Kevin's Watch

Hash browned potatoes, scrambled egg beaters, turkey bacon, wheat toast with butter and cherry jam, and hot coffee.

Off to Burgh Island for the night, an odd little throwback hotel beloved of the rich and famous back in the 1930's, where by all accounts they still have a very formal way of doing things (dressing for dinner and the like). In sympathy with this I'm getting in the mood by staging a pretty formal breakfast at home: table laid with bone china teapot and crockery, smoked salmon and poached eggs, toast and thick cut marmalade. It's a game but hey.........

Part of me wishes I'd lived in those days. People these days are always in a hurry/aggravated because they're in a hurry/have no attention span. Makes me wonder if they ever stop and wonder why they're in a hurry. Maybe we'd be happier if we slowed down a little.

I wrote a whooooole long post here on that subject, and now I'm going to see if there's somewhere more appropriate to post it.

I always have the same thing for breakfast. A bowl of instant porridge.

See, I hate breakfast...on weekends, I don't eat my first meal until 11h00 or 12h00. On weekdays, I choke down some porridge before leaving for work, because my next meal is when I get home again at 16h00-ish.

--A

I have a seriously bad memory of porridge from my first boarding school. Made with mainly water and a splash of milk, lumps all through it and salted not sweetened. Just what an eight year old boy needed to start off the day.

I'm okay with unsweetened, but making porridge with water should be at least a misdemeanor. Milk (soy milk is fine if you can't have the moo sort), a pinch of salt, a pinch of cinnamon, and a little butter on the top. Sugar is acceptable, but unnecessary. I don't eat breakfast, so when I make 'breakfast' foods I generally don't add sugar.

Yesterday in the hotel I had the 'full English' breakfast - and paid the price with chronic indigestion all day! Today I have got to be more careful (thin soup and milk sops) in order to re-establish calm in my ravaged interior!

Today, I made a "Something" from chapati flour for breakfast.

In our family, a "Something" is basically a giant, pan-filling pancake or pan-filling frybread.
(microwave variants are acceptable too.)

Another breakfast innovation here is a "Don't Ask Too Many Questions." That is like a "Something," except ...well, I'm not really sure what the differences are - I'm not the one who makes those!

I like that. There's a local bakery here that makes a pastry they just call a Chocolate Thing.

My kind of cooking Linna! (Hi, by the way! )

Sorus wrote:I like that. There's a local bakery here that makes a pastry they just call a Chocolate Thing.

The other day the GF did the following:

Rolled out a sheet of puff pastry, and covered it in chocolate spread. Then, spread marmalade over that. Then sprinkled it with chopped almonds and dark chocolate pieces. Then rolled it up like a swiss roll, cut into slices, and baked.

Dark chocolate orange and almond pastry...it was delicious.

--A

Mmmmmmm!!!!! Gimme some of that Sorus!

Avatar wrote:

Sorus wrote:I like that. There's a local bakery here that makes a pastry they just call a Chocolate Thing.

The other day the GF did the following:

Rolled out a sheet of puff pastry, and covered it in chocolate spread. Then, spread marmalade over that. Then sprinkled it with chopped almonds and dark chocolate pieces. Then rolled it up like a swiss roll, cut into slices, and baked.

Dark chocolate orange and almond pastry...it was delicious.

--A

..... and some of that Av!

So easy to make.

--A

OK - I'll give it a whirl! Bake at - what -180 C for thirty minutes or so and serve hot with clotted cream?

peter wrote:Mmmmmmm!!!!! Gimme some of that Sorus!

It's basically a sort of scone with chocolate pieces baked in. Not terribly exciting, but pretty good. I will buy you one if you ever come visit here.

peter wrote:OK - I'll give it a whirl! Bake at - what -180 C for thirty minutes or so and serve hot with clotted cream?

180 until the pastry "puffs" and browns. Might only be 20 mins or so.

I don't like cream, so I just had them plain. And they were damn good cold as well to my surprise. (Just be careful, when they're hot, they're really hot. Chocolate and Marmalade get seriously volcanic. )

--A

Sorus wrote:

peter wrote:Mmmmmmm!!!!! Gimme some of that Sorus!

It's basically a sort of scone with chocolate pieces baked in. Not terribly exciting, but pretty good. I will buy you one if you ever come visit here.

That's a deal Sorus!

I do a lot of the baking at work Av and am pretty good at judging when pastry is at it's optimum (if I say so myself! ) so I'll play it by ear ..... eye ..... ear. Yes hot sugar! Good point! In my desire for sticky sweet stuff I'd probably have forgotten that!

Lemme know how it turns out.

--A

Today, we're back to oatmeal... not telling how I made it, though, after reading upthread!

peter wrote:Mmmmmmm!!!!! Gimme some of that Sorus!

I second that!
Oh, and my kids were delighted by the description of a "Chocolate Thing" (TM) as well.

Av wrote:Rolled out a sheet of puff pastry, and covered it in chocolate spread. Then, spread marmalade over that. Then sprinkled it with chopped almonds and dark chocolate pieces. Then rolled it up like a swiss roll, cut into slices, and baked.

Dark chocolate orange and almond pastry...it was delicious.

Mmmmmm, awesome.