Survival Sunday 309: Breakfast Time Again!

In Which I Make A Breakfast

I'm not really a breakfast person 99% of the time. I like breakfast foods - pancakes, waffles, French toast, quiche, toast, eggs, bacon, oatmeal, etc - but when I've just woken up, cooking is the last thing on my mind.

And then this morning, I had a craving for Cream of Wheat. Which I never usually want, but hey, who am I do deny my stomach?

So I set about making Cream of Wheat for breakfast.

Your first step is always to gather your ingredients and measure things

So for one serving of Cream of Wheat, you want 3 Tbsp (three tablespoons) of the cereal and 3/4 cup of either water with a pinch of salt or just straight-up milk. I chose milk, today, since I wanted to maximize the filling-potential. Then I readied my morning cup of coffee and set the kettle on to boil, but that was just for the coffee lol.

Also, the tongs are on the counter because I had to dig for my tiny whisk and the measuring spoons.

Next, you heat the milk!

I set up the milk on medium-low, stirring constantly until it came to a light boil. I didn't want to scorch the milk or burn it onto the pan (which is a pain to clean up), so I watched it like a hawk. Now is about where I'm going to admit that my initial plan was to just... nuke it in the microwave instead of making it on the stovetop. Then I thought for a second and reconsidered. It's a good thing I used the milk, too, since it's gonna go by soon...

Once the milk or water boil, slowly add the cereal mix and start stirring like mad

I've made Cream of Wheat using a spoon before. Don't do that. Find or buy a small whisk - this one came with a hot chocolate gift set a few years ago - and use that instead. You want to go until the mix is gloopy and makes slightly obscene bubbling sounds as you stir.

And then dump it in a bowl with some cream, cinnamon and sugar, and some brown sugar!

At this point, it was a bit pasty, and even after mixing in the cream, it was a little too thick, so it was a good thing I'd just heated the water for my coffee!

This is before I added water and mixed it together.

As for the texture, well... I remember Cream of Wheat being much soupier as a child, but between me whisking rapidly the whole cooking time, using milk instead of water, and continuing to stir like mad once it was in the bowl, the end result was like eating a soft, faintly sweet bowl of clouds.

I'm a convert.

This was so much better than most of the oatmeal I've made...

I think I'm officially old. That's cool :)

So what about you guys? Do you have any breakfast foods you used to dislike that you're now really cool with? What are your favorite hot cereal toppings?

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Survival Sunday 251: Leftover Rice Eggstravaganza!

In Which I Use Up Some Leftovers!

By now y'all know I like to experiment in the kitchen, especially with leftovers, frying pans, and eggs.

So it shouldn't shock you that I'm coming up with weird egg fried rice knockoffs.

I promise, guys, this tastes really good, so don't be afraid to try it out!

Start with your basic ingredients!

For this Eggy Rice, you'll need:

• Leftover rice
• 2 slices Canadian bacon (sliced into bite-sized pieces)
• 2 eggs
• salt & pepper
• ketchup

If you have veggies, definitely add those too, because this? This is pure cholesterol right now. Oops.

Step 1: Slice everything non-rice-or-egg and fry it on low heat.

It's usually pretty good to start low with stuff like Canadian bacon. It doesn't have a high fat content, so putting it in too hot of a pan will cause smoking and smoking is bad for you. This is also when I'd add any veggies if you've got them - peppers, onions, carrots, even corn and/or peas! This would go well with basically any combo of fryable veggies. You could even use tiny cubes of potato or sweet potato.

Basically, you want these things to get a bit toasted on all portions. Feel free to increase the heat if you feel it's not cooking the way you'd like!

As that's happening, let's focus on our eggy rice!

The next thing you want to do is crack two eggs into the bowl (or other container) of your rice.

And then stir it up!

You want to make this into a slightly frothy, fairly homogeneous concoction, with each grain of rice coated in egg. You also want to season your rice with salt, pepper, etc at this time.

After combining the eggs, rice, and seasoning, you'll be adding your frothy egg mix to the pan with the meat and/or veggies! This can look a bit weird, but bear with it, and immediately begin mixing the egg-rice and veggies/meat together in the pan over low to medium heat!

And yes, it's quite... voluminous!

At this point, squirt a goodly serving of ketchup in there and mix well. You can use any kind of sauce you like (uh.. actually, maybe don't use ranch, that separates under heat and could be kinda gross unless you're using a dry mix...) like mustard, soy sauce, etc. Whatever you think would taste good hot with eggs and rice. I might add a few splashes of soy sauce and some gochujang next time...

Now toss it in a bowl and eat it!

