What do you do with a stale loaf of bread and a fridge full of wilting vegetables? I made a savory bread pudding–some might call it a strata. I call it breakfast for dinner.
It is very easy and I’ve made it a few times with different ingredients. It clears out the fridge quite well. At a very basic level, all you need is stale bread, some sauteed veggies, cooked meat if you please, enough eggs + milk to cover your bread mixture and some cheese to top it off. Read more…
It is no secret that I love grits. This holiday vacation means I’m not rushing to work in the mornings and have time to make a real breakfast. Cheesy parmesan grits with a bit of pancetta and a sunny-side-up egg. Finished with some black pepper and Frank’s Red Hot (not pictured) and I had a nice breakfast to warm me up!
I still have a few more days off so this morning’s breakfast will be a peanut butter and bacon jam sandwich. Elvis would approve.
Last Christmas, Joel got me bacon jam that I really enjoyed. My friend just got out of cooking school and made a bacon jam for a potluck brunch last weekend and I REALLY enjoyed her bacon jam…moreso than the one Joel got me. While the jam Joel got me was more of a bacon & onion compote, my friend’s bacon jam had a sweetness to it that I really enjoyed. She gave me her recipe and I made it to go with the cheese plate at Christmas Eve dinner. My cousin described it as a “bacon chutney” which is a pretty good description…
Goes great with a cheese plate, on top of a breakfast casserole, smeared on a croissant…its delicious on everything! I wonder if Elvis would have eaten a peanut butter and bacon chutney sandwich??
Ingredients:
- 1 lb bacon
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 medium brown onion, sliced
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- Sriracha Sauce (optional) TT (I used hot pepper flakes instead)
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- Black Pepper TT
- Extra water
- Salt TT
- 1 to 2 green apple, small dice (I used 2)
- ¼ teaspoon of Cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon clove
Method:
- In a non stick pan, fry bacon in batches until lightly browned and beginning to crisp. Using a pair of scissors cut into 1 inch pieces
- Fry the onion and garlic in the rendered bacon fat on medium heat until translucent. (I poured out most of the rendered fat and left just enough to fry the onions and garlic)
- Transfer bacon, onion and garlic into heavy based cast iron pot and add the rest of the ingredients except for the water. Simmer for 2 hours adding ¼ cup of water every 25 – 30 mins or so and stir
- When finished cooking put in food processor. Pulse for 2 to 3 seconds so that you leave some texture to the “jam” or you can keep processing and make it a smoother and more paste like.
I made this breakfast casserole for a potluck brunch last weekend with old friends based on this recipe from Simply Recipes. The comments in the recipe indicated that the casserole could get salty so I chose a chicken mustard sausage from Drewes Brothers and added sauteed anaheim chiles and mushrooms to the mix. I can’t say I loved it…it was a little bland, a bit too mushy and the chicken sausage got quite rubbery in the oven. I also had to cook it for a little longer than the recipe indicated…when I took it out the first time it was still swampy in the middle (perhaps because I used 2% milk instead of whole?).
If I make this again, I’ll use a saltier sausage, add some potatoes for texture and serve it with a side of bacon jam from a recipe a friend shared with me. I made some bacon jam this morning to go with the Christmas Eve cheese & salami platter 
Merry Christmas!!
Smitten Kitchen’s Shakshuka has been on my list of things to try for a while…and yesterday’s rainy Saturday morning was the perfect time to try it! We started the morning at Rainbow Grocery, which sadly is not as awesome as Berkeley Bowl…quickly made and ate this shakshuka (I really like saying shakshuka!! *with jazz hands*)…went for a drizzly run…and then off to Elizabeth Street Brewery to sample some brews.
I halved the recipe and used three anaheim chiles. My fingers were tingly for the better part of the afternoon, which was a bit surprising since the anaheim chiles didn’t taste that spicy in the shakshuka. Although we had whole wheat pitas in the fridge, we sopped up the oozy egg yolks and spicy tomato sauce with the remnants of a fresh Acme sweet Italian loaf (the rest went into a breakfast casserole for a potluck brunch this morning). Quick, tasty and simple!
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