Category — Breakfast + Brunch Recipes

And now I am going to tell you what to make for breakfast on Christmas morning. With a mere 5 ingredients, 5 minutes of prep, and 25 minutes in the oven, you can have a rich, custardy, puffy, wonderful breakfast on the table.

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I’ve been seeing a lot of Thanksgiving recipes go around lately, but what about the leftovers? WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE LEFTOVERS?

I, for one, can barely register the actual Thanksgiving meal as I’m cooking and eating it, because I’m so focused on how much better everything will taste the next day. I made this chicken hash this weekend with (wait for it) leftover chicken- but I think it would be just as fabulous with leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

And if getting together with your relatives leans more Mommie Dearest than Leave it to Beaver, you could even prep all the vegetables for this dish while you’re making Thanksgiving dinner and put them in the fridge – so that even in a bleary-eyed morning-after state of tryptophan- and whiskey-induced torpor, you can throw this together with minimal effort.

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I have a sister who’s lactose intolerant – she just can’t do the cow’s milk dairy. So I try my best to make things that she can eat and we can all enjoy. Ergo, duck fat biscuits with chives. Regardless of your relationship with lactose – these are a winner.

Duck fat is perhaps the finest fat there is, and in biscuits it really sings. I found a recipe (British, naturally) and did some adaptation and experimentation to get it just right. Since the original recipe called for milk, I substituted sheep’s milk yogurt which provides a little tang and is still fully allowable for those who can’t handle bovine products. You can serve these with tomato jam, some fresh honey, or just a big pat of butter.

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I used to think eating granola was healthy. I would eat a big bowl with milk for breakfast, feeling virtuous about starting my day right with one of those “balanced breakfasts” people are always going on about. Several years back, I took a temporary job making granola for a high-end, organic boutique granola business. I was more than mildly surprised to learn that this expensive, hand-crafted, and much sought-after granola was loaded with Wesson oil. I mean, we’re talking bottles and bottles of the stuff for a reasonably small batch. Virtuous? Hardly. I might as well be eating a giant plate of french fries dipped in mayo for breakfast. An order of large fries from McDonald’s has fewer calories than a cup of most kinds of granola! Of course some of the granola’s calories come from the sweetening and the nuts, but the oil is definitely not helping. So why not make your own?

The weird thing is you can make really terrific granola with no oil, so it’s unclear to me how that practice got to be so commonplace. You do need something sweet, or else you just have some dried-out oats, so let’s not be crazy here. But you actually don’t need very much sweet stuff to make good granola. Also, making it yourself is really cheap, especially if you’re like me and you use it as a way to clean out the hodgepodge collection of nut remnants that lurks in your freezer. (Or am I the only one who has miniscule amounts of 15+ different kinds of nuts leftover from other projects?)

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I mostly prefer to eat my tuna raw or seared, but I make an exception and eat it fully cooked when it’s prepared this way. You need to plan ahead, as the tuna has to marinate in an oil mixture for at least 6 hours, but all told it’s a snap to make. Instead of buttering or oiling the toast that holds the confit, I was inspired to add the avocado smear instead after eating a fabulous avocado toast with boquerones at Beast and the Hare.

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This is a tart that practically screams “SPRING!!!!”–and as the springtime is rapidly coming to a close for this year, I’d better share the recipe for this seasonal favorite.

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Today was a really weird day. But that’s a long story. Suffice it to say, around 4 PM on a work day I found myself… making two kinds of cheese and sour cream souffles? Really? Yes, really.

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One of the most searched and clicked recipes on this site is Robert’s Chilaquiles. That means that a lot of people have had the benefit of my friend Robert’s wonderful recipe for chilaquiles, which makes me ¡muy feliz! Robert’s recipe for this Mexican breakfast treat involves layers of fried tortilla triangles, scrambled eggs, chorizo, cheese, and a spiced tomato sauce. However, after spending a long weekend in the neighboring Mexican towns of Puebla and Cholula, we kind of got hooked on chilaquiles verdes–made with a green tomatillo sauce in place of the red.

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I recently came across a recipe for a cake that called for putting chopped up Kraft caramel candies in the batter. My first thought: BRILLIANT idea. My second though: Needs better caramels and a better recipe.

And so it was born: the Million Dollar Caramel Apple Crumb Cake.

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What could be a better breakfast than a perfectly textured and seasoned egg wedded with the best parts of a BLT?  Arugula, tomatoes, and crispy bacon make a bed for the egg. A tiny splash of cream before baking gives the egg a luscious, almost cheesy texture.

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