I am crabby this morning, but I don’t think I was crabby before Paul asked me five times why I was crabby this morning.
This morning I had one of my favorite breakfasts, but I hesitate to tell you about this breakfast because I think it sounds untrue and also very much like Food Righteousness Humble-Bragging—like, “Oh, for snacking I like nothing better than a giant bowl of raw cauliflower! Yum yum!” / “Oh, I just made SUCH a pig of myself on raw veggies and air-popped/butter-free/salt-free popcorn last night!” Like, OBVIOUSLY anyone’s favorite breakfast would be stuffed french toast with strawberries and whipped cream, sausage AND bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs, and a side of sourdough toast with butter and jam, not this vegetable nonsense I must be pretending to find delicious so that I can brag to you about how many vegetables I just LOVE to eat. (I do also very much like the french toast breakfast and am worried I will never get to have it again.)
Actually I see I have already posted about this breakfast here. The recipe evolved after that post, so that now I make it with one egg and more like 3/4ths Ziploc steamer bag (this thing, if you haven’t used one before) of vegetables. I will try to give approximate measurements because I so resented my mother-in-law’s refusal to give any on the family recipes she wanted to hand down (a cinnamon roll recipe that calls for “a batch of dough” and “some butter and brown sugar” cannot be called “her” recipe), but I am not precise with any of this and you can adjust it for what vegetables YOU like/have. I like some frozen corn (3-4 T.?); a generous all-fingers-pinch of pre-shredded carrots (the ones that are really thick shreds) or else five or so baby carrots cut into thickish coins (I don’t like them to get to the mushy/sweet level of cooked); a few pieces of frozen cauliflower; and the rest of the way filled with frozen broccoli; microwave in the steam bag for 4-5 minutes depending on your microwave and how cooked you like your vegetables (they’ll cook a little more in the pan with the egg). I also cut up some red bell pepper (2-3 T.?) and cook it with the egg before adding the rest of the steamed/drained vegetables and chopping everything up small with the spatula. Then plenty of salt and sriracha and shredded cheese: I zig-zag the sriracha back and forth across the whole pan of egg/vegetables, and I put in about two big pinches of the cheese and stir it all up. I like the pre-shredded kind of cheese because it has a very little tiny bit of starch added to keep the shreds separate, and this makes it melt beautifully; when I tried to shred some cheddar off a block of it, it seemed like it just kind of turned into liquid and mostly disappeared. Plus it was more work.
This also makes a pretty good side dish to divide among multiple people. You might think, “Oh, I will just leave out the scrambled egg because it seems weird to have scrambled egg in a dinnertime vegetable side dish,” but I wouldn’t if I were you. My sister-in-law described the egg as “adding richness” and I’d say that’s just right. I have also tried leaving out the cheese, and that was a mistake. Obviously if you can’t eat cheese or can’t eat egg you’d have to leave them out, but I’d think of it an egg-and-cheese recipe with vegetables, so it would be like the comments on an online recipe: “I can’t eat gluten or dairy, and this mac-and-cheese recipe was TERRIBLE without gluten or dairy.”
I’m sorry I spent three paragraphs talking about my breakfast. Do you want to talk about YOUR breakfast? I will listen attentively.
I eat a Think protein bar and drink a cup of coffee with half and half. I realized I bought fat free half and half, which explained why my coffee enjoyment was so low. That has been corrected with last food shop, but unsure what to do with the container of ff h&h. Maybe I can bake with it.
I will share that I have an egg allergy AND I’m diabetic which makes breakfast type food difficult. My FAVORITE healthy-ish breakfast is cauliflower. I cook two 16 oz bags of cauliflower until they are mushy, and throw them in a food processor with one block of cream cheese and process until pureed. This makes multiple servings. I microwave a bowl daily and throw some shredded cheese on top. Its the best!
Also today I had an ice cream sandwich for breakfast, so. (shrugged shoulder, hands in the air emoji)
O big fan
Every morning I eat some chopped fruit (strawberries or cherries or peaches — whatever is fresh) with a dollop of Greek yogurt (3/4 c is what I say to my fitness pal) and some jam. I probably go heavy on the jam but eh.
Yes, this or eggs is my favorite! (although I need to try the jam part)
I ate a cinnamon roll made from a recipe that specified the ingredients needed, the quantities needed, and the method of turning the ingredients into dough.