Obviously, you want to make sure that the eggs are cooked if you live in America, since our eggs are washed and therefore more prone to bacterial infiltration than fresher, unwashed eggs in say, Japan. You may find that you prefer to cook this over a higher heat until the eggs are more separated from the rice. You may find that you prefer a slower, lower, creamier version making the dish more like a rice-egg-pudding. However you make this, feel free to leave me a picture in the comments or Tweet at me or something (@TheFilthyCasua8)!

And now, since you've been so patient, here's the video version (lol).

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Survival Sunday 240: Full English Fry Up

In which I attempt to make a tasty English Breakfast

I'm not a very well-traveled person. The most exotic locales I've wandered are Nova Scotia (for a day) and Niagara Falls (also for a day). Besides that' it's mostly just been the occasional trip to Boston with my family. I've never left this continent.

So I've never had a true Full English breakfast.

Which means I don't 100% know what's in one.

I just know what I've seen on the internet, and those components seem to me to be:

• Fried Eggs
• Toast
• Beans
• Tomato
• Mushrooms
• Sausage
• Bacon

Sounded simple enough to me! So I set about trying to make a Full English Breakfast, or, as I'll be calling it from here on out, a Fry-Up.

My first step was cutting and frying my sausage. I've never worked with sausage in a tube before, so that was interesting. I was too impatient to let it thaw completely, so my hand-cut patties were... well, the were a mess. Eventually, though, I got them fried up in my big frying pan and started in on my toast. I nicked a couple of English muffins from my bread cupboard for this, but I'd guess any bread product would work.

I used some of the sausage fat to fry up my "toast". It was lightly buttered, too.

Do not attempt this kind of breakfast if you've got cholesterol issues.

Or if you'd like to have a regular digestion for the next few days.

Regardless, I fried up my toast and stuck it on a plate next to the sausage.

Mmmm.... grease :P

All told, though, it looked really good at this point, and I could've easily just scrambled the eggs and served them like this.

A much more glamorous shot of the toast and sausage.

But I'm nuts, so I decided "time to cook" and got to work on that bacon.

Thick, thick bacon.

I also made sure my other ingredients were close to hand:

A couple of eggs for frying later.

I cut the stem out of the tomato.
I also salted the cut portion generously - which was the only salt I used at all!

The mushrooms were inspected and washed juuuuust before I cooked them!

 Then I turned my pan onto the lowest heat and added my bacon!

Moments after adding the bacon to my pan, this happened!

I let the bacon fry until it looked moderately crispy, then set it aside while I cautiously fried the tomato and mushrooms.

And it was a harrowing experience.

See, when you're cooking with grease, the last thing you ever want to introduce to the environment is water. Tomato is about 90% water, by my estimation. The purpose of the salt (and laying the tomato out on paper towels) was to draw some of the water out and to make the tomato as dry as possible. There was every reason to believe that the tomato would cause the hot bacon fat to explode all over me when I added it.

Thankfully, this was not the case, and I let the tomato and mushroom sizzle together for a while until the mushrooms were soft and the tomato skin began to wrinkle and split. I took out the mushrooms, but I let the tomato keep going and flipped it onto its skin, so the skin became slightly blistered and discolored. When I figured it was done, I took it out and immediately added an egg to the pan.

Also mere moments after being added!

I never raised my pan above a "2" - so, I'd strongly suggest leaving your stove low if you're making one of these. Will it take a longer time? Yes. Will you burn foods as much? Absolutely not.

While I had been preparing most of the meal, I'd emptied a small can of baked beans into a pan on a back burner set to the very lowest setting. While I'm aware that a proper English Breakfast uses beans with some sort of tomato sauce, that's not very common where I live, so baked beans it was!

Sausage, Egg, Toast, and beans!

The overall breakfast was incredible. Each element was tasty on its own (except maybe the tomato, but I'm not a huge tomato fan), but together, they became transcendent. The biggest shock for me was probably the tomato itself, since I figured I'd hate it. I was wrong. When I cut it up and ate the small pieces with beans or sausage, it went from just a tomato to a sliver of bright, acid morning in the slick midnight of the greasy sausage and bacon. The acidity actually helped boost the sweetness from the beans, too!

Actually, I'm pretty sure this meal had all of the flavors: sour and bitter from the tomato (tomato seeds are always bitter to me), sweet from the beans, salty from everything, and umami from the meats and egg!

Also, it was so much food that it couldn't fit on two plates!
My dining companion and I each had a plate with egg, sausage, toast and beans
and we put the bacon and veggies on a third! Good heavens...

So if you're looking to enjoy the food of another land, but you don't have the money to do it, I strongly suggest looking at their culture breakfast first!

That being said, I don't know how England still exists if this is what they eat for breakfast. Even if I'd been a sane person and just had two sausage patties and a couple strips of bacon, the sheer volume of food was overwhelming, and I shudder to think what calories I consumed...

It was 10000000% worth it.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC