Bye Bye Boring Breakfasts

Ever since I was a small child I’ve hated breakfast.  It came from either a cardboard box or the toaster, and was without imagination, taste, or culinary merit.  Except for on Sundays, when my dad did a fry up.  Eggy bread, bacon, and fried up leftover potatoes are a treasured memory of my childhood.  Though not something my vegetarian self would now go near.

Toast I can eat, but as I am not a lover of jams, or honey, or meat pastes, my toast tended to be smeared with butter and marmite and that was it.

I totally loath prepackaged cereals.  Even as a child I considered them disgusting and that the cardboard packaging probably tasted better than the contents, and, arguably, had more nutritional value.

However, thanks to Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall, boring breakfasts are now a thing of the past and I look forward to my first meal of the day. 🙂

I came across Hugh’s book “River Cottage Every Day” at the library and it had a section on breakfasts.  This was a revelation to me.  Hugh explained how breakfast could be exciting and interesting, and what to do to make it so, and even how left overs (including cake) can be utilized to make a delicious meal to start the day.

Now my weekends are full with preparing tasty foods to be used for weekday breakfasts.

Fruit compotes are my main stay.  At the moment I have large containers of Pear and Cacao compote, and Rhubarb, Honey & Cinnamon compote in my fridge.

I also make drop scones (pikelets) out of wholemeal flour and oats for a tasty change from toast.  They are particularly tasty when smeared with yoghurt with compote piled on top.

I  now keep lots of different things to mix and match my breakfasts on a daily basis. My fridge always has greek yoghurt and thickened cream in it.

My larder contains rolled oats (mixed with fruit compote and left for 10 minutes to soften it’s delicious and filling), honey, slivered almonds, crumbed walnuts, and chia seeds – all of which are tasty when used to enhance a bowl of compote.

I keep as much fresh fruit as I can to add to my breakfast bowl as well.  Passionfruit, strawberries, cherries, and blackberries being my personal favourites.

As for leftovers, well, they can definitely be useful.  Yesterday I made lentil stew for dinner.  I didn’t make dumplings, as my memories of dumplings tend to be of things the approximate size, shape, texture, and density of a musket ball.  Instead, I made individual yorkshire puddings out of wholemeal flour, eggs and milk.  I ended up with a container of left over puddings.  So for breakfast this morning I had several yorkshire puddings smeared with honey, then a dollop of yoghurt added, followed by a dollop of rhubarb compote.

The result?  A  breakfast so bloody delicious that I wish I had made more yorkshire puddings than I did!

Can’t wait for breakfast tomorrow. 🙂