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Chocolate Filled Crepes with Cinnamon Crust
(adapted from Donna Hay Magazine, issue 34, page 138)

* 85 grams caster sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1 cup flour, sifted
* 1 tablespoon caster sugar, extra
* 2 eggs
* 1/4 + 1/8 cup (3 oz) single/pouring cream
* 1 cup milk
* 65 grams grated dark chocolate
* 25 grams unsalted butter, melted

- Place the sugar and cinnamon on a plate and mix.
- Place the flour and the extra sugar in a bowl and mix to combine.
- Place the eggs, cream, and milk in a separate bowl and whisk to combine.
- Gradually add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, whisking until smooth. Allow to stand for 20 minutes.
- Heat a lightly greased non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add 1/3 cup of the batter and swirl to cover the base of the pan.
- Cook crepes for 1-2 minutes in each side until golden. Place on non-stick baking paper and repeat with the rest of the batter (or just make the amount you need and place the rest of the batter in the fridge like I did).
- Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of chocolate over each crepe, fold in half, and then fold in half again. Brush both sides with melted butter and press into the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Cooked the sugared crepes in a lightly greased non-stick pan (high heat) for about a minute on each side, or until the sugar is caramelized.

The combination of the dark chocolate and the subtle cinnamon flavour was perfect! But what really takes this over the edge into goodness oblivion is the caramel-ly exterior, all sweet stickiness and crunchy edges. I can see this being a fantastic dessert but, being a creature of breakfast, I had it in the morning with my coffee...bliss! I’m sure it’ll be great with a bit of vanilla ice cream too!

The recipe I have posted here is my halved version. I made two crepes for my breakfast and then used some of the batter to make smoked salmon rolls (with cream cheese, sour cream, dill, capers, and green onions) for a casual night of drinks at our flat. I know the batter is supposed to be for a sweet crepe, but the crepes themselves weren’t sweet at all so I thought it would be fine to use for a savory appetizer. Be that as it may, I was still left with a little batter that eventually had to be tossed :( So to any pancake/crepe experts out there I have three questions:
1) How long can you keep pancake/crepe batter safely in the fridge?
2) Any other variations you like? Savory and sweet suggestions are welcome!
3) Do you have a really low yield pancake/crepe recipe? :)

Breakfast # 24: Breakfast Burrito
title

Or what happens the morning after a Mexican dinner.

I’m sure no one is a stranger to having leftovers from the night before for the next day’s breakfast. Dinner recycling is quite common unless you are lucky enough to have someone make you breakfast a-fresh every morning (if you are that lucky perhaps you’d like to invite me over!). I try my best though...and you see the result of these efforts in the breakfast posts on this blog. The rest, sadly, do not often see the light here.

You see, it’s usually the pretty looking, delicious sounding, recipe-included dishes that make it to publication. If I included leftovers and those madcap creations I winged together last minute (although delicious as well) I would have a lot more posts. In reality, we don’t dine on a new dish, from a new recipe, every night. A lot of what graces our dining room table are meals put together quickly and with no specific recipe, or leftovers from a previous dinner. And I am not particularly excited about posting those (although some of those wing-it dishes are really good...they just have no recipe yet, so still undergoing more testing!).

Times are changing though. Food costs are going up. At the same time, more and more food is being wasted every day. Goodness knows I am guilty of that crime myself. So I’ve decided to post some of my leftover recycling :) This way, I challenge myself to find more means to use up my leftovers, reduce my food waste, and exchange ideas with all you brilliant people out there!

And the great thing about leftovers for breakfast? Everything is already prepared! You can throw this together in three minutes with your eyes still bleary from sleep!

We had a Mexican dinner the night before of chilli con carne, chicken fajitas, homemade salsa, and guacamole. C is a huge (HUGE) fan of Mexican food. Because of the sad lack of Mexican restaurants over here (a big mystery that), we try to have Mexican dinners at home every once in a while, and this was one of those nights. Reaching into the fridge for my yogurt the next morning I decided to gather the leftovers instead and stuff them into a tortilla wrapper with some egg for a yummy breakfast burrito!

Here’s what I did: Take one egg and lightly beat it. Pour into a hot, greased skillet and spread the egg out as thin as you can (like making a crepe). Flip when underside is done and lightly cook the other side. Lay egg on a tortilla wrapper. Pile on the goodies you had for your Mexican dinner last night. I used guacamole, chicken for the fajitas, salsa, grated cheese, and cilantro sprigs. Wrap it up. Enjoy!

Leftovers, just like the fashion from the 80’s and 90’s, are no longer garage sale fodder. They are hip little numbers sashaying their way across our closets and plates. Unlike 80’s fashion though, making leftovers new again helps our grocery bill and our environment! Need more inspiration? Just go over to that search box in my sidebar called Food Blog Search and type in “leftovers”...you will see what I mean :)

It also helps to fortify yourself with a breakfast that is extremely comforting and calming.

