Yummy breakfast idea - Baked tomatoes, egg & cheese

I don't have a million words to say about this one - well, it's breakfast so that means it needs to be a) quick and easy to put together and/or b) easy to cook - and it's both.

I wouldn't recommend trying to make this for the family on a weekday before school - but when you've got half a tin of plum tomatoes without a job to do, it's a definite.

For those of you who aren't following my Facebook page, you might not realise that I'm having a serious crack at whittling the waistline.  As such, I'm trying to keep my calories for the day to 2,100 - and it can be a challenge.  This breakfast rocked up at under 200 calories, so it's a goodie!

You need (for one person) :

half a tin of plum tomatoes, each tomato roughly chopped into three;
a dessertspoonful of tomato ketchup;
a whisker of tabasco;
a pinch of sea salt;
a good pinch or more of ground black pepper;
one fresh egg, and
a very small piece of mature cheddar cheese (just enough to grate over).

You can, if you have them, add anything you like to the tomatoes - such as chives, basil, parsley, chargrilled peppers - anything you like.

Hungry people can add another egg - but that will increase the calorie total by 80 or so.

What you need to do, is :

1.  Get yourself an ovenproof individual dish about twice the size of a ramekin.

2.  Mix the tomatoes with the ketchup and whatever other flavourings you are using, including the salt and pepper.  I mixed them directly in the dish.

3.  Crack the egg onto the top of the tomatoes.

4.  Grate the cheese - sparingly - over the top.

5.  Place into a pre-heated oven for 30 minutes or so until the top is lightly browned and the egg is firm.  I cooked mine in my combi oven (the Beastie) on the oven/grill/microwave setting which sped things up even more - but I appreciate that not everybody has a Beastie in which to do that.  You could always pop it under the grill if the cheese isn't golden enough for you by the end of the 30 mins.

Mmmmn.  The slightly spicy tomato mixed with egg and cheese is a time honoured match made in heaven that didn't need anything more.  What a great way to start the weekend.  Gets a great big thumbs up from me!



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Another quick Soda Bread post for Farmhouse Breakfast Week : with Mackerel & Horseradish

Now, I know I've already blogged about having Mackerel & Horseradish on toast for breakfast once.  However, this incarnation of same could definitely bear passing on as it was pretty darned good, plus the fact that it's still Farmhouse Breakfast Week - and it definitely qualifies.

I do agree, that having an oily fish like Mackerel for breakfast isn't everyone's idea of worth getting out of bed for.  For those of you who enjoy a good Kipper - or are buckling down to getting some more Omega 3 into your system - why not give it a go.

Mind you - it just occurs to me - that this could be used as a light lunch or a light supper!  Although I wouldn't be eating Mackerel just before bed, not if I was expecting company therein.  If you know what I mean.  ~taps side of nose, knowingly~  Say no more.


So, getting back to business (phnarrr! .. oh, stop it!), having made that lovely loaf of soda bread, needless to say, it was being used for every occasion that toast would have been.  Hence, when I was contemplating breakfast and pondered on the fact that I was a bit behind in my quota of Mackerel, the idea of putting some on gorgeous soda bread was too good an opportunity to miss.

So, here's what you do.  It's not difficult and anyone should be able to achieve the same results, given the same ingredients :


1.  Take a slice of soda bread.  Try not to slather it with butter and strawberry jam and then eat it.  If you've managed to avoid that pitfall (or if you're still hungry), place your slice in a toaster until toasted to how you like it, or toast it under the grill.


2.  Once toasted, butter lightly.  No, LIGHTLY, I said!  *sigh*


3.  Quickly grab a jar of Creamed Horseradish Sauce, and smooth on a layer.  How much you use, is up to how much you like the stuff.


4.  Next, take a tin of Mackerel fillets in tomato sauce (or plain ones, if you don't like the tomato sauce version).  Open it carefully - you don't want to lose a fingertip, not right at the moment.  Using a fork, break up the fillets gently whilst in the tin and fork out on top of the horseradish layer, until you've covered the slice evenly.


