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Almost without exception (the exception being breakfast sausage), I love, love, love breakfast food.
I adore eating breakfast out. The omelets and hash browns at Waffle House are the stuff of cheesy, carb-y dreams. The crispy on the outside, creamy in the center French toast at Tra’Li at Brier Creek in Raleigh is more than delicious (The Kid really digs their traditional Irish breakfast, but once you put blood sausage on the plate, my heart and appetite are broken). In addition to perfectly cooked, creamy, rich eggs Benedict, Watts Grocery in Durham offers fresh churros with the best chocolate dipping sauce you’ll ever dunk into to.
But, my very favorite breakfast experience, hands down, is a buffet.
The reason is simple. I can eat fifteen or twenty different dishes at a buffet, without the judgy server, or the $75 breakfast bill that comes from ordering like a lumberjack with a hollow leg. It’s heart breakingly frustrating to be limited to either French toast or pancakes because of the social stigma attached to life-threatening gluttony.
It just ain’t right.
And unless I plan on running seven or eight hundred miles a day or switching out all my clothes for caftans, sweat pants and elastic waists, giving rein to my darkest dining desires has to be a once-in-a-great-while occasion.
This is mine. What are y’all eating?
But as every mother who’s worth her operator’s license will tell you (multiple times); “You gotta eat something!” “Do you wanna get sick?” “Eat! You’re breaking my heart” “I’m cold! Put on a sweater!”
So, one needs to eat. But ideally something that contains less than forty-seven thousand calories and doesn’t put you into a food coma for 3 days.
It may not sound exciting, but these days many of my breakfasts center around yogurt.
The thing is, traditional yogurt doesn’t move me. In fact, I don’t really like it.
I don’t know whether you’ve taken a gander in the dairy department lately, but we are living in the golden age of fermented moo juice. Even in the smallest grocers your choices can easily number from 20-30.
There is fat-free, low-fat, and full fat. Sweeteners from sugar, to honey, to lab created artificial supplements, and even no sugar in some savory versions. Extra protein, gluten-free, even dairy free. From organic yogurt from a goat named Gertrude to synthetic concoctions filled with Captain Crunch and Oreo crumbs.
And pretty much any flavor you can imagine is available for purchase
I like bigger flavors, like salted caramel and black cherry, which can cover any strong, yogurt-y tang. And I always pick the chiffon-style. Then I get to work tarting it up.
The easiest and quickest way to do this is to have the dairy act as a dip for graham crackers. Most of the time, though, I really get busy with it.I add fresh blueberries for brightness. I add dried fruit for chewiness, and pecans for crunch. I then stir in a tablespoon or so of chia seeds because they swell up when they sit in the fridge for a half hour. Once activated, they’re just like tapioca, and I love the gelled pop they add.
Some of the factory fancified yogurt varieties can have up to 500 calories, so I steer clear—if I want that many calories, I’ll spend it on a stack of 15 or 20 pancakes, drenched in butter and syrup.
But Chobani has something called “Simply 100 Crunch”. The peach cobbler tastes like fresh, ripe peaches, only contains 100 calories, and shockingly, includes real peaches.
So, I’ve never owned a pair of yoga pants, The Kid has never played soccer, and I don’t drive a mini-van. But gosh darn it, I can get behind some frou frou, fancy-schmancy yogurt.Oh yeah, ogre? That’s how The Kid used to pronounce yogurt.
Oh yeah, ogre? That’s how The Kid used to pronounce yogurt.
No that’s an ogre I can get behind. Except for that damn black (blood) pudding.
Thanks for your time.
Back in the Cretaceous period, Dad was running the Coast Guard metalsmith school (known as A.M. school) in Elizabeth City; he was known as “Boss Ross”. I was working at a clothing store in town.
“If you guys aren’t nice, I’m telling my dad.”
His big heart doesn’t stop at quadrupeds. When I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, he and Mom bought me a 1971 Dodge Dart Swinger for the princely sum of $500. My car, which I named Lancelot, had an AM radio which picked up most stations within a ten block radius but not much else. I yearned for a fancy AM/FM car stereo with a cassette deck.
