eggs

We do love our breakfast foods around here. As breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day for getting the brain and body ready to work, we always make sure to eat something before heading out the door. Unfortunately, it's also at a time of day where our bodies are not fully awake and fighting the concept of eating.

I used to babysit all the time in middle / high school. I had a blast, especially when the kids started getting interested in cooking! We would always start with something simple but involving an oven or stove because kids feel accomplished when they get to use the oven or stove for the first time. Thus, eggs are one of my favorite things to teach first-time cooks (of all ages) how to make. They are versatile in their uses and tasty all by themselves.

My husband and I were away for the weekend attending his cousin's wedding. We spent the weekend in this delightfully lavish hotel that was very modern chic. Nearby was a quaint little chain restaurant called "The Village Inn." With similar breakfast choices to Perkins but a higher food quality, we decided to go there for breakfast both mornings we were in town. Glad we did!

My husband and I are big lovers of Egg's Benedict, in large part because of the tasty hollandaise sauce that smothers this breakfast delight.

This morning I was inspired to try my hand at making the sauce from scratch once more. I used the "blender method" this time and while it worked spendidly, my blender did manage to spew melted butter across the countertops and nearby appliances. I will have to perfect the use of the blender...

My mother has always made the BEST lasagna I've ever had. Whenever we went to a restaurant or over to someone else's house and they were serving lasagna, it just never compared to my mom's homemade lasagna. The sauce wouldn't be quite right or there wouldn't be enough cheese or, worst of all, there would be sausage in the lasagna! I mean, sausage?!

*Note: prepare the egg bake the night before you need it!

Growing up, I had never had egg bake. We made scrambled eggs, over easy eggs, deviled eggs, omelets, and used eggs for baking, but we never made egg bake. My mother-in-law, however, makes it on special occasions and it is probably one of my favorite breakfast foods!

For many years, I disliked breakfast food. I remember traveling with my family and stopping at Perkins. Everybody else ordered omelets, pancakes, toast, cereal, bacon, etc... except me. I always ordered some kind of sandwich, even if it was 9:00 in the morning! The waitresses usually gave me a funny look, prompting me to inquire "is it too early for lunch food?" to which they would smile and reply "No, of course not."

There was nothing quite like mom's weekend breakfasts growing up. She would make pancake batter from scratch (I didn't even know about boxed batters until I was in high school) and whip up a stack of the perfect-sized pancakes. Then we would complete the meal would scrambled eggs & cheese along with some bacon! There is nothing quite like a few strips of crispy bacon to go with pancakes smothered in syrup.