Crumpets crisped in curry butter then topped with a poached egg is a winning combination. Adam’s mum made it for Lyra when she stayed a few days with her. After Lyra reported how delicious it was, we started making it as well.
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Shakshouka
10 May
Shakshouka – eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce – is one of our favourite Sunday brunches. It’s a good, quick supper too, and something I’ll think to make when feeding two.
When that’s the case, I preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and make the sauce in my cast iron frying pan. After cracking the eggs over the sauce, I pop the frying pan in the oven (uncovered) for about five minutes until the eggs are cooked through.
Spiced plum muffins
21 Oct
I make bran muffins most weekends, but occasionally I mix things up with lemon poppyseed or spiced plum muffins.
Plum and ginger always work well together. I love the extra hit the preserved ginger brings, but they are also nice without it. Continue reading
Lemon poppy seed muffins
14 Jan
I almost always make muffins for breakfast on Saturday morning.
For years, my go-to recipe has been these blueberry bran muffins, but in last few months lemon poppyseed muffins have been giving them a run for their money. Continue reading
Waffles
5 Sep
This is Ten More Bites first-ever guest post, brought to you by my daughter Lyra:
Hello! This is Lyra, writing this blog post today about how to make waffles.
We love to make waffles for breakfast and so long as you have a waffle iron it takes no more then fifteen minutes.
P.S. this recipe makes six large waffles…
Ful medames
9 Jul
Mashed fava beans for breakfast… and why not?
It’s only a small step from the baked beans slopped onto every full English served in the UK.
And Egypt’s ful medames are all the nicer for not being in a sickly sweet tomato sauce. Continue reading
Churros with chocolate sauce
8 Jul
Churros and chocolate sauce and another day of sun… It’s enough to make you feel like you’re on holiday… Continue reading
Kanelbullar (cinnamon rolls)
7 Jul
Swedish kanelbullar are more wholesome than the Canadian cinnamon buns I grew up with – smaller, more bready, less sticky and sickly-sweet.
I was surprised at how well the citrusy cardamom stood its ground against the cinnamon sugar. All in all, a very satisfying thing to eat.
Icelandic pancakes
22 Jun
Iceland brings these delicious, crepe-style pancakes to our World Cup cook-off table.
They couldn’t contrast more with the Japanese fluffy pancakes, but once again the judges awarded them a perfect score.
Thin, light-yet-crisp, Icelandic pancakes have a welcome lack of sweetness. There is no sugar at all in the batter, just a little sprinkle of caster sugar after they are cooked. Continue reading
Japanese fluffy pancakes
19 Jun
Japan’s inventiveness and attention to detail might take them all the way in this year’s World Cup cook-off.
According to my older daughter, these fluffy Japanese pancakes “are practically perfect in every way”.
They certainly look impressive, and have a lovely, soft (and fluffy) texture. Apparently, the mayonnaise is what makes these pancakes so moist.
I did find them a bit fiddly to flip, but I’m sure it’s a matter of practice. (Which I’m certain to get, as everyone loved them so much.)
Lablabi (Tunisian chickpea soup)
18 Jun
I didn’t want to handicap Tunisia’s chances in our World Cup 2018 cook-off by serving lablabi for breakfast, as is customary (see Oto with boiled eggs, World Cup 2014).
Personally, I quite like the idea of hot, spicy breakfast soups, but the girls would have punished Tunisia severely for the affront.
Instead, we enjoyed it for dinner, where it went down a storm. Continue reading
Breakfast burrito
8 Feb
On Sundays, we generally have a cooked breakfast (though it’s often noon by the time we sit down to eat it).
It’s often a full-on fry-up, heuvos rancheros, eggs benedict, or a homestyle egg McMuffin. But over the last year, these breakfast burritos have shouldered their way into the rotation.
Having experimented with different fillings and methods, I’ve pretty much settled on the version below: spicy hash brown potatoes topped with a fried egg all wrapped snugly in a warmed flour tortilla. Continue reading
Blackberry-apple kuchen
12 Aug
The blackberries are ripening early this year. I gathered two big bowlfuls this morning, plenty for a delicious blackberry-apple kuchen.
Spinach-pear-lime smoothie
16 Jun
We were relatively late to the Nutribullet party. But once I submitted to pester power and bought one, and we made up for lost time.
Nothing was safe from being blitzed into a drinkable state. Fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds, juice, avocados, oatmeal, ginger, yogurt, herbs, cold coffee, chickpeas, rice… they’ve all been taken for a spin.
Some combinations were a success; others left us gasping at their horribleness.
