What's Cooking Dad? » breakfast

Tomato bread

Cooking Dad — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:58:00 +0000

This week is tomato week at A Way to Garden.com.

Our tomatoes have been growing quite well and the tomatoes just keep coming, so I have more than enough of them to try out some new things.

I have baked some tomato breads these last couple of days and they just keep getting better with each try.

Ingredients
6 medium sized tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 big clove of garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp of chopped thyme
440 grams all purpose flour
110 grams whole wheat flour
175 ml water
1 packet dry yeast

Cut up the tomatoes and add olive oil, chopped garlic, salt, sugar and chopped thyme. Spread on a cookie sheet and grill in the oven for about an hour.

Mix flour water and yeast in a large bowl and knead for a few minutes. Don’t worry if it feels a bit dry, the tomatoes still contain quite some moisture. When the tomatoes have cooled down a bit, mix them into the dough. If the dough is too sticky you can add a bit of flour. Now comes the most important part: letting the dough rise. Leave the dough in a covered bowl until doubled in size, this should take about an hour. Punch it down and let it rise again until doubled in size. Punch down once more and transfer into your bread form. Alternatively you can use a cast iron pan to bake your bread in. Preheat the oven while the dough raises for the last time. Bake at 250C (480F) for 10 minutes than turn down the heat to 160C (320F) and bake for another 20 minutes.

Pancakes with maple syrup

Cooking Dad — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:38:42 +0000

The best way to start your day is with a good breakfast. One of my favorite breakfasts is pancakes with maple syrup, lots of maple syrup!

Ingredients
40 grams butter
2 eggs
230 ml milk
210 grams flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar

Melt the butter in a sauce pan or in the microwave oven. Mix in the eggs and milk. In a second bowl mix the dry ingredients and add them to the butter, eggs and milk mixture. Don’t worry if the batter isn’t completely smooth, a few lumps don’t matter.

Heat a pan on medium high heat, a cast iron skillet works best for this. The right temperature is crucial when baking pancakes. A few drops of water dropped into the pan should dance around a little before evaporating.

Pour some batter into the pan, an ice cream scoop is the perfect measure. You don’t have to grease the pan, the butter in the batter will take care of that. Depending on the size of your pan, you should be able to bake 3 or 4 pancakes at the same time. When the top of your pancakes have bubbles and start drying up, it’s time to flip them over.

A few more minutes of baking the other side and your pancakes are ready to be served. Stack them on a plate, add some butter and lots of maple syrup.

Pita Bread

Cooking Dad — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:10:10 +0000

One of the easiest breads to bake is probably pita bread. It doesn’t take hours and hours of rising and there isn’t much that can go wrong. They taste good and can be eaten in many different ways.

I really love pita bread filled with kebab or gyros, lettuce, tomato and lots of garlic sauce. But pita breads can also make good breakfast bread, filled with meat, cheese or Nutella. You can keep the dough in the fridge overnight, so one big batch of dough can be used to make dinner one night and a nice breakfast the next morning.

Ingredients
3 cups of flour
1 ¼ cups of lukewarm water
1 packet of dry yeast
1 ½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil

Mix all the ingredients well and knead for about 10 minutes to get a firm elastic dough. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let the dough rise until it has roughly doubled in size (about 60 to 90 minutes) Punch down the dough and divide into 8 to 16 pieces, depending on how big you like your pita breads. Let the dough relax for about 15 minutes so it will become easier to roll. Roll the pieces of dough out on a lightly floured work surface, they should end up about 4mm thick.

Bake the pita breads for about 3 minutes at 200C (400F), preferably on a baking stone that has been well preheated.

Serve warm with stuffing of your choice.

One eyed monster breakfast

Cooking Dad — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:27:22 +0000

There are various names for this dish: egg in the basket, egg in a window, egg in the hole, pirates eye, birds nest, hobo toast, eggy toast, o’johnnies, egg in the middle, one eyed Joe, toad in the hole, one eyed Jack, did I forget one?

I call them one eyed monsters and the kids love them!

Ingredients
Bread
Eggs
Bacon (this is optional, but everything is better with bacon!)

You start by cutting a round hole in the middle of a slice of bread. This can easily be done with a glass or cup. Fry one side in a frying pan with a little butter. When the first side has been toasted, flip it over and break an egg into the hole. Cook on low heat until the egg is done. That’s your basic egg in the basket, pretty boring. So, let’s make it a bit more interesting!

Cut some bacon into small strips and fry them. They will be the hair of your one eyed monster. Alternatively you can use some grated cheese for this. Use the part that you cut out of the bread to give your monster arms and legs. Use mayonnaise and ketchup to finish things. There you go, a one eyed monster!

Sweet Omelet

Cooking Dad — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:20:23 +0000

Let me show you a quick and easy, yet very tasty, omelet. All you need for this recipe is a couple of eggs, sugar and a splash of milk.

Ingredients
2 eggs
2 tbsp. Sugar
A little milk

Break the eggs into a glass and add the sugar and a splash of milk.
Beat with a fork until smooth.
Pour into a hot frying pan and bake on both sides until browned.
Sprinkle with a little sugar and serve with a slice of bread.

Together with a cup of coffee, this makes an awesome breakfast and will give you more than enough energy to work until lunch. Kids also love eggs cooked like this!