eggs and bacon with cheese

bacon cradled baked eggs with jarlsberg cheese

looks great on a plate when serving to friends coming over for a sunday morning breakfast. essentially the same as the bacon cradles i made a few weekends ago, except with the addition of a little jarlsberg grated over the eggs for the last few minutes of baking

the soundtrack for this sunday morning breakfast:

puscifer
v is for vagina

down on the ranch

chris' awesome huevos rancheros

two cheddar topped fried eggs on a bed of tomatoey rancheros sauce, served on a crispy tortilla and a diced avo, cherry tomato and sliced spring onion garnish, with refried beans and sour cream on the side

the key is obviously the rancheros sauce, which needs to be thick and packed with flavour. a dash of olive oil, followed by a small onion and equal portions of red and green pepper go into a pan on medium heat with some sliced crimini mushrooms for about 3 or 4 minutes. next up is a teaspoon of cumin, a teaspoon of minced garlic, a pinch of cayenne and salt and pepper to taste, which is cooked for a minute or so before throwing in a big (540ml/19 fl oz) can of whole tomatoes. cook for 5 minutes then add a cup of vegetable stock (or chicken) and simmer on a low heat for as long as possible. our sunday mornings tend to be pretty chilled, so we did a bit of the crossword, called family back home and generally relaxed for about 30-45 minutes as the sauce thickened.

serve up as indicated above with fried egg, cheese etc. and lightly fried tortilla until crispy (only 30 secs a side) with garnish of your choice and as much sour cream and refried beans as your current diet allows.

a friggin' awesome sunday brekkie.

comfort food, the parisian way

croque madame with sauce mornay and spring onion garnish

my first experience of croque madame was as perfect a foodie experience as i can imagine. i was in paris with a miserable ex-girlfriend i was seeing at the time and having a suitably miserable time. not only was the company lousy, the weather was miserable too, drizzling the kind of rain that can't make its mind up what it plans to do with itself when it grows up. in the middle of the occasional cold, pathetic little shower, and with a grump of a person along for the ride, i stumbled upon a little piece of heaven. it was a tiny little bistro on a little side street i'll likely never find again, with a nondescript shop front and a dated and ever so slightly dingy interior. this unlikely setting laid the foundation for one of my favourite breakfast memories of all time - the incredibly warming, comforting, and distinctly french, croque madame.

this morning i made it as accurately as i could to my hazy memory of that breakfast a long time ago. the end result matched my memory almost to the t. except the company was a heck of a lot better.

croque madame is a croque monsieur (essentially a fried ham and cheese sandwich) with an egg on top. simple, but when a few little tweaks are made, such as the mornay sauce instead of slices of cheese and my use of prosciutto instead of black forest ham, the result can be superb.

mornay sauce is just a fancy name for a basic bechamel sauce with cheese added to it. gruyère is best, but having none in the house i settled for jarlsberg instead with great results, and cheddar would even suffice in a pinch (do yourself a favour and try it with gruyère at least once however).

the soundtrack for this sunday morning breakfast:

the national
boxer

eggs and bacon

baked egg in a cradle of crispy bacon, with red pepper julienne, and a little freshly ground black pepper

to make, simply fry bacon just short of crispy, then place bacon in a lightly greased ramekin or small bowl, wrapping the rashers around the sides and covering the base (i use 2 and a half rashers per ramekin) and crack egg into centre. bake in oven at 350°F/180°C until yolk is just set, about 7-12 minutes depending on your oven. thinly slice some red pepper and sauté. gently remove egg parcels from ramekin and serve with red pepper slices as a tasty garnish.

serving suggestion: serve with roasted cherry tomatoes (cherry tomatoes tossed in a little olive oil and a dash of lemon juice and roasted in the oven at 400°F/205°C for 20 minutes until just bursting. sprinkle with fresh basil leaves and a few drops of balsamic vinegar for a great looking side). it occurred to me when i began throwing this breakfast together that roasted cherry tomatoes would be perfect on the side, but i couldn't be bothered to go down to the store to get some

the soundtrack for this sunday morning breakfast:

radiohead
in rainbows



man it's great to have a functioning kitchen again

the timmy's brekkie

hey, i'm not proud of it, but at least we're honest

what do you do when your kitchen is in a shambles because you're in the middle of renovating it, and you have a day of sanding floors ahead of you? if you live in canada, you get a timmy's breakfast. namely a breakfast biscuit with either sausage or bacon (or no meat if you're mandy) on some kind of reconstituted egg patty with processed cheese.

it ain't pretty, but boy is it delicious in a disgusting, i'm-not-certain-this-counts-as-food kind of way.

on the side? what else but a double-double (a 2 milk, 2 sugar tim horton's coffee), and extra-large thank you very much, because we have a day of action ahead of us.

just a little continental

latte, delicate slices of brie, a big honking splooge of strawberry jam, artichoke and sundried tomato cream cheese and sliced fresh organic strawberries, all served with oven warmed croissants

simple, yet very tactile and involving, taking away the distance a knife and fork creates and gets the hands busy in the food

a great start to canadian thanksgiving

feeling greek

warm and toasty herb pitas with a thick layer of greek cream cheese (think olives and chives)
and smoked salmon scrambled eggs

yum.

i threw some monterey jack in with the eggs, but really should have thought of tossing in some feta instead
otherwise, it gets four out of five stars on the emery breakfast meter