Fancy Breakfast Friday: Not Donuts

Did you know it’s National Donut Day? I don’t see why these things are always announced on the day of. Give me a weeks notice to plan to make donuts, or to plan my day around a trip to a donut shop. Don’t leave me a day late and a donut short. I think I need to make a food of the day calendar that also has a weekly plan ahead section. Never get caught by surprise on pi day, or donut day, or National Rotisserie Chicken Day (tomorrow). Don’t steal this idea, I got laid off yesterday, and I might turn this idea into some sort of money making scheme. The good news is, I have plenty of time for baking now.

Just like last year, I donated a coffee cake to the school fundraiser. I gave these two options: Blueberry Coffee Cake and Aunt Patty’s Coffee Cake. The bad news is that the winner said they wanted Aunt Patty’s Coffee cake, and as you know the last time I made it… Oh wait, you don’t know because it turned out so badly I decided not to photograph it or blog about it. Long story short, I did a practice run today, and it turned out beautifully. I took it out of the oven at 10:30 and 2 hours later I was able to photograph all that remains. I’m not sure it’s worth $1000 or whatever the bidding got up to. (More like $25 I am sure.) But everyone in my house said it’s worth at least $50 so I think I am all set to bake the winners a coffee cake.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Huevos

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This recipe from Smitten Kitchen is the last Fancy thing I cooked before I had a pinched nerve and lost the ability to walk far or stand for long. As far as last meals go, it was pretty good. I made it for FBF on Friday (a couple weeks ago.) Then I made it again on Saturday, this time with sliced avocado instead of guac:

And then one more time on Sunday as the weird pain got worse and worse. I’m glad I had such a hearty breakfast because shortly afterwards I was confined to the couch for 2 weeks. I used up all the salsa on Sunday, and it was pretty, but something was missing. I blame grocery store tomatoes.

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This recipe is very versatile and it’s obviously a keeper. It turns out, I am a much happier person in the kitchen than on the couch, so I brought a chair into the kitchen so I can start cooking again as I heal. I’ll have one more week of less than fancy breakfast posts, and then fingers crossed that I can start to be fancy again!

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Pity Breakfast

It’s great that I have been slacking here on MetaMegan, and that I have a backlog of stuff to write about because I haven’t been cooking at all. It takes forever to get an appointment at CU Center for Sports Medicine, so I don’t really have a diagnosis, but let’s just say I can’t really walk or stand. That cuts into my cooking, and pretty much everything else in life. I am powering through some books and TV though.

Sweet Baby Jack offered to make me breakfast in bed last Friday. On Thursday night he promised me an omelette, which I found interesting and worrisome as he has never cooked an omelette, but he assured me he could find out how to do it by watching YouTube. Fast forward to 10:30 on Friday morning when I texted Dave from my bed to say, “Please tell Jack I usually would have eaten two breakfasts by now.”

Jack ran in to ask if I wanted toast and I said yes. Then he said, “Remind me how long to microwave an egg?” And I said, “I thought you were making an omelette?” And he said, “That’s too hard.” And I said, “I thought you were going to watch a video on youtube?” and he said, “Nope.” Then he ran out and came back a couple minutes later with a delightful silver tray, cloth napkin, salt and pepper shakers and a microwaved egg on dry toast. It was delicious, obviously.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Cake

Dave and Jack and I went to Santa Fe over spring break. On our last morning there, we went to the French Pastry Shop for a breakfast. It went like this:

Me: I’d like the bacon, egg, and cheese crepe, please.
Dave: I’ll have the croque madame.
Jack: I’ll have a slice of black forest cake.
Dave: ?!?!
Me: (to the waitress) He did not clear that with me ahead of time.
Jack: It’s Fancy Breakfast Friday.
Me: Touché. Enjoy your cake!

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Easter Leftover Frittata

True confessions: This was supposed to be dinner last night, but when I started to make it, I realized we were out of eggs. So I stopped for eggs on my way home from baseball at 8:00 PM and at least breakfast was solved! This is my standard frittata. I use 6-8 eggs, some sort of veggie and some sort of meat. I had a ton of asparagus, and ham leftover from Easter, and so this was the perfect way to use everything up. The way to get the cool layering with the ham on the bottom and the asparagus on the top is to forget to add the asparagus when you are whisking the eggs, ham and cheese. I realized that I had forgotten to add the asparagus as I was pouring everything into my skillet, and it is truly an Easter miracle that I kept pouring everything into the skillet instead of all over the stove because I was staring at the asparagus and not paying attention to what I was doing. I just plopped all the asparagus on top, added a layer of cheese and voila! Pretty healthy and filling breakfast for a Friday!

