I was remembering the other day how special Sunday mornings were for me when I was growing up. On these mornings, Dad cooked breakfast. I don’t know how or why that tradition started. His breakfast duty just seemed logical: Since mom cooked breakfast the rest of the week, Sunday was her day off.
I think it was good for me to see my dad preparing food, as well as helping with the clean up. It taught me that we should all share in all duties in the kitchen…and around the house.
As I was thinking about those Sunday mornings, I tried to remember whether the food was any good. I can’t. And it really doesn’t matter anymore. I just know that I never went away from the table hungry. I think the tradition was truly more important than anything. My dad took pride in taking on that task, a task that probably began as a difficult one, a task that soon proved to him that he could be successful in the kitchen.
Now that I’m a dad, I know that making breakfast can be quite simple, though as proficiency improves, so can the menu ideas. If you’re new to breakfast making, try some of these simple ideas…then expand as your skills improve:
*Toasted English muffins with triple-berry jam (found at the farmers market)
with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with chives. The secret to
moist scrambled eggs is to use cream instead of water and to cook very
slowly over a low flame while stirring almost constantly.
*Fresh hashbrowns—Boil potatoes until just barely cooked, then run them over a
cheese shredder; heat up a skillet before pouring in a bit of oil, then a bit
of butter; slip the shreds into the pan and fry until brown on one side, then
flip to the other. You can fry with chopped onion or chives if you like.
*Fresh buttermilk biscuits with honey butter—Flip through your favorite recipe
book for a good basic biscuit recipe. When the recipe says “stir just to
mix,” it’s important that you do just that. Overmixing can destroy good,
light biscuits. The honey butter is made by mixing in some honey with
soft butter—to taste. You can always add more if it isn’t as sweet as you
like it.
*Pancakes made from scratch with strawberries and syrup—Again, find a very
basic, very easy pancake recipe to follow. When you get brave, you’ll
find yourself wanting to add blueberries, wheat germ (maybe not),
orange juice instead of water or milk, granola…anything to doll them
up! Slice up some strawberries for the top and drizzle warm syrup over
everything. Mmmm.
*Omelets—(See the chef’s demo.) Heat up an omelet pan, brush it with oil, mix
up a couple eggs, and slide them into the hot pan. Let them cook without
stirring until the surface begins to congeal, then add any ingredients you
wish (COOKED bacon, COOKED onion, COOKED green pepper,
some crumbled blue cheese) before folding the omelet over and serving.
(Note: The secret is to cook added ingredients (except cheese) to the
cooked eggs. Never add cold, uncooked onions, for example, to hot eggs.)
*Waffles with whipped butter and blueberry syrup—Get a good stick-free waffle
iron to save yourself some gray hair. The rest is easy, especially because
blueberry syrup is sold in the syrup aisle at your favorite grocery store!
Even if you begin your Sunday morning breakfast tradition with buttered toast and your favorite jam, it’s important that you just begin. It’s the tradition in the kitchen that counts the most!