So, you know, a recipe.
I have been breakfasting on sweetened cereal made with hot milk. It’s very comforting.
I have a big mug of Earl Grey tea with a worrisome amount of half-and-half (worrisome because it is so hard to get these days). And then I wait anxiously for lunch. Sometimes I have a handful of almonds. This is because a) I feel nauseated and food-averse until about 11:00 and b) I don’t like breakfast foods as a general rule, with a couple of exceptions.
There is almost nothing more cranky-making than someone asking you if/observing that you are cranky.
I usually (by which I mean – days when I have breakfast, which aren’t all that many) have a cup of weak, milky coffee and a couple of slices of wholemeal toast with margarine and marmalade. But today I’m going to eat cake. Because I can, and because it’s almost 3.30 in the afternoon – and yes, it’s still technically breakfast because a) I haven’t been up that long, only since about 11 and b) I totally forgot to eat because so much hassle is going down right now: my boiler has died, meaning no heating (no big deal) and no hot water (huge deal), my oven has also died, my toilet tank is leaking and has left the wooden floor rotting and, on top of all that, it’s total lockdown here in France so I don’t really want to call out a boiler-fixer (but lockdown is till 11 May at least, and I doubt I can stomach freezing cold showers that long) and shops selling things like ovens, toilet tank-mending stuff etc. are all closed to the public.
OH NO. Please accept my sincerest condolences on the death of your appliances.
THat’s horrid. Sending you hugs.
Today I had two tiny croissants spread with Nutella and some water. It wasn’t quite enough and now it is 9:37am and I am eyeing lunch. Or my box of chocolates. I don’t often eat anything until around 10:30am because I’m too busy and not particularly hungry in the morning. So then I have brunch at 10:30am and dunch at 2:30pm and then I’m not hungry for dinner and then starving at bedtime. It’s a good system. Works well.
I really wish you hadn’t just reminded me that Nutella exists. *Adds several jars to grocery order*
Dunch 😂. My friend terms this meal “lun-din” (London)
I typically only have coffee but with the husband working at home, we have been having more breakfast. I make a big batch of scrambled eggs, crumbled sausage, bacon, maybe some sautéed onion and bell pepper for breakfast burritos for dinner (a family favorite). Then the leftovers get used in breakfast quesadillas or breakfast egg rolls, usually dipped in green salsa. Yum!
I had a toasted bagel with butter and I took one bite and decided to add jam, because life is too short to eat a boring bagel. :) Hope you get your French toast soon but I understand the hesitation to use up precious eggs!
I’m so hungry for French toast right now!!!!!!
I have a “recipe” for a traditional holiday cookie that my mom, my grandma, etc made for years. The first ingredient is listed as : butter, the size of a walnut. So is that a walnut with it’s hull or without? Was it a good year for walnuts, or a marginal year? It’s a rather fussy, time consuming recipe that yields a cookie that I never really liked, so it never made it into my marathon cookie baking ordeal. But evidently that first instruction has lodged itself into my brain.
No doubt utilizing brain cells that could be engaged in end of civilization fretting. Not that I have felt like our situation could be accurately described as civilized for some time now.
Anywho . . . I consume 40 ozs of flavored caffeinated tea with honey each morning before switching to water and/or decaf tea. When the weather finally warms up I switch to iced tea with no sweetener. No, I cannot explain it either.
Sweet potato hash and scrambled eggs with Parmesan and smoked paprika!! And soooo much black coffee.
Mine might sound like yours. I used to eat a bowl of frosted, shredded wheat with banana and milk. Then I switched to: one egg, omelet style, with whatever is around (often a green of some kind and mushrooms but if we are swimming in something – my parents grew snacking peppers last year and then proceeded to eat zero of them – I’ll use that.) Whatever savory fruit is going to go bad, needs using. And cheese. On bread, usually pepita bread from the hot bread kitchen cookbook. I do love it. And COFFEE (lattes, vexing for the amount of milk they take with all the other ppl here developing an addiction to cereal all of a sudden, made with a mocha pot and a milk frother.)
I love baked/overnight french toast but it does require a bunch of eggs. Eggs I didn’t buy at the store the other day as an attempt to talk me down from hoarding because I do have 2 dozen – but they go so FAST – make a cake, some cookies, and eat one every day and BAM. You need eggs again.
