Fancy(ish) Friday Breakfast for One

Okay, i'm in the middle of essay hell - hence the lack of posts. This one was from just before the hell, i actually can barely remembering sitting down to eating a real meal or eating anything that isn't subway or ramen noodles. So here is probably one of my last decent meals. Hopefully i will get through this soon and be back to cooking and blogging!

Looking at this - well this looks like everything in my fridge - i see spinach, rapini... english muffins, red peppers... eggs, and looks like cheese on top.

Sauteeing the rapini and spinach

Right, right now i remember - i made hollandaise!!! Talk about fancy

I also over-poached the egg apparently. (and made home fries)

Veggie Omlette

Due to my new budget there will be a lot of eggs featured in this blog. Eggs are cheap and easy, and you can do a number of things with them. This time i made a yellow pepper omlette.

I also had some tomatoes and mushroom.s

Ready to make the omlette.

Bacon on the Dock

My parents always say we are lucky ducks when we're toasting at the cottage, and sitting on the dock eating breakfast (with bacon) makes me realize how true it is. This visit eric and i took turns making our own version of eggs - both were a slow scramble version. I also took my new bacon cooking technique to the test and it did produce some amazing bacon.

Heating the butter for the eggs

Slow and steady for cooking bacon

Waiting for breakfast

Bacon and Eggs

Breakfast 2 - with leftover steak and eggplant

Quick Tex-Mex inspired Breakfast

I'm back from the cottage - and we really did some cheffing it up - but i need to upload all my pics and write the text, plus study for my exam next week, so right now you're going to have to suffer with a quick breakfast i made a week or so ago- which has been sitting waiting for text.

I just wanted a little breakfast, and was in a tex-mex kinda mood - probably from going to La Hacienda. Luckily i had some salsa and a few other ingredients laying about so i was ready to make it a reality.

For the veggies i had mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos and cilantro.

I made a simple scramble topping it with salsa and cheese along with home fries, salad and some toast.

Asparagus Arugula Scramble

This long weekend, due to my need to study stats i did not go away to any cottages. I was a little down about this, but thought i could still make some tasty food while i was in the city. I started with a pretty sweet brunch on saturday morning - i actually didn't have much of a plan, at first i was going to make an omlette, then i thought i'd prefer a fritatta, but i finally settled on a scramble.

As for the ingredients i used green onions, asparagus, arugual/spinach mix and some left-over oka cheese i had around. I served it with some buttered dark rye and an arugua salad.

Maybe staying at home wasn't a bad decision.

Kristen's Pancake Breakfast

My sister whipped up a nice little treat while we were at the cottage - fruit pancakes. I'm not the biggest pancake fan, but i do love maple syrup and there was also bacon so i managed to survive.

Making batter

Batter

Cooking the pancakes and chicken bacon

The spread - with fresh fruit

Mmmmmm..... bacon

Little Fish Inspired Breakfast

There is an amazing little breakfast/lunch/brunch spot in the Junction called Little Fish - and this saturday as i was returning from a run i saw their scramble of the day. I was very tempted to just be lazy and go in there for lunch, but i'm trying to be a little more financially responsible, so i thought instead i would recreate it at home. I had most of the the ingredients, and thought to augment the meal with homefries and an arugula salad.

I had actually never thought of putting scrambled eggs in a sandwich until this place - a wrap yes, but a sandwich sounded messy. When making a breakfast burrito a few months ago i looked up the Martha Stewart Method of making scrambled eggs, and it really does make nice fluffy eggs. Say what you want about Martha Stweart, she does know how to explain the basics.

The ingredients

Eggs and homefries
(i did the home fries on the stove top instead of roasting them
like i usually do)

Breakfast - i added avocado, tomato, mayo and swiss to the sandwich
and served the homefries with some sundried tomoato pesto as
i didn't have ketchup and don't really like it.

Breakfast on the BBQ

A couple of weeks before, Hydro left a message telling the people in Haliburton that there would be a scheduled power-outage on sunday from 6 am until 11 pm. You really don't think about power until you realize it won't be there - dragging buckets up from the lake for the toilet, cooking, and in the morning - the most important question of them all - HOW WILL I MAKE COFFEE??????

I had the genius idea to set the coffee maker to before 6 am so we could just heat it up, the rest was a bit of an experiment. It wasn't as though we could just go out for breakfast, as this was a power-outage for everyone, including restaurants. Of course once i had the coffee issue under control i took the rest as a challenge.

Visiting the grocery store i bought some of those aluminum sheets for the bottom of the oven and thought i would put it onto the bbq to make something of a griddle. Beyond the basic bacon and eggs, i used a bunch of the leftovers from the Hot Water and Steak Dinner to round out the breakfast. I combined the fiddleheads, potatoes and mushrooms to make a hash and fried them with a little bacon juice. I also served some of the remaining steak and a salmon we had poached the night before.

