I love this picture. I love how the leaves on the toast mimic the pattern on the tablecloth. It's breakfast that also happens to be doubling as art. For more pictures of gorgeous, creative breakfasts, make sure to check out Cesca's entire breakfast set.
Over the past few years, fast-food joints like McDonald's and Burger King have cashed in on nutritionists' advice that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. At this point, they all have a breakfast value menu. So, it's no surprise that food service businesses, such as Denny's and IHOP, which built their restaurants on the fact that they provide breakfast, are getting competitive with fast-food alternatives. An article from the Baltimore Sun explains that Denny's is going to offer breakfast skillets for $5.99. IHOP is now selling more to-go breakfast meals.
Restaurant analysts state that Denny's and IHOP will have to compete with the convenience, speed and low prices available from their fast-food competitors. Nevertheless, they should probably also realize that they may be targeting a different demographic alltogether.
Would you sign up for Denny's Real Breakfast Club? Signing up means that they'd send you emails with promotions, news, and offers.
I love oatmeal. I eat it for breakfast nearly every morning. Sometimes I make a big pot of steel cut oats at the beginning of the week and heat up a bit every day. More often, I measure out half a cup of rolled oats into a small pot just before I go to bed and let them soak in a cup of water. When I wake up, I stumble into the kitchen, add a little cinnamon, a pinch of salt and a handful of raisins and bring the whole mess to a boil. After a few minutes of energetic boiling, I put the lid on and turn off the heat. When I come back from taking a shower and getting dressed, I top it with a few walnuts and a splash of whole milk. It keeps me full until lunch time and is so satisfying/soothing/delicious.
Being a foodie with a degree in English, not much is better than the mixture of food and words. Usually, that manifests in a wonderfully written essay or book, but sometimes it comes out in the actual making of food.
BoingBoing has posted about a designer named Chris Dimino who took an old Corona typewriter and made it into a waffle maker called the Corona-Matic. How cool is that? Boring circular waffles will never seem as good now. Unfortunately, there's no DIY instructions yet (not that I have the prowess to pull them off), but here's to hoping this could become a little business -- I'm not talking about fake keyboards, but those actual typewriters repurposed into wonderful machines of waffle goodness. Who's with me?
This recipe is too great to ignore, and looks like an easy and tasty re-introduction to the world of Pop Tarts. That being said, I'm not talking about your box kind. I'm talking fresh, easy-to-make pastries with jelly inside.
Pim has thrown up a recipe for her style of Pop Tarts. They not only look tasty, but have a ridiculously simple list of steps that I just might have to break out the rolling pin later. Her recipe is just pie crust, jam, and a little bit of finagling. She outlines each step with a picture guide, but really, there's not much to it at all. In a world where food prices keep rising, there's nothing like a quick, cheap, and tasty way to make kid-friendly treats right in your own home.
I'm pretty infamous for my pancakes, or moreover, the look that pops up on my face when friends use Bisquick. It's so easy to make your own, or make your own instant, that buying a box just seems silly. (I'll post my favorite instant recipe this week.) But if you like to spend the time and make your own from scratch, you've got to check out the pancake recipe in the show above. Tomatza starts off with a run-of-the-mill homemade pancake recipes and adds meringue to improve the texture.
Several years ago, I spent some time working at a medical school. It was the kind of job where there were lots of morning meetings and at least once a week I found myself trekking to other schools for some planning powwow. One of the few benefits to these meetings were that the host school often served breakfast-y treats. Most of the time it was just an assortment of dough-y bagels or supermarket donuts, but once, someone was feeling generous and picked up muffins from Metropolitan Bakery. And it was at that meeting that I discovered the millet muffin.
These muffins aren't fancy. They are a basic combination of flour, sugar, butter and eggs, but something happens when you add in that toasted millet that transforms those simple ingredients into something amazing. The resulting muffins are nutty and have wholesome feeling, with a nice yielding crunch. Ever since I acquired a copy of the Metropolitan Bakery Cookbook, I've been meaning to try making a batch in my little kitchen (instead of running down to the bakery to satisfy a craving), but until a couple of nights ago, I just hadn't made the time to do it.
Now, knowing that I can make them on my own, they are the only thing I want to eat. Scott agrees (he also made off with the last one this morning). The recipe, which would make a perfect Saturday morning treat, is after the jump.