I had been wanting to try this since I saw the Sunshine Oatmeal on Nupur’s One Hot Stove many (many!) eons ago. It was based on a recipe for Chai Oatmeal from the book Sunlight Cafe, the recipe of which Nupur generously shared with me. But like a lot of recipes I file away on my hard drive, it slowly got buried under a massive data pile-up. Thanks to a sudden bout of laptop spring cleaning, its sunny face resurfaced...right in time to see me through some much needed mental re-org. I adapted it somewhat, changing the volumes and adding and subtracting spices until I got a mix that was to my taste.

Chai Spiced Oatmeal
(adapted from Sunlight Cafe by Mollie Katzen...thanks Nupur!)

* 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
* 1 1/2 cup milk
* 1 cinnamon stick
* 3 cardamom pods
* 2-3 whole peppercorns
* 3 cloves
* 3 whole coriander seeds
* A pinch of saffron
* 1 tablespoon honey

- Make a little sachet for your spices. You can use a coffee filter or cheesecloth (I use empty tea sachets you can get at the Coffee Bean). Place the spices in your sachet and tie closed with some butcher’s string. If I were you I would make several already and store in an airtight container for future use.
- Place sachet in a saucepan. You can tie one end of the string to the handle so you can easily pull it out later. Pour in the milk and set over medium heat.
- Just before it comes to a boil, lower the heat and gently simmer until the milk is infused to your liking (about 5 to 10 minutes). Stir in honey to dissolve.
- Stir in oats and cover. Leave over low heat until cooked and thickened to your liking, peeping in to stir once or twice to make sure it doesn’t stick to the pan.
- Serve hot. I sprinkled dried figs and toasted almond slivers on top but feel free to experiment with toppings! Serves one.

I love oatmeal (don’t laugh...there are many of us out there) and I love chai. It’s no surprise then that I was absolutely smitten with this. It has the down-home, comfort factor of oatmeal coupled with the almost hypnotic fragrance of chai spices. It may be my overactive imagination but this felt totally therapeutic to me...like the aromatic spices where helping me center my thoughts while the familiar oatmeal was telling me that everything would be alright.

Does that sound slightly barmy? I don’t think so. Each of the spices here have a history of healing in some form or other, and have been used by early civilizations both medicinally and gastronomically. Aside from that, as I always like to imagine, once upon a time people set sail across vast oceans and into the unknown for these spices....the lure of their mystical fragrance pulling many an adventurer (and fortune-seeker!) to faraway lands.

Every time I have something redolent with these spices, I feel like I am a part, albeit a teeny-tiny one, of that fantastic adventure.

Never underestimate the power of a great breakfast (and a great imagination!). Therapy never tasted as good (or was this exciting!)...nor came as cheaply :)

A full English breakfast is a lollapalooza of breakfast proteins and starches (and fat), heaped together on a plate – substantial, zany, unapologetic, and in my book – awesome! Sure you can start with the backbone of bacon and eggs, but for me, the more over the top the better! Yes to the beans and the blood sausage! Yes to toast and hash browns! Fry it up and pile it on!

In that spirit of everything goes, I threw together this version. I had some leftover fabada (a Spanish bean stew) with I used for the beans element. Since my fabada had bacon slab, chorizo, and morcilla, I figured that covered the bacon, sausage, and black pudding. Instead of hash browns I used leftover roast potatoes (from a roast chicken dish) which I refried in olive oil with shallots, red pepper, and olives to stay within the Spanish theme. I then fried an egg in some chorizo oil**, smooshed everything onto a plate with a small baguette, and dove right in!

This type of breakfast is an excellent way to use leftovers, like I’ve done here with the beans and potatoes. It is also the type of breakfast that works great if you are in need of major fortification. Or cheering up. Or if it’s a Sunday and you want to be lazy and piggy :) And it does wonders for a hangover.

Thank you Christine for that long ago English breakfast (and the countless everything elses)! Here’s to sharing more food and adventure with you! :)

**What is chorizo oil? When I make fabada (or fry up chorizo) a lot of deep red, aromatic oil from the chorizo floats up. Normal people would skim this off and toss it. But I’m not normal people. I keep it in the fridge and fry eggs in it. Waste not, want not.

Blueberry Syrup

* 100 grams Baguio blueberries
* 75 grams sugar
* 1/4 cup water

- Place all ingredients in a pan over medium heat until mixture bubbles and thickens. Swish contents of pan around occasionally to avoid burning.

Yes, that’s all! The syrup was dark and glossy and delicious…and just begging to be poured onto something equally delicious – French toast! I used my basic French toast recipe (perfect for a solo breakfast), but substituted Swiss zopf, a challah-like bread that my mum-in-law gives me (which C doesn’t really eat, so I have loaves of it in the freezer, just waiting for meals like these!). I am not making French toast using any other bread ever! You can serve this with a dollop of cream or yogurt…but I prefer my French toast slathered in butter, before pouring on the blueberry syrup. Be generous!

The taste? Oh MY! Have you ever experienced a foot-pop? A foot-pop is what happens when you receive a kiss of such magnitude and dizzying bliss that one knee bends, and your foot “pops” upwards, toes pointing to the sky. You have seen it happen in countless of old movies, and explained by the endearing Mia of Princess Diaries. Well, my dears, it happened to me as I was standing by my kitchen counter eating this! Foot-POP!