Serving up the breakfast

The set up

The ingredients, new and leftovers

Eggs and toast on my makeshift grill

Maple bacon and coffee

(two of the greatest inventions ever!)

Friday Breakie

Today i had a couple meetings downtown, so i didn't bother heading into the office, which gave me a little extra time to relax, read the paper, check emails and cook breakfast!!! I am heading up to my cottage, so i wanted to use up some of the food i had in the fridge, hence i threw together a quick breakfast with what i had in the fridge.



I roasted some potatoes with olive oil, shallots, salt, pepper and chili flakes. While that was cooking i chopped some tomatoes and avocados and dressed some arugula with olive oil and balsamic. When the potatoes were almost done i put a corn tortilla into the oven and fried an egg. Once the egg was done i assembled the meal: starting with the tortilla i topped it with the egg, some cheese, then the tomatoes, arugula and avocado. On the side i had the potaotes and some fruit from mother's day.


If only every weekday breakfast was this easy/good!

Seafood Poached Eggs with Sweet Potaot Rostis

This was a kinda slapped together meal that turned out quite well. There were a couple of influences behind this meal - one was that i had some left over cooked scallops from the ...... of saturday night and i wanted to use them up. Earlier last week i bought some of that fake crab that is really Pollock - i think its a pretty good snack as its low in cals and has protein, so i often snack on it. I thought i would combine the two for either a seafood salad thing or something else.

When i was preparing the meal i remembered a lobster poached eggs dish i had in New York, and thought maybe i could do something along those lines. I thought instead of an english muffins (and mainly because i didn't have one) I would make the sweet potato rosti that i did for my New Years Day Brunch. Who can deny shredded and pan fried sweet potatoes????

I thought i would keep two elements sort of traditional, and i wilted some spinach, but added shallots and garlic. I also poached the egg - i used the silicone ones, since i was preparing so many elements at the same time and didn't need to be stressing about poaching eggs - but they do give them a very uniformed shape.

When contemplating a sauce i realized that i already had a whole lot going on in the dish as i had mixed the chopped scallops and "crab" with green onions, dijon, lemon juice and a little may to help bind it. This along with the sweet potatoes, spinach and the yolk of the egg would be enough, so i left it plain. I think i made the right choice.

Above:

Sunday Brunch
Shredded Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients

Healthy Country Breakfast

Being out in the country makes me want to be healthy, especially in the mornings. The commute from Mono to my work is considerable - with lots of stop and go traffic (always fun in a standard). I need to eat breakfast or i'd end up killing someone on the road, and i thought that a nice breakfast of yogurt with granola, dried fruit, nuts, honey and fresh fruit would be just the thing.

My parents place has a "snack cupboard" which i guess is pretty healthy when you think about the contents - nuts (cashews, almonds), crackers, dried fruits (apricots, dates) along with some liquorice. The problem lies in the fact that i end up eating this stuff my the handful, and it becomes not so healthy when you realize that you've devoured two cups of cashews!!!! These ingredients mind you , in proportion, are very good and became the basis of my breakfast.

I initially made a pretty intricate and larger on on the weekend. I used pitted chopped dates, chopped apricots, raw pumpkin seeds, raw sunflower seeds and whole almonds. For a little kick i added a bit of the Ace Bakery granola mix and finally topped it off with chopped banana and honey. After a little yoga, a walk with the dog and settling down with the paper and some coffee in the sun, this was an ideal breakfast.

This was so good i made a batch of the toppings (minus the fruit and honey) and kept it in the fridge so i could have a decent breakfast every morning - and something to sustain me on the drive.

Above:

Ingredients

My mom's cute horse napkins

Close up ingredients

Granola, coffee and the paper!

Cottage Breakfast by Jarred and Kristy

Sometime when we were all sleeping off Friday's big dinner, our friend Kristy arrived which is great, because Kristy is another great cook. I woke up on saturday morning, and after much scorn and mocking from my other cottage-mates took off for a quick run. There are some of the most beautiful cottages in Thunder Beach, and its always a real joy to run there. The best part was, when i returned Jarred and Kristy were working on breakfast - and i got to focus on regaining my breath.

Of course i managed to annoy them by taking pictures of everything i could - and they put out a great spread, and i always enjoy seeing other people's ideas. They made Eggs in a Basket - which i had actually never tried, so that was pretty exciting. You cut round holes out of toast and when they ar in the pan you crack and egg into them, flipping them mid way. You only cook them until the yolk is still runny, and you can dip the toasted middle into the yolk.

They also did bacon (705 area code pork) which is always a welcome addition to breakfast.


Above:

Cooking the egg

Finished eggs

Look at all the eggs Jarred used

Mike's plate

Mmmmm.... bacon

Jarred serving it up

Toast with holes!