Breakfast Home Lab

I was excited to plan this meal for my family so that I could try out some new recipes and hopefully find a new favourite. I took a couple classes to brainstorm and I used Pinterest to find my recipes. We were given the task to make 2 breakfast items and a smoothie or parfait. I wanted to make a hash and some sort of egg dish with a smoothie. I chose to make a red bell pepper and onion hash with ham and cheese egg cups and a green smoothie. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the ingredients for my green smoothie at the grocery store because of everything going on. Instead I used what I already had at home and I made a strawberry, blueberry , banana smoothie. The new recipe that I tried was the ham and egg cups. I used a muffin tin, and lined it with a piece of ham (a great alternative to bread) and spinach (to incorporate extra veggies). Then I cracked the egg in the cup and added cheese and green onions and baked it. The egg cookery method was baked eggs. Overall this was a very well balanced breakfast meal. I served this to my family for dinner because… why not? The most challenging part of the meal was pre cooking the potatoes. If I were to make these recipes again I would cook the eggs a little less and add spinach to the smoothie aswell.

Hash

Hash is one of my all time favourite breakfast foods. I love hash browns but this is definitely an elevated form. We added peppers, onions, garlic and bacon. We also added turnip along with the potatoes for variety. I didn’t think that I would like the turnips but they actually complimented the potatoes very nicely. Our biggest challenge in the lab was cooking the potatoes. When making a hash you have to “par-cook” the potatoes which means to partially cook. You have to make sure they are soft because they won’t cook fully in the pan. We boiled some and microwaved some. I think that boiling them was more efficient. Another challenge that we had was the heat of the pan. The hash ended up being a bit burnt but it still tasted good. We ate it with a fried egg and topped it with cheese. I loved this recipe and when I make it again I would turn the heat down.

Crepes

For this lab we were given the option to make waffles or crepes and everyone in the class chose to make crepes. I was so excited to make them because they are fun to make and so delicious. I make them all the time at home for my family, but this time my partner and I decided to make them a little bit different. We decided to add cocoa powder to make chocolate crepes. Who doesn’t love chocolate?! Since we added the cocoa powder we had to adjust the amount of flour we put in so they wouldn’t be too dry. We made a raspberry filling and whipped cream cheese. I had never had this combination before but it sounded to good to me that I just had to try it. I was pleasantly surprised by how good they were. The first couple crepes didn’t turn out so well because we added too much oil to the pan, but once we got the hang they turned out well. Don’t let the look of these crepes deceive you, although they aren’t the prettiest, they tasted amazing!

Veggie Frittata

Frittata is a dish that I don’t eat very often but I really enjoyed the one that we made. Typically frittata is served for breakfast, but its a very simple dish that you can eat for any meal if you wanted to. It is very similar to a quiche, just without the crust. We added lots of veggies to ours, there might have been more veggies than egg in it. My partner and I each did our own but we put it in the same cast iron skillet. I added tomatoes, spinach, peppers, onions and roasted broccoli and cauliflower. At first I wasn’t too sure about adding cauliflower because it didn’t sound like something to put in a frittata, but I ended up really liking it. Roasting the broccoli and cauliflower added an extra layer of flavour and I have started to make roasted broccoli at home all the time. I also added feta cheese on top which added a briny tang. I made frittata again after this at home and I plan to make it again. My partner and I also made thinly sliced crispy potatoes on the side. We had the option to put potatoes inside the frittata, but we had the idea to make them separately.

Eggs Our Way

In this lab we got to choose which type of egg we wanted to make. We got to choose between fried, sunny side up, scrambled, cooked in the shell(hardboiled), poached or baked. The method we used is egg cookery. I chose to make a poached egg to challenge myself. I make poached eggs all the time at home but I still need more practice. The hardest part for me is keeping the egg together when I drop it in the water. A fun fact about poaching an egg, is that you add a splash in vinegar to the water when its boiling before you add the egg. We do this to help the egg white stay together. I liked my poached eggs medium so that the yolk is runny. When I cut into it, it was perfect!