Eventually, I hit on a smoothie combination that works for me – spinach-pear-lime smoothie has become my go-to smoothie. I have it at least twice a week, and I haven’t tired of it yet…
Danish pastries
15 Nov
I was genuinely intimidated by the thought of making Danish pastry from scratch. So much so that it knocked my Great British Bake-off cook-a-long right on the head.
But one of the things children excel at is reminding you of those promises you’d just as soon forget, and there was no way I was getting out of this one.
Cherry bubble cake (třešňová bublanina)
17 Jun
With a daughter called Nova, I would have chosen this dish for its name alone. For a girl whose first word was “cakey”, cherry bubble cake is tres Nova, indeed… 😉 Continue reading
Ulster fry
12 Jun
Along with champ, the Ulster fry is Northern Ireland’s main claim to culinary fame. What sets it apart from the usual British fry-up is the griddle breads – soda bread and potato farl – that are cooked along with everything else in a single pan, absorbing flavour (and fat) from the meat. Continue reading
Granola
9 Jan
Granola is mainstream fare these days, but when mum first made in the early 1970s it was pretty exotic. You certainly couldn’t buy it in the grocery store.
I’m not sure where she came across the recipe – perhaps in an issue of Prevention magazine? – but I’m glad she did.
Mum’s granola was my go-to breakfast throughout my childhood. When I went off to university, Mum would send big jars of her granola in my care packages, and there were plenty of times I’d opt for a bowl over whatever the canteen was serving up.
Date and oatmeal smoothie
28 Feb
This is a very satisfying smoothie, and the addition of oatmeal means you don’t end up wanting a second breakfast half an hour later. Continue reading
Cranberry oatmeal muffins
17 Jan
Since running out of turkey, we’ve been adding a spread of cranberry sauce to our grilled cheese sandwiches. But at the rate it was going, we’d have been eating cranberry sauce in April…
So I decided to knock the rest of it off by making cranberry oat muffins for breakfast this morning. I just substituted a cup of cranberry sauce for the usual mashed banana in my oatmeal muffin recipe.
Savoury porridge
4 Jan
Apparently, savoury porridge is having a moment. I’m hailing myself as a breakfast pioneer for topping my porridge with hot sauce, butter, salt and pepper rather than sugar since childhood.
After twenty-five years of scoffing at me rather than with me, Adam tried his first bowl of savoury porridge a couple of days ago. “This is delicious!” he said. “Where have you been all my life?”
Huevos rancheros
3 Aug
While I’d never let ketchup anywhere near my eggs, I do love the combination of eggs and spicy ranchero sauce. I always poach my eggs in those little poaching pods – my ‘open water’ poaching results are pretty variable – while Adam and the girls prefer their eggs fried. Continue reading
Blueberry bran muffins
27 Jul
We’ve been making these muffins pretty much every weekend since I included them in Fern’s Food more than ten years ago.These are known as Margo muffins around here – after the family friend who provided the original recipe.
The fruit varies with what’s in the house. Banana walnut with a slug of maple syrup is good, as is grated apple and cinnamon, chopped pear and ground ginger, or even a couple of handfuls of raisins.
We make a serious dent in them the morning they’re baked, then add any that are left over to packed lunches over the week. Continue reading
Homestyle egg McMuffin
22 Jul
To my mind, the egg McMuffin is the best thing McDonalds has to offer. Even so, I’d far rather make one at home with a crispy fried egg, vintage cheddar, good quality ham and some chopped green onion. Now that I think of it, I’m not even sure that the girls have ever eaten a “real” one… Continue reading
Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup
22 Jun
These are the pancakes my mum used to make, which I included in Fern’s Food. We’ve played around with different recipes over the years, but have pretty much settled on this one now. Continue reading
Oto with boiled eggs
21 Jun
We ticked Ghana off our World Cup list with this dish of oto and hardboiled eggs. Traditionally eaten for breakfast, I opted to serve it for lunch, when I thought it might get a better reception. We ate with our hands, scooping up little clumps of oto and squashing them together, and added to the overall experience. I definitely liked it more than the rest of the family, none of whom scored it more than five. For the recipe, I looked at a few versions and came up with my own version. The Skinny Gourmet website goes into a lot of detail about how oto is often served for birthday or wedding breakfasts, and includes pictures of it being prepared. Continue reading
Bircher meusli
15 Jun
Easier to eat than regular meusli, and a cold alternative to porridge in the summer months.
Apparently it was “invented” by the Swiss doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner, a pioneer of holistic health, who served it to patients in his sanitorium. Continue reading
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