Most people with a somewhat public position would be embarrassed to scoop frozen treats and peddle Fudgie the Whale. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I would be. But my father has never seen any shame or reason for embarrassment in honest labor. He simply can’t fathom that kind of attitude.
As I said though, Dad’s not perfect.
Happy Father’s Day, and to all a good night.
So I was watching this BBC show, Torchwood. It’s a Doctor Who spinoff starring John Barrowman, a charming Scottish-American singer/actor/author Renaissance man.
But, I did have 2 bananas in the freezer and I’d read about one or two ingredient “ice cream” with frozen bananas. I’d even used them along with some buttermilk and frozen pineapple to make a frozen treat. That had tasted okay, but wasn’t delicious, and the texture was odd. I didn’t feel the need to rush out and make it again.
I’m still me, though. So I added Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder. But aside from a splash of skim milk to facilitate blending, that’s all I added, and it was only one tablespoon of cocoa.
It was insanely delicious. I’ve had chocolate-covered frozen bananas before, and while tasty, the fruit is brittle and icy. This was the texture of perfect soft-serve ice cream. It was rich and incredibly creamy. Honest, if I hadn’t made it myself, I never would’ve believed that it wasn’t full of butterfat.
The Kid went to Bush Gardens recently and I was jealous. Petey and I spent our honeymoon at the Williamsburg park. We’re both suckers for nausea-inducing, life-risking rides and I love the corny faux-European theme.
“They have Dole Whip.”
Oh yeah, it worked. It worked like a charm wearing a horseshoe and carrying a rabbit’s foot. To make it we used rock-hard frozen ingredients and employed a Vitamix blender. Those beasts could make smoothies out of diamonds, but if you don’t have one just let the ingredients sit out for 10-15 minutes.
Thanks for your time.
The Kid and I both love dogs, to complete and utter distraction. Our favorite movie is The Big Chill, but we adore those awful chimera movies (think of the walking abomination of a horse/wasp hybrid) on SyFy. My child and I are big fans of Chap Hop; a musical genre wherein polite, anachronistic British gentlemen rap about things like tea, robots, and orangutan valets. Clean sheet night is our favorite night of the week. We talk to strangers, probably way more than we should.
And our hearts reside in the kitchen.
This means, that just like the rest of our Southern-fried psyches, in cooking and food, we have many similarities.
And, I honestly don’t think we’ve ever cooked from a recipe without changing something. It’s usually the addition, subtraction, or tweaking of an ingredient.
Recently The Kid tried out a new recipe from a website called, Smitten Kitchen. It’s for blondies; the moist and gooey love child of chocolate chip cookies and brownies.
8 tablespoons butter, melted
Pour into prepared pan. Bake at 350°F 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. I always err on the side of caution with baking times — nobody ever complained about a gooey-middled cookie. Cool on rack before cutting them.
Thanks for your time.
For Petey, there were big, fat, baked pork chops. When I took them from the freezer, I made a rub using coffee salt, freshly cracked peppercorns, ground caraway seeds, thyme, and fresh rosemary. I rubbed it all over the chops and put them in the fridge to thaw.
I set the oven to 375 degrees. I put a little vegetable oil into a shallow baking dish and nestled the pork chops inside. I inserted a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the thickest chop.
Did I mention it would be dry?
Tater salad.
Anyway.
3 pounds red skin or yellow potatoes
Paint, wood conditioner, and summer clothing that wrinkles if you look at it funny are the seed’s historical uses. But until recently, they were definitely not for eating.
Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids are essential for heart health. It can prevent heart disease and lessen the chances of heart attack in people with pre-existing heart disease. The body doesn’t produce fatty acids so we have to procure it from outside sources. Fish is a really good source, but most of us don’t eat enough.
Flaxseeds though, have two to four times the amount of omega 3’s that humans need to reap a 30% reduction in the risk of heart-related death.
The simple rule of thumb for daily consumption of calories is ten times the weight to which you aspire. So, if you want to weigh 150 pounds, you eat 1500 calories.
Flaxseeds contain both. But, to get the soluble fiber, they must be broken down outside your body in a mechanical fashion. Which means milling.
