Category Archives: Breakfast

One Jar of Cherry Jam

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Am I right in suspecting that people who aren’t canners don’t make their own jam?  More’s the pity if that’s true.  Everyone should make jam occasionally, I think.  It’s a grandmother’s trick, preserving fruit with sugar and a few minutes of boiling on the stove, but it’s a trick worth keeping around.

I know canning sounds intimidating, all magic and mumbo jumbo, but that’s only until you see it in action just one time.  And then it’s no big deal.  This week a friend told me that she was inspired to can her first batch of jam after a recent visit where J and I were canning raspberry jam in the background when she arrived.  That was a proud moment for me.  But I’m not really here to talk about canning today.  (If you’re interested, Marisa‘s your girl.)

You can freeze jam too, you know.  Or better yet, mix it with yogurt and freeze it into Frozen Yogurt Jam Pops.

And here’s another thing you can do with jam: make just one jar, and eat it all up.  Or two, and give one away.  It’s an elegant little indulgence, and a smart way to give new life to days-old fruit.

Since you’re not canning this jam, you can take any liberties you like with the recipe.  (Canned foods require a certain minimum level of acidity for safe storage, so always use a modern canning recipe if you’re going that route.)  I started with three kinds of cherries, sugar, and half a lemon, then added a splash of almond extract at the end.  Cinnamon or vanilla would also be excellent additions to this jam. Continue reading One Jar of Cherry Jam (click for recipe)

Migas

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We are fortunate enough to live in a walkable neighborhood of a walkable city, and sometimes days go by between car trips.  I made up for all those blissful carless days in one fell swoop today, though.  President Obama was visiting Seattle and I got stuck in traffic for almost two hours with five little girls in the back of that darn minivan.

Luckily, we were well-stocked with snacks, and the girls were full of songs and laughter.  My four-year-old told a detailed and breathlessly-enunciated story to anyone who would listen featuring characters named Macinnanin, Skingerque, Banana Peel, and Spoon Guy.  (The spellings of those first two names are approximate at best.)  The baby practiced her shrieks of joy at top volume.  Other drivers stared at the ruckus my passengers were making and then laughed.

Did you think this was going to be a post about how I came home hours late and cooked a nice dinner?  Heavens, no.  I collapsed on the couch with a beer and let J hustle the kids off to bed.  (Thanks, honey!)  We ate leftovers: this soup, that salad, those beans.  Leftovers are a cook’s reward, I say.

But if you don’t have a fridge full of good leftovers, make migas at the end of a frazzled day.  There’s a reason I mostly cooked scrambled eggs for all those months when life was so hectic: they’re fast, filling, and delicious.  The kids call these migas “cheesy chippy eggs” and eat their plain version (no salsa, no green flecks) without complaining.

Migas take various forms in various countries, but this surely-Americanized version is basically scrambled eggs with lightly crushed tortilla chips, green onions, tomato, cilantro, cheese, and salsa, maybe with a warm tortilla on the side.  Dinner will be served in ten minutes. Continue reading Migas (click for recipe)

Maple Granola with Almonds and Coconut

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Happy weekend! It’s felt like the weekend here for a few days, honestly, with family in town and a bonus baby in the house (my nephew!) and the kind of lazy schedule that made me feel accomplished the day we all got out on our bikes/scooters/strollers and rode two whole blocks.  (Not impressed?  You try getting out of the house with four kids when the oldest is five.)

And now we get to cap that off with the real weekend.  I, for one, am celebrating with one more foray in my effort to become the web’s preeminent source of granola recipes.  (Ok, not really, but there are a lot of granola recipes on this website: that deliciously sugary olive oil granola, Heidi Swanson’s delicate and buttery granola with orange zest, currants, and walnuts, an oil-free crunchy hippie orange and almond granola, and my old standby with dried cherries).  And now, maybe, my new standby–this weekend, anyway–a nearly equal proportion of oats to seeds and nuts, maple syrup and olive oil for sweet and crunch, and a serious spoonful of salt that makes it all just right.