I always have a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter. Lately the whole wheat bagels have disappeared and I’ve substituted a plain bagel. It’s not the same and I am sad but maybe also it’s time to change up my breakfast.
I have found that I feel so much better all morning and even into the afternoon if I start the day heavy on protein. So most days I eat a turkey burger for breakfast around 9am. I stay full until about 1pm instead of starving by 1030 when I eat carbs.
I had four gingersnaps and a diet Coke.
best reply!
Well, this is very timely/evidence of our psychic connection, because just this morning I was thinking about your previous post about the eggs and veggies breakfast! I have no idea what brought it to mind, but here we are.
Lately (that is, during the pandemic) for breakfast, I have a big iced coffee (I like Grady’s Cold Brew) with almond milk and one Equal packet. With it, I usually have a granola bar of some kind. A little later, I need a second breakfast, which is usually Diet Coke plus a banana and/or a Nutrigrain bar with peanut butter, or sometimes a bag of Skinny Pop if I feel like something savory. Sometimes I also shove down some Girl Scout cookies. This morning I snuck a chocolate chip cookie, which we baked on Easter from premade dough that I had in the freezer and which was “Best By July 2019” — however, since it has been frozen I decided to risk it and in fact the cookies came out delicious and no one has doubled over with spastic intestinal cramping so I am calling that a win.
On the weekends, I vary it a little. This past weekend we had some big, sesame-covered hamburger buns so I toasted one with some Muenster cheese while I scrambled two eggs sprinkled with Everything But the Bagel seasoning and sriracha and thus I had a VERY delicious egg-and-cheese sandwich.
Your breakfast sounds delicious. One of my favorites involves cabbage and/or broccoli cooked in a pan with a little oil of choice until there a some crispy brown bits and serving with over medium eggs. Yum.
Yesterday’s breakfast was a little odd, but I’ve come to appreciate the savory breakfast. I had a small leftover baked sweet potato and smothered it with leftover sausage gravy. It was very good.
Today it was the last 2 king’s hawaiian rolls and a handful of cadbury mini eggs washed down with a can of seltzer in the car on the way to work. It is not a typical breakfast, but not an abnormal one either. We do a variety of eggs, pancakes, or smoothies on the weekend. J usually does cereal during the week, I do a variety of leftovers or handheld items (dry cereal) in the car.
J’s mom typed up her special recipe for traditional christmas quiche. It is 2 pages long and killed me dead. It does not have a crust or even use cream. It uses eggs and is baked in a round quiche dish, but that does NOT make it quiche. It is an overnight egg bake casserole using croutons and cream of mushroom soup. It is tasty but I will utter under my breath “not quiche” forever and ever.
I ordered a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts for delivery this morning because things were getting Grim around here. We had a 1 am cat incident and honestly it’s not worth retelling the whole story. Donuts helped.
Also, you still haven’t told us why you were crabby? Why were you, huh? Are you sure you weren’t crabby? At all?
LOOK WE’RE JUST TRYING TO SHOW AN INTEREST IN YOUR FEELINGS.
LET’S ASK PAUL, HE SEEMS TO KNOW MORE THAN I DO ABOUT IT
I feel so seen.
PAUL SEES YOU
HE SEES INTO YOUR SOUL
MY APPARENTLY VERY CRABBY SOUL
I feel as though German must have a word for this
Krabbenseele
Grumpenprojecten?
Besserwisser. Means know-it-all. And there are many of them over here. Many. (I’ve lived here for 20 years, married to one for nearly 18).
My kids literally only eat three things so we just rotate those – cereal (shreddies, corn flakes or weetabix), oatmeal with raisins and the third day is waffles or pancakes. My husband has recently gone vegan though and I swear all he eats now are peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
We have been having fun doing smoothies for breakfast–typically banana and frozen berries and milk and some protein powder or yogurt. I find it very soothing to do a lot of tossing random things in the blender and then pulverizing them.
I do a similar breakfast to yours, although I have always been a bit suspicious of frozen broccoli. But I do have a bag from one of those meal-prep evenings, so I may try it. I love to add in a dollop of cream cheese instead of shredded. It melts nicely into the egg and gives it a lot of richness.