5.  If you've any tomato sauce left in the can, you can feed that to the dog.  They'll thank you for it.


6.  Take some freshly ground black pepper and sprinkle over.


7.  If you want to impress your friends, add a couple of Basil leaves.


8.  Sit somewhere comfy and eat.  It's yours. All yours.  Yum.


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Breakfasts - what do you have?

Classic : Shreddies with Greek Yoghurt & semi-skimmed milk

Having now accumulated a few photographs of various breakfasts, I thought it'd make an interesting blog posting.  After all, breakfast can be the best meal of the day - depending on what you have!

I suspect that, nine times out of ten, breakfast is a hurried affair where you grab a bit of toast whilst heading out the door to work - or even doesn't appear on the meal calendar for the day.  I know I spent many years not having enough time to have breakfast, when I had to walk the dogs and see to the horses before work.  In those days, "breakfast" was a cup of tea that I drank whilst getting dressed, then I was off and doing.

Fried egg on toast with loads of black pepper - mmmnn!

These days, I look forward to breakfast almost as much - if not more, some days - than dinner in the evening.


Breakfast on a work day, always involves an egg in some way.  Scrambled egg on a muffin, or an egg lightly fried in olive oil on toast, or the rather better for you poached egg on dry toast followed by an orange and a kiwi fruit.  

Every so often, I'll have a break from eggs for breakfast and have some tinned oily fish instead.  Usually mackerel in brine, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and doused with black pepper, spread across toast with horseradish cream.  It's a bit of a challenge for the tastebuds, first thing in the morning - so you've got to be feeling like it!  

Mackerel on horseradish, on toast (which Jonty in attendance)

Both the eggs and the fish follows the theory that eating something involving protein will leave you feeling fuller for longer - which is certainly true, in my experience.

Of course, any mention of egg for breakfast brings about thoughts of all the nice things you can do with eggs if you involve them with something else.  Omelettes feature occasionally, but by far and away our two favourites are :

Scrambled egg with smoked salmon on a bagel

or fry some beautiful BIG bacon (that's a 10in frying pan, there)

... and make a bacon & egg sandwich. The ultimate in yummy breakfasts.

But then, on other days, I might feel like something lighter, which usually means some fruit with yoghurt.

This one involved a nectarine, a Gala apple, a Kiwi fruit and an orange, with a big old blob of lovely Greek Yoghurt with a teensy drizzle of honey.


Gorgeous!


Oh, and speaking of fruit - another good way of utilising fruit that might be a bit past it's best is to cut out the mangy bits and whizz the whole lot up with a banana and some greek yoghurt.


Hey presto!  The smoothie.  It's not so good at filling you up, but if you've got a big lunch ahead, then it'll do you fine.

Thinking back to when I was a child, my breakfasts seemed to take the form of breakfast cereal followed by toast with either marmite or marmalade.  In the winter, however, we had Ready Brek.  I bought some for Son & heir recently and had a trip back in time, making some for my breakfast (just to prove to him that it was edible, after all).  Having eaten it, I'm really not so sure that it is, in fact, edible.  Even with the help from a large dollop of jam, I wasn't convinced.  Son & heir wasn't convinced either and, some months later, it went down the dog (who thought it was very edible).  I think we'd better not think too hard about that one.  *chuckle*


The winter months, for us, are always interspersed with sausage sandwiches.  For breakfast or lunch (or, very often, brunch) a sausage sandwich is rarely turned down and always hits the spot.

Once again - as with the bacon sandwiches, occasionally guilt gets the better of me and I turn to something lighter and less calorific.

All of which would have been just fine, with this breakfast of Tarantella Organic tinned tomatoes on toast, if the butter hadn't have been as hard as rock when it came to being spread on the toast.  Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.