This recipe roughly follows the Seattle-based Marge Granola formula as it appeared on The Kitchn’s website, so if you lack the time or inclination to make your own granola you can just click that link above to order some seriously tasty granola from Megan (who also, by the way, writes the lovely blog A Sweet Spoonful–see you over there!).  But I imagine that if you are reading this blog you are, or aspire to be, a granola-making type, so let’s do it.  Continue reading Maple Granola with Almonds and Coconut (click for recipe)

Raw Rhubarb Compote

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I don’t think I knew about rhubarb when I was a kid.  But I have read about and romanticized the childhood pleasure of being sent outside with a bowl of sugar to dunk the tart whole stalks as an afternoon treat.  Did you get to do that?

This compote is like a grown-up version of what I imagine that sweet-crunchy experience to be.  I especially like to make it with green rhubarb, which turns a dingy beige color when cooked; leaving it raw instead preserves the gem-green color and lets the occasional pink highlight shine.  The flavor is very bright, tart and sweet at once, and if you are feeling adventurous the recipe (from Rustic Fruit Desserts, again) smartly suggests infusing the compote with fresh rosemary or lavender.  I always mean to try that, but it’s so good as is that I never have.

Likewise, I’m not too creative about serving this dish.  We usually scoop spoonfuls over yogurt, maybe with a little granola (like this one with orange zest and currants) sprinkled on top.  What other ideas do you have?  I have a big bowl in my fridge.

Continue reading Raw Rhubarb Compote (click for recipe)

Whole Wheat Pancakes with Sweet Cherries and Pecans

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We picked up our first box from Tonnemaker’s fruit CSA this week and–I’m almost sorry to say, for those of you where cherries are already over or not happening at all this summer–I have remembered how good a cherry can be.  We got three varieties this week, each better than the last, each cherry firm and impossibly sweet and dripping juice.  The kids’ hands have been purple since Tuesday.

It was J’s stroke of genius to slice some of the cherries into pancakes, which he did with the girls on the 4th of July.  It’s a weekend and holiday tradition of theirs, making pancakes or waffles for breakfast.  J seems to have inherited this sweet habit from his own pancake-making dad, which makes it doubly sweet.  The cherry on top, so to speak, is that I usually wake up just in time for breakfast (or just leftovers, if I’m really lucky). 

This recipe is J’s standard buttermilk pancake recipe (from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone), which he made on this occasion with 2/3 whole wheat flour, those outstanding cherries, and some rosemary candied pecans we had lying around.  The result was so good that we ate them plain; the cherries were like built-in jam.  You could also serve them with butter and maple syrup, of course.  You won’t be sorry either way. Continue reading Whole Wheat Pancakes with Sweet Cherries and Pecans (click for recipe)

Sweet Corn Scramble

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What does the inside of your fridge look like?  If I could peek inside, what would it tell me about you?

My fridge is always packed to the gills. Grains, flours, beer at the back. Root vegetables, sometimes of indeterminate age, in the bottom.  Cheeses in a drawer.  Condiments piled (piled, I say!) into the top shelf and door.  Milk and yogurt up front.  And everywhere else: more vegetables, so many vegetables, and leftovers.

It’s a reflection of who I am in many ways: it says that I like food.  That I’m a packrat, maybe, but also an optimist, thinking I’ll cook dinner six nights a week and always snack on vegetable spears instead of the kids’ cheese and crackers.  It is not the fridge of a meal-planner; instead, our meals are often dictated by what’s in the fridge rather than the other way around.

But this week, after coming home from a trip, there’s not much in the fridge.  It’s rather refreshing.  It’s so easy to see the back wall.  But it won’t last, because both of our CSAs start this week.  (Another personality/fridge correlation: the kind of person likely to sign up for two CSAs is the kind of person likely to have an overflowing fridge.)

In the meanwhile, it’s an opportunity to let a few great ingredients shine.

I usually scramble my eggs by letting the bottom layer set then rumpling it up along the bottom of the pan so the uncooked egg runs off  and also sets, then I turn the eggs over briefly.  How do you do yours?  I never gave any thought to scrambling eggs until I tried this “poached scrambled eggs” method, and then I read Julia Child saying not to touch them for the first three minutes, and now I’m wondering what other techniques are out there that never would have occurred to me.  This is an important question in my life because, as you know, I rely heavily on scrambled eggs. Continue reading Sweet Corn Scramble (click for recipe)

Chocolate Waffles

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Oh, friends.  You rightly clamored for the chocolate pancake recipe to accompany that Summer Berry Sauce, but I have a confession: not only did I not make those pancakes, but I was probably still asleep when my mom made them.  (Thanks, Mom!)