If you have just one serving of French toast, as I did here, you will have some blueberry syrup leftover…and soon I’ll show you just what to do with it! :)

So this may look like a simple mixed fruit yogurt parfait, but really what you are looking at is fate in a glass: a brilliant surprise from the market, the season’s darling in fruit, a creamy yogurt long sought-after, and my favorite granola to make things interesting. Seek and you shall find they say…I certainly did :)

No recipe here. Just go to your farmers market. Find some fruit in season – one to make into jam or syrup, one that begs to be eaten fresh. Chat with the purveyors. Get the best yogurt you can find. If you live in Greece say a prayer of thanks to the yogurt deities. Make your own granola (it’s easy!). Pat yourself on the back. Showcase all this in the way they deserve – so that each brilliant layer can be admired (syrup/jam, then yogurt, then fresh fruit, then yogurt, then granola). Sit somewhere where you can see a little sunshine (I live in a little 3rd floor flat in a cramped city, no garden, no balcony, so no excuses…even the tiniest ray will do!). Dunk your spoon in all the way down. Enjoy. Really, I mean it. Stop thinking about what you are going to wear tomorrow or if you have time to gas up the car. Enjooooy.

Red Wine Poached Nectarines

* 1/2 cup red wine
* 1/2 cup water
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1 cinnamon stick
* 1 strip orange rind
* 2-3 nectarine, each cut into 8 wedges

- Place wine, water, and sugar in a saucepan and heat until sugar is dissolved.
- Add the cinnamon stick and orange rind and let infuse for a couple of minutes.
- Add the nectarines and poach gently for 5-10 minutes, until just tender.
- Top a bowl of yogurt with some of the slices and a drizzle of the poaching liquid. Sprinkle some pistachios on top for added flavor and texture.
- Store the rest of the poached nectarines with the poaching liquid in a jar in the fridge. Use as topping for yogurt, ice cream, a filling for crepes, perhaps in a tart…lots of possibilities!

Fruit and yogurt is a common breakfast any way you paint it. But I think poaching the fruit in red wine lends it something special. Aside from an enchantingly robust flavor (punctuated quite nicely by the spiciness of the cinnamon and the citrusy note of the orange rind), it gives me a festive sense of celebration…which really, is a whole other aspect of breakfast that many forget: A celebration of a new day, with food still on our table, and energy still in our veins.

So let me toast this new day with you, and let each breakfast remind us that, wherever we are, if we are at a table eating breakfast, we still have something to celebrate. Cheers and happy weekend! :)

This is one of the most blissful things (in my humble opinion) about growing up in the Philippines…decadent yet fortifying, indulgent yet necessary, over-the-top yet simple and basic (hold on to your garters my friends!) – rice for breakfast.

And not just any rice – fried rice! It goes by many names: sinangag, kalo-kalo, sangag. Whatever you call it, it is what has been driving us on for decades. Rice is the fuel for our collective, national “little-engine-that-could”. It is what got us to till the fields at the crack of dawn, cast our nets in the wee hours of morn, and gamely answer vast amounts of call center complaints still wearing a smile on our faces. Rice for breakfast – we salute you!

Nowadays, this archetypal “Pinoy breakfast” would consist of rice, a protein (check these Lasang Pinoy entries to get an idea), and egg. A delicious feast! What I decided to do here is just toss everything together to get a hearty one-bowl meal. For the protein I used skinless chorizo.

Chorizo Fried Rice with Egg

* 250 grams skinless chorizo
* 2-3 cups day old rice (depending on your preferred protein-to-rice ratio)
* 2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
* 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
* 1 sili labuyo (bird’s eye chili), cut in half (I always cut sili in half so the heat escapes but you can still see it while you eat and thereby avoid scandalous surprise)
* 2 eggs, lightly beaten
* Your choice of oil

- Heat oil in a wok or kawali. Add onions, garlic, and sili all at once, and sauté until onion is soft.
- Add chorizo to the pan and sauté until it has released its glorious orange oil and is just cooked.
- Add rice to the pan and toss until rice is orange and soft. Take the pan off the heat and set aside.
- In a non-stick skillet heat a little oil. Add egg and cook until set. Flip the egg like an omelet until the whole thing has set. No need for good form here as you will slice it up. Just make it as flat as you can.
- Slice egg into strips and toss with rice. You can reserve some egg strips to use as topping.
- Serves 2-3

The chorizo gives this dish a bit of a Spanish influence…with one important caveat: The Spanish-style chorizo I used is made right here! I bought it from a friend that makes his own and, yes (!), he sells it too (details below). It is really delicious and I am presently kicking myself for only buying the 250-gram pack. You can use any chorizo you have though or even longanisa. If you don’t have any skinless (or, as it is locally called “hubad”, which means naked…I love that!) you can use regular and just cut it up as you see fit.

If you happen to be in Manila: You can order the chorizo from Desnudos, just call 8230047. They also have choriburger patties (oh yes…I have a pack in the freezer!) and longanisa hubad (naked longanisa!). Desnudos also means naked. I should stop with the naked huh? Or at least wait until after lunch ;)