I had chia seed pudding for breakfast, and it sounds very gross but it’s delicious and healthy. I made it with chocolate almond milk (6 c almond milk to 1.5 cups chia seeds) and I add almonds and crushed pineapple and chocolate chips on top and it’s awesome. Plus it has to sit overnight, so when I get up in the morning it’s ready for me.
I love chia seed pudding and often I eat it for dessert. I usually just use regular almond or soy milk and I add honey and cinnamon. I’m going try your version. Thanks!
First breakfast at 8 AM was raspberry yogurt and two cups of coffee (with a splash of whole milk). For second breakfast (10:15 AM), I had a serving of Bob’s Mill 12 grain hot cereal with walnuts, a bit of brown sugar, and blackberries.
(I am ridiculously excited to read about what everyone eats for breakfast)
My husband (who used to be a chef and now is a paralegal) is channeling his pandemic anxiety into cooking. For breakfast he has been making savory oatmeal with bouillon, leftover veggies, sometimes a soft cooked egg or some vegan sausage crumbles. We heard about this on the news Home Cooking podcast. I also had some matcha tea.
My husband has also been channeling his anxiety in the kitchen, but into baking, so I have either fresh bread/toast or fresh bagels every morning, with cream cheese or jam or both, and two enormous cups of half-caf tea with milk. It’s life-giving and usually better than most of the rest of my day.
I’ve never heard of savory oatmeal! You’re giving me ideas.
I am one of those people who can’t eat much first thing so I usually have a bowl of cereal (something plain like shreddies) with milk, and a cup of tea. Sometimes I sprinkle some granola on top, if I’m feeling decadent.
I made a batch of baked oatmeal this evening so that’s what I’ll have for breakfast tomorrow. It’s very loosely based on a recipe you posted several years ago, so even though I changed many things I still think of it as Swistle’s baked oatmeal recipe.
I love this post and this whole thread. I have a different weekday/ weekend breakfast, because I like being insane and looking forward to things. Weekday: spinach smoothie. Weekend: toast with the thickest peanut butter you can even imagine. Crunchy natural peanut butter as thick as the bread itself, then with jam on top. Also, a pot of black coffee.
My husband and I have eggs and toast for breakfast, either scrambled (in which case I have jam on my toast), or fried with Everything But the Bagel seasoning. Yums. My Pandemic Problem is that I have lost the mental capacity to choose better bread, so I have been getting the store brand whole wheat, which is righteous but boring. I like Ezekial bread but it means going down a different aisle. On Saturdays we have oatmeal, and I should really make that more often for the kids, otherwise its the Breakfast Complaint Smorgasborg every morning . And do you know what’s funny, my neighbors have the same owl plate as you! It’s on the wall though. They have a looottt of owl decor.
I have the same thing every morning- two eggs, scrambled, topped with 1 tbsp shredded cheese and 4 tbsp salsa. It is my one holdover from WW, and I actually crave it when I don’t have it. It’s the perfect way to start the day for me.
My son is allergic to eggs so we don’t cook them in the house. But when he was doing his weekly Japanese class this past school year every Saturday morning, it was at a location just far enough away that I had to find a good way to kill 2.5 hours and was delighted to discover that there were many, many good brunch places within a short distance of the school. I think I had more eggs with friends this past school year than I had in the previous 5 years put together! I was delighted to contemplate spring strolls post-breakfast during the upcoming months but, well, that’s not going to happen now.
Let’s hope he can re-enroll in the fall! I’m not sure if he’ll be too old by then.
Oh hey, when that heavenly period of ignorance was happening, my favourite breakfast that I found was 2 poached eggs, a pile of mixed sautéed vegetables (kale, broccoli, onions and tomatoes for sure, not sure what else, and chopped super-fine, like, it would be a PITA for me to chop things that small so I’m likely not to replicate this at home), two buttered slices of a fantastically crunchy and healthy-tasting whole grain toast, and a large decaf Americano with lactose-free milk. It was the perfect combination of forbidden and healthy.
When I’m at home my favourite breakfasts remind me of the ones my Granny used to make me as a kid: pate or Hungarian salami on, respectively, buttered French baguette or challah, peeled and cut up apples, fresh-squeezed orange juice she’d strain the pulp out of for me, and a cup of sweet, milky coffee. Best. Granny. Ever.