But today was the Real Birthday.  I think was a good day on the four-year-old-birthday scale, as evidenced by the fact that the house is covered in glitter.  And that the day started, as requested, with chocolate waffles (and ended with chocolate cake).

I have had my eye on the “waffle brownies” from Tea and Cookies for a while, but in the end I decided that they seemed too decadent.  For breakfast.  For a four-year-old.  Instead I went with the first recipe that came up in my Google search, an Alton Brown recipe that seemed a little more like your standard buttermilk waffles but with some cocoa powder and chocolate chips mixed in.  Ok, a lot of cocoa powder and chocolate chips, and the chocolate chips melted and the waffle edges were crisp and it was a pretty great combination.  And then we served them with whipped cream and strawberries.

Obviously my healthier-waffles logic was not crystal clear here, but the resulting dessert-for-breakfast was just delicious.  I think you’ll forgive me about the pancakes. Continue reading Chocolate Waffles (click for recipe)

Summer Berry Sauce

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Why yes, those are chocolate pancakes you see pictured below.  A certain three-year-old daughter of mine is about to turn four, and she requested them for the birthday pre-party we had today.  (Last year it was chocolate waffles.)  We like to draw birthdays out as long as possible in our family.

While chocolate pancakes might be unconventional, they were topped with the most natural pancake topping I know for this time of year: a berry sauce.  My parents grow blueberries, raspberries, and multiple varieties of blackberries that bear fruit throughout the summer.  My kids’ hands and shirts have been stained with berry juice since the day we arrived, and every day there are fresh baskets of berries waiting after my dad makes his morning rounds.  This berry sauce, one of my mom’s specialties, was inevitable.

And yes, of course you can also make summer berry sauce all winter using frozen berries.  I usually make it with blackberries, but today’s version was raspberry.  The only real requirement here is that you whisk the cornstarch into cold water until smooth; if you add the cornstarch after the sauce is warm, it will clump.  Weird, huh?  Other than that, feel free to play around, you really can’t go wrong. Continue reading Summer Berry Sauce (click for recipe)

Eggs with Chiles, Chips and Cheese

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This is a five-minute breakfast or dinner that is worth knowing about.  It’s a quickie version of my favorite migas.  (I can’t believe that recipe isn’t on this site yet.  I owe you!)  I like it party because, as you can imagine, scrambled eggs with tortilla chips and cheese is alwlays an easy sell with the kids.  But mostly I like it because the adult version features roasted green chiles, a magical food.

My brother, provider of magical roasted green chiles, passed through town yesterday and brought little container of them.  If there had been more I would have made that queso fundido again, but under the circumstances we just tossed them into our breakfast.  I love how just a little bit of an excellent ingredient can elevate an ordinary dish like scrambled eggs.  I know that the world has accepted scrambled eggs with truffles or caviar as luxury food.  I submit that roasted green chiles belong in the same category. Continue reading Eggs with Chiles, Chips and Cheese (click for recipe)

Homemade Maple-Roasted Almond Butter

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A new cookbook is such a good treat.  Whether it’s on loan from the library or all mine from my great local bookstore, I always love to curl up on the couch or in bed with a new cookbook.  And I just got a good one.

I’m telling you about it because you might think that the Food in Jars cookbook, by Marisa McClellan of the delightful Food in Jars blog, is only for us fringe types who are into canning.  Not so!  First of all, this is truly small-batch stuff, with most of the recipes yielding a manageable 2 or 3 pints of jam or pickles.  No need to can those–give one to the neighbors and put the other(s) in your fridge; they’ll be gone in no time.  Second, there are also plenty of recipes that have nothing to do with canning: think of them instead as recipes for foods that you could put in jars, if the urge struck, but it would be mostly for decorative purposes.  Granolas.  Nut butters.  Pancake mixes.  Infused salts.  This recipe falls into that latter category.

I meant  to put it in a jar, I really did,  but unfortunately I halved the recipe.  Served alongside a plate of apple slices, it was gone before the jar question even came into play.  The full recipe is below, and I don’t recommend halving it. Continue reading Homemade Maple-Roasted Almond Butter (click for recipe)