Just look at those gorgeous tomatoes - all sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt.  Oooh, it makes me hungry.  Now, how many hours until breakfast?


Okay, so what do you people have for breakfast?  C'mon, share - even your dirty little secrets (like chocolate spread on fried bread).  Out with it!



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Everyone loves Kedgeree - don't they?

Aaah, Kedgeree.  If ever there was a recipe that puts a smile on everyone's faces, it's that.  We're all very keen on anything that involves curry - and a Kedgeree that doesn't involve curry just isn't a Kedgeree, in my book.  Of course, there is the added bonus of it also involving smoked fish - and as we all love fish and especially smoked fish, then it is a given that we're going to love Kedgeree.

In fact, it is my ambition to one day have Kedgeree for breakfast.  I can't help but think that we'd have to go out tramping across the moors, wearing tweed and muttering about the damned beaters afterwards in order to justify the investment.

I have a very definite preferred type of Kedgeree, too.  I've been making Kedgeree for what amounts to donkey's years now and have changed the recipe quite considerably from the days when I would poach the fish in milk, add turmeric to the rice cooking water and so on.  These days, my recipe is fine tuned and designed to not lose even the tiniest iota of flavour.  Today's Kedgeree is a fairly dry concoction of delicious flavours that guarantees clear plates at the end of the meal.  In fact, I now know the recipe so well that this is the first time I've written it down! 

29 July 2016

I'm still cooking Kedgeree and it's still one of our family's very favourite meals.  I have taken the opportunity to edit the recipe slightly - for the better, I feel.  I haven't changed an awful lot, just slightly altered the order of cooking and added some garam masala, so don't worry, it's still the same yummy Kedgeree and still easy peasy to cook.

KEDGEREE (feeds 3-4)

Ingredients :

2 eggs
Basmati rice : 1 cupful per person, plus half a cupful
2 tbsp groundnut oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
a pinch of sea salt
a pinch of black pepper
half a tsp ground cinnamon
20-30g salted butter
4-5 mushrooms, sliced
a flat tsp ground coriander
a half a tsp ground turmeric
3 rounded dessertspoons of Korma curry paste
150ml warm water
400g smoked haddock or cod, skinned and cut into sections
half a tsp garam masala
a tablespoonful of fresh coriander, chopped.

Method :

Place a small saucepan of water on to boil.  When boiling, gently add the eggs and boil for some 8-10 minutes, until hard boiled.  Drain and refill the pan with cold water.  Set aside. 

Fill a large saucepan with water, add a little salt and bring to a boil.

Place the rice into a sieve and rinse under hot water until the water runs clear.  Leave in the sieve to drain, in a colander.

In a large frying pan, heat the groundnut oil and add the onion and garlic along with the cinnamon, sea salt and black pepper and fry on a slow heat until the onion is softened and beginning to brown (around 10-15 minutes).  Make sure to not let the garlic burn.

Add the butter and mushrooms and continue to cook until the butter has melted and the mushrooms have softened slightly.

The water for the rice should be boiling by now, so add the drained rice and cook until the rice is cooked through, but don't let it become too soft.  It needs to retain some "bite".  Once cooked, drain and replace into the hot saucepan until required.

To the vegetables, add the curry paste, ground coriander and ground turmeric and cook for some 5 minutes or so, stirring so as not to let it burn.  Add the water and stir through to create a thick sauce.

Reduce the heat under the pan and add the fish and cover while it gently cooks.  If the curry mixture has become a little dry, add a little more water.

Meanwhile, shell the boiled eggs and separate the yolks from the white.  Chop the white finely - I usually mash it with a fork.

Slightly before the fish is entirely cooked through, roughly flake into large pieces.  Add the garam masala, egg white, chopped coriander and drained, hot rice.  Stir everything through with a fork, using as few mixing strokes as possible in order to avoid breaking up the rice.

Serve onto hot plates and sprinkle each serving with the crushed egg yolk.

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