I have the same thing for breakfast nearly every day: a mug of black tea and a piece of sourdough toast with something on it. Smashed avocado with Cholula is my favorite — and what I had this morning, thanks to the contents of my veggie box this week. But I also go for sardines or peanut butter or a fried egg or hummus or cheese/pickles/mustard.
I just made this Cooking Light Berry Cream Cheese Baked French Toast and it was honestly a little meh for how good it sounded. I used frozen mixed berries.
Often we have cinnamon toast or eggs and toast or oatmeal.
I’ve become SUCH a creature of habit. On weekdays I have granola (the kind with just a tiny bit of honey to sweeten it), Greek or natural yoghurt and fruit. ALWAYS raspberries, often blueberries, sometimes banana. On weekends my husband cooks and we have brunch – breakfast burritos, pancakes, toast and eggs and bacon/sausage. Sometimes in the winter I have Nutella and banana porridge.
I seem to get on a kick and stay with it for ages. For a long time it was an omelette with cheese, tomatoes, peppers, spinach (an assortment of) and a piece of toast, but my last pregnancy left me really egg-averse and even though that’s over, the habit is gone 🤷♀️
In the Before Times I ate a scrambled egg with a 1/4 to 1/2 avocado with salsa. Since I go shopping a lot less, it’s harder to get avocados and keep them fresh. Lately, I’ve been making overnight oats and then frying an egg and putting it top with some sriracha. I just ordered dried seaweed to add to this. I have a friend who swears it’s the best in oatmeal with egg.
I have a wonderful recipe and make my own granola (walnuts, walnut oil, dried apricots & cranberries and sometimes dried blueberreis, pumpkin seeds, coconut chips, maple syrup and a bit of brown sugar, and of course oats). It’s a bit of a pain but makes a nice big batch and lasts me for quite a while. I’m also very proprietary about it (I’m gluten free and DH is not) and try to keep it all for myself. I also started making my own yogurt, mostly because I was horrified by all the plastic I was buying and throwing away (yes, I recycle, but let’s be honest). It’s surprisingly easy as long as I time it right. So breakfast is typically fruit (blueberries and/or bananas), yogurt, and a sprinkle of granola. It’s quite satisfying. I’m generally too lazy to cook eggs etc. unless we have guests.
My mom, also a Susan!, makes such wonderful granola. It’s truly a talent!
One reason I really really hate diet culture and moralizing food is because I LOVE VEGETABLES. I LOVE SALAD. I’M NOT FAKING IT BECAUSE IT MAKES ME LOOK VIRTUOUS. My favorite breakfast is a fried tortilla, two over easy eggs, cheddar cheese, as much fresh salsa as I can pile on (a tomato, some diced onion, a bell pepper if I have it, some fresh or pickled jalapeno, cilantro, and Penzey’s Salsa & Pico) and a bit of avocado or guacamole if I have it. It’s amazing and I could probably eat for every meal for a week before I get sick of it.
I have plain Greek yogurt with maple syrup and toasted almonds every morning because my friend got me hooked on it when I was bitter that she didn’t have any vanilla yogurt because plain is TOO SOUR, and it’s dumb to say you’re eating Greek yogurt because of the sugar when you’re putting maple syrup on it, but whatever, I ate it grudgingly and then got totally hooked on it. And I freaking love that pre-shredded cheese and whenever somebody tells me that “they’ve found trace amounts of WOOD FIBER in that stuff” I just say I FREAKING LOVE WOOD FIBER TOO, KAREN. (I am also cranky today).
I have been counting macros since about two months before this—all—happened. So here I am eating one hard boiled egg for breakfast. Sounds pathetic but I’m not a huge breakfast fan and it works.
Back when I was a distance runner and not trying to shed baby weight (can I still say that if my baby is 2?) I used to LOVE a big bowl of oatmeal with crunchy peanut butter and a big handful of marshmallows. I highly recommend it to the rest of you!
I love the Ozery Morning Rounds (muesli – I haven’t tried their other flavors). When I have them (which is right now!) I toast one, slice it open, and then butter it. Delicious!
My usual breakfast though is no breakfast. I drink a “cup” of coffee with half and half and call that good. My coffee cups fit about 2 measuring cups worth of liquid.