli, tomatoes and mozzarella, once or twice turkey, sweet potatoes, kale and Swiss, or black olives, artichokes, and feta. Special occasions rate a Danish Puff pastry that is my favorite dessert breakfast ever.

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  7. I did try Barbara's... love the ingredients but they left out taste. And texture: meh. I'll stick with your recipe, Lucy, for granola. Yum.

    Lately I've been having a half (of a large) piece of whole grain bread, toasted and slathered with cream cheese and topped with smoked fish. Salmon or trout. Alternately, same bread with pb&j. And strong coffee with lots of milk.

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  8. Joan, do you use canned corned beef hash? Any tips for making it crispy? I LOVE corned beef hash.

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  9. If the boys are home, cheesy scrambled eggs and bacon and toast, or chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. Sometimes if they're in a hurry, they'll ask for just bacon.

    On my own, it depends on my appetite--whole-grain toast with peanutbutter and local honey is a favorite. Yogurt and fruit. Supper leftovers. Just depends.

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  10. Oatmeal with berries (whatever's in season), walnuts, cinnamon and milk. I'm a creature of habit and have that almost every day. Sundays we do a family breakfast and that's when I whip up waffles or French toast, eggs or casseroles.

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  11. oh, that is so funny about your cereal!

    Breakfast similar to this gorgeous picture is my favorite meal, but most days I have cereal with a banana, or yogurt.

    We have for dinner often and then it's usually eggs scrambled with sauteed onions with sharp cheddar cheese stirred in, bacon, a cup of fresh fruit and toast.

    When we go out for breakfast, I eat like a truckdriver.

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  12. Roberta, your Aussie brekkie looks a lot like the one my English friend made for me when I stayed with her. So yummy.

    Mostly, I have coffee and dark chocolate, but am trying to eat a better first meal lately. We both like steel-cut oats, but they take time and care, so I just made a batch of crockpot oatmeal, very easy: One cup of steel-cut oats, three cups of water, added to Crockpot. Turn on low, and cook for eight hours. Turns out perfect, and you can add whatever you like to it: a pinch of salt, cinnamon, honey, nuts, chia seed, almond milk, cream, etc.

    If we go out, I nearly always order Eggs Benedict. Would never bother to make them at home, but they are such a treat, if the hollandaise is good.

    When my grandson visits over a Sunday we have pancakes, because as he says, "Everyone in the world has pancakes for breakfast on Sunday." Love the way he thinks.

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  13. That's not a big brekkie, Lucy! Where are the baked beans? The fried bread? The black pudding?
    At our club in London they have the most amazing breakfast spread. It keeps one going all day (if you can move after it).
    At home it's hot Wheatabix with fruit in winter. Cold cereal with fruit in summer and a full English (or Aussie) breakfast at weekends.

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  14. Depends on the season. In winter, I often bake Hasselbeck potatoes (but only with olive oil and salt) to warm the kitchen, and they become breakfast.

    When my raspberries are coming in, I often have them with puffed kamut and milk. During State Fair, I sometimes make an early morning cream puff run and have a cream puff with raspberries.

    When I studied in Italy (it was over two summers), I got to like starting the day with a caffe latte and a mixed fruit macedonia. But at home, I often eat last night's leftovers-- pizza or stir fry (the breakfast buffets in China often had a stir fry dish available, so if they can, I can).

    What I'd love to have, but it's waaaay too much work, is the "sour cereal" we sometimes had for breakfast at the Syda yoga ashram. Someone captured my feelings about it in this video, even mentioning the brewers' yeast topping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPJTeBWSMyk

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  15. ohhhhh, a cream puff with fresh raspberries--that has to take the prize!

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  16. This morning, my never-fail (unless I use b. soda instead of b. powder)scones with strawberry jam, half grapefriut and coffee. I'm ready for anything.

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  17. Actually your big breakfast is fantastic for you. It's all *real* food without preservatives or other chemicals and your body will pretty much use everything. That breakfast follows paleo guidelines -- no chemicals, no grains, and is made up of healthy carbs, protein, and fat.

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  18. Hallie:
    Yes, I generally use canned corned beef hash. We like it crispy, too, so I always cook it in my trusty, super-heavy [twelve-inch] cast iron frying pan. I give the pan a quick spray with the nonstick stuff, and heat it. Once it's hot, the hash gets dumped in and spread out in the pan in a fairly even layer.
    Just let it cook [over a medium flame] until it crisps up on the bottom, then flip it over and let it finish cooking.
    If I’m feeling really ambitious, I sometimes pile the cooked hash into a Dutch baby puffed pancake and top it with shredded cheese.

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  19. Sounds good PK--except the toast is grain, but whole grain. I'll never give up my carbs...

    Joan, yum!

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  20. I eat breakfast at work during the week, making oatmeal in the microwave. To it, I add about 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed and a handful of chopped walnuts, and blueberries and/or strawberries. On Sundays I go out with friends for breakfast after church. Often I get fried eggs with extra crispy (as in BURNED) bacon, extra crispy (BURNED) hash brown patties and whole wheat toast (BURNED, of course!) Lately, though, my Sunday breakfast has been grits and a muffin. I've temporarily lost interest in the whole bacon and eggs thing but I know I'll go back to it. On Saturdays, what I eat for breakfast depends on my mood and whether or not I'm out running errands. Today I was running around doing errands, so I stopped at a bakery and got a bacon and egg sandwich. At home I'd probably have cereal of some sort.

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  21. I'm a creature of habit with breakfast. I eat either a raisin and cinnamon English muffin or an oatmeal English muffin with butter and coffee to drink. Sometimes I have two, and sometimes I have a banana.

    However, when other people are here, the breakfast menu does change. My husband eats fried eggs every morning, so when he's here he will fry me a couple of eggs and maybe some bacon. I would fry them, but 35 years ago, my husband told me that I didn't know how to fry an egg. Even though I had followed his mother's instructions, I agree with him, and told him that from then on, I would no longer fry eggs. And, I've kept my word. Hahaha!

    The grandgirls like Eggo waffles before anything else. I offer to scramble them eggs, which I can do overy well, or make real pancakes, but they are adamant about wanting the Eggos.

    I don't often fix eggs for breakfast, but instead, I like scramble eggs with chees for supper. Oh, I do like eggs and hash browns and bacon for breakfast when I go out to eat, like I did this morning. Of course, it's usually with my best friend, so the companionship is excellent, too.

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  22. During the week, usually a half cup of granola with plain yogurt, and tea. Sometimes a soft boiled egg with toast if I have good grainy bread.

    Sundays, we splash out. Bacon, or sometimes turkey sausage links. I make fabulous French toast, especially if there is leftover grainy bread. (Should I post the recipe next week???)

    Sometimes we do whole wheat buttermilk pancakes, or waffles, and sometime scrambled eggs with bacon and toast. Yum. Making me hungry!

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  23. Egg whites! I love them.
    Or a galette of egg whites, yogurt and oat bran--its like a pancake. with yogurt and fresh raspberries.

    My treat--is BACON. I will eat it any time it is there!


    Wow, Lucy, that eggs on wilted spinach on toast looks fantastic, I must say.

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  24. I would not have turned down that excellent breakfast, perfect fuel for an active day, just as I always eat eggs Benedict on cruises, a treat!
    Most mornings at home I make oatmeal, old fashioned rolled oats, with cinnamon and possibly candied ginger or raisins, or this morning, strawberries. Once a week or so, I make half a strip of bacon, eggs with vegetables, toast. I have been known to have pumpkin pie for breakfast some fall mornings . . . ;-)

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