To get both types of fiber and unlock all the other nutrients, I grind them in an electric coffee grinder which I use exclusively for spices. You can pick one up for under $20.
So really, thanks very much for your time this week.
The old school options of cable and satellite have stations numbering in the hundreds of thousands. With internet options, those numbers increase to the millions.
Gilligan’s Island: The castaways are finally rescued and return to civilization. Having been declared dead, the Howells are no longer millionaires. Ginger finds Hollywood has moved on and roles have dried up. No one wants to hire the captain of the Minnow and the skipper becomes a derelict who haunts the waterfront, looking for odd jobs. The professor and Mary Ann move to Colorado and open a marijuana dispensary. Gilligan parlays his fifteen minutes into a successful long-running reality show and eventually marries a Kardashian.
Happy Days: Milwaukee is shocked when Mrs. C and The Fonz reveal their secret love and run off to Hawaii to open a shark-jumping school. Richie moves to a small town in North Carolina and becomes sheriff. Ralph and Potsie become Uber drivers, and Mr. C eventually finds love again with Pinky Tuscadero.
What’s for dinner?: A new competition show where a working mom has 20 minutes to make dinner for a ravenous family of five with only eight items in the pantry and three in the fridge. The moms will battle the clock, the varied tastes of the family, and Pizza Hut on speed dial. The prize for the winner is to do it all over again the next day
Ruff Planet: An exciting new science fiction show about life on a planet run by intelligent canines. Emperor Sparky attempts to rule while dealing with battling litters and their power hungry mothers. Will palace intrigue bring down the monarchy from within? Or will a rebel band of mixed breeds and their feline allies bring about the fall of the government?
Thanks for your time.
And the only thing I’m pleased and proud about is that none of us has dropped dead—this thing is a doozy. It makes the Black Death look like a paper cut.
They’re both creamy soups, but a classic cream soup is pureed and not chunky. Chowder is much more rustic; containing identifiable vegetable chunks and normally made with some type of thickener, like starch, or cracker crumbs or flour.
To make it you just take a softened stick of butter and start by adding ¼ cup of flour. Use a spatula or small wooden spoon, and just like the name says, knead it in, adding more flour until it has taken as much flour as possible (usually equal parts butter/flour).
I like making the soup, then having various garnishes available for diners to dress their bowls the way they like. Some ideas for garnishes are the crispy pancetta, for starters. Also, shredded cheese, green onions, oyster crackers, lightly poached crab meat, or raw spinach or kale.
The Matthews family band are all of legal drinking age. We have recently discovered a beverage which, when imbibed before retiring, helps to give us a cough-free night of peaceful slumber. It’s a twist on the homemade cough syrup my mother used to force feed us growing up.
Thanks for your time.
Socrates.
The Matthews family has been eating duck for many years. A correctly cooked breast is very much like a bacon-wrapped, medium-rare fillet mignon, but with more flavor.
Tonight’s dinner was confit.
The first was in rice.
I moved the rice and onions to a sauce pan. Then I poured in 1 ½ cups of chicken stock, and added the cut-up duck. I covered the pot, set it on medium-low, and let it cook about 50 minutes, or until the liquid was gone and the rice was tender. Then I let it sit, covered for 10 minutes.
I plated our dinner in shallow bowls. First in was the chewy brown rice and duck meat. Over it I laid the charred asparagus spears. And to make the dish even more decadent, I topped the whole thing with a handful of the rendered skins.
Thanks for your time.
The Kid likes them about as much as Anna Wintour loves polyester sweat pants, and Ted Nugent loves gun control.
But somebody else was watching as well.
Out of maybe 75 berries in six years, I’ve harvested about twelve. I stand next to the shrub, eating a paltry few with one hand, and shaking my fist at the beaked bandits with the other.
Yup, you read that right; ketchup.
Of course, the undeniable compulsion may have partly stemmed from ingesting copious amounts of Foster’s lager (for me, copious amounts are 8-12 ounces—I’ve never been much of a drinker).
Blueberry ketchup would be a novel addition to the condiments at your next cook out. Imagine the blue goo on a cheeseburger made with Swiss or pepper jack cheese.
Thanks for your time.
2 ½ cups fresh blueberries
bull city mom 