These days in the cereal world, it's quite popular to take old favorites and spin them just a little bit, whether that means adding a variety of fruit or some extra flavor combinations. I've tried a number of these new variations, but they always left something to be desired. They were good, but they never reinvigorated my childhood cereal love ... until now.
I must have been living under a rock, because it took me over a year to spot Vanilla Flavour Rice Krispies, which debuted just over a year ago in Canada. They're just like the old classic with an extra hint of vanilla -- familiarity with a slight flair. I can't get enough of these damned things, and have gone through a box in a week. I don't know if they're available in the States yet (all my searches lead back to Canadian sites), but do keep an eye out. If you like the Snap, Crackle, and Pop, you'll probably dig these.
Yesterday morning, I made pancakes even though I really wanted waffles. The idea of digging around the coat closet (my kitchen storage annex) in order to pull out the waffle iron felt like far more effort that I could muster up on a lazy Saturday morning and so I opted for pancakes, made from mix stirred up according to my father's special recipe. They have honey toasted wheat germ, cornmeal and uncooked millet in them and are lightly sweetened with a touch of cane sugar. My pancakes were delicious, but this picture of a batch of cornmeal ricotta waffles, taken last fall by Jeannette of Everybody Likes Sandwiches, makes me think it might just be worth the effort to pull out the waffle maker after all.
I've never been a cake for breakfast person unless you count pancakes as cakes. In a recent post by Cakespy (who I can't help but adore due to my love of cupcakes), she makes a strong case for eating cake in the morning. By writing about this, I am not advocating cake as a daily breakfast treat, but rather as an extra special morning indulgence.
Cakespy gives many slices of information on why cake for breakfast can be good. Here is one of my favorites: "You can't deprive yourself all of the time. If you wake up craving cake and instead eat something virtuous like oatmeal, it's likely that you'll still be craving the cake all day. This will undoubtedly lead to idly munching various non-cake items throughout the day in an effort to fill the void. Really, you should have just had the cake. So have it!"
Wheaties may be the breakfast of Champions, but are you the champion of breakfast cereals? See if you can identify Cocoa Pebbles from Cocoa Krispies and Cap'n Crunch from Kix. Crunch your way through this quiz, and then come back here to share your score and dish on your favorite cereals!
The breakfast cereal giant will be promoting (healthy) "eating and physical fitness for families," as well as putting the MyPyramid icon on cereal boxes. They'll also be launching L.A.U.N.C.H. (learning and understanding nutrition choices & health) next fall in elementary and middle schools.
What all this means is hard to say. I couldn't find out what L.A.U.N.C.H. will actually do, or how Kellogg's will actually encourage healthy eating. But the cereal maker did get its start as a maker of (what it considered) health food, and the company does still claim a strong theme of health and wellness in its products. So what do you think: will Kellogg's really do anything or is this a marketing gimmick?
Bagels are one of my favorite breakfast items. They're so easy and tasty, and they travel well. Usually if I want to make a special weekend breakfast, though, it's not bagels- for all the previously mentioned reasons. But what if I made them from scratch? Well, that'd be a different story.
Joe Pastry, one of my favorite baking blogs, has been talking a lot about bagels this week. Joe talks about everything from high gluten flour to how much sugar and baking soda go into his boiling water. There is a step by step photo guide to making bagels from scratch. The only thing Joe doesn't offer is a recipe for the dough, but you can find some here and here.
Unfortunately, I can't link directly to individual posts on Joe Pastry. All of the above mentioned posts are very recent, though, and you can get to them by scrolling down just a little bit. That is, if you're going to make bagels this weekend!
I love the word flapjack. It's one I often forget about as I grew up knowing griddle-cooked rounds of batter as pancakes, but every time I hear it, my ears perk up. It has an old-fashioned ring that appeals to my inner pioneer girl. I believe that life would be better if there were more flapjacks involved.
I particularly like this picture of Elana's dairy-free flapjacks, as she has captured the batter in action and you can nearly feel the heat of that grill (such a nice, well-seasoned grill!). As luck would have it, the recipe is also available on her blog, so if this picture makes you crave a nice stack of flapjacks, you have immediate recourse.
These days in the cereal world, it's quite popular to take old favorites and spin them just a little bit, whether that means adding a variety of fruit or some extra flavor combinations. I've tried a number of these new variations, but they always left something to be desired. They were good, but they never reinvigorated my childhood cereal love ... until now.
In an effort to help you 
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