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Soda Bread

Usually I blog about my FBF a week later, but this recipe comes to you fresh from this morning. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, I made Soda Bread. I have made soda bread before, but never a recipe I thought I might make a second time. I picked this one thinking that the sugar might just do the trick. However, I didn’t read that the cooking time was 40 minutes, which meant for a slightly rushed morning. I’m glad I didn’t read the whole recipe ahead of time because this was really good.

My original plan was to make hot cross buns for breakfast today, but my interest in started a yeasted dough after book club waned dramatically after my second glass of wine. (We read Exit West which I recommend.)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit

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The truth is, I didn’t make any fancy breakfasts last Friday. But Fancy Breakfast Wednesday just sounds weird. Luke’s birthday was Wednesday and he requested an omelette for breakfast. I decided to go big, and do bacon and biscuits to go with the omelette. I used this biscuit recipe and it was pretty good. Luke’s omelette was an absolute disaster because I messed up the fold. He said it was good though, because he is a polite gentleman. Jack’s was perfect because between making Luke’s and Jack’s I remembered how to make an omelette. Dave requested a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit so that’s what he got.

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I don’t know if this recipe makes taller biscuits or if I am just making them taller. I suppose I will continue on the quest to perfect the biscuit.

I also made this cake, but I used clementines and chocolate chips instead of lemon and blueberries because the clementines were languishing in the fruit bowl. It was kind of amazing. I cut the sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 a cup. Dave was surprised that I was able to make this cake when we were out of milk… but it called for yogurt. (Dave hates yogurt, but you can’t tell when it’s in a cake.) What no one in my family knows is that I was a little short on yogurt. And out of milk… so what did I do? I used a little mayonnaise. Everyone hates mayonnaise so it’s amazing that everyone loved this cake, right?

Lastly, it was Luke’s birthday and he requested the peanut butter ice box cake from the New Smitten Kitchen cookbook. I bought the cookies, pre-made and then I rallied and made the cookies from scratch. It was actually pretty easy.

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So anyway, after a fancy Wednesday and two cakes, I took Friday morning off.

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Fancy Breakfast Friday: Waffles

We’ve been snowboarding a bunch, and it seems that every base area has some belgian waffle smell wafting everywhere and it smells so good. We had to give in and get one at Winter Park. Every time I smell waffles I promise to make these. But so far, I haven’t had any follow through on that particular promise. But I did make a kinda healthy waffle last week – I followed a regular waffle recipe but I used white whole wheat flour and added some cinnamon. Delicious.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Biscuits Again

A couple weeks ago, I made biscuits, and although they were delicious, I did feel like something (salt) was missing. I decided to remake them, this time using salt FOR SURE, and wow. They were a lot better. Not just more flavorful, but twice as tall. It’s possible that practice does make perfect? Maybe the second time around, I had a lighter touch with the dough? Who knows. They were good. And as I sit here trying to reconstruct the memory of these biscuits from last week, I remember that Luke didn’t get any because he wasn’t home. That means I made these on Monday, not Friday. It was a four day weekend and, things happened. This has all been a lie. The biscuits are true though!

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Granola Biscotti

Well, I made granola biscotti last Friday for breakfast from the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook and it was delicious. I served it with some yogurt and an egg, and maybe some bacon, who can remember at this point? The point is, I didn’t take any pictures. I went to Loveland last Friday, to snowboard with some friends so I couldn’t wait around for the perfect light to photograph some biscotti that was delicious but not particularly photogenic.

When I got home I was tired, and because of my never-ending cold, I couldn’t hear out of either ear. But the hard part about working part time is that when you do fun stuff during the week when your family is at work or school, you can’t say, “OH, I’m too tired” on the weekend when your family wants to do fun stuff. I mean, you can say it, but the guilt will make you say it really quietly to yourself.

Long story short, I found the strength to go with Dave and Jack to a Led Zeppelin cover band on Friday night and I took this cute pic of Jack and his friend showing that they were under age. It was fun!