Sunday, August 28, 2016

Breakfasts

I had some delicious breakfasts last week, including avocado toast (one piece drizzled with balsamic, both topped with pink Himalayan sea salt):


Juicy nectarines from the farmers' market: 


And a chocolate oat parfait, with maple banana "soft serve"

Chocolate "Overnight" Oats

1/3 cup raw quick oats
1 T chia seeds
1 T cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, or any milk-like drink

Mix everything together and let it sit about 10 minutes, or cover and refrigerate overnight so it's even quicker in the morning.

Maple Banana "Soft Serve"

1 large frozen banana (or 1 1/2 small) broken into chunks
1 T pure maple syrup
Almond milk (or any milk) - start with a couple T and add more as needed

Throw the banana, syrup and milk into your blender or food processor, and mix until smooth and soft-serve ice-cream like.


Layer the oats and the soft-serve into your parfait dish, and dig in.


We spent the entire weekend at home, without leaving the house, which was great.  We had eggs, toast, and bacon for breakfast on Saturday.


And then on Saturday evening we threw together a sausage-arugula breakfast strata, and tossed that in the fridge overnight, so it would be ready to pop in the oven this morning.

Sausage-Arugula Breakfast Strata
 
6 eggs
1 1/4 cup half and half
salt and pepper to taste
2 T chopped basil (or whatever herb you have on hand)
About 1/2 loaf of crusty bread, cubed (we used 200g rosemary focaccia)
1 lb (1 package) breakfast sausage rounds, cooked and cut into pieces
5-6 white mushrooms, quartered
1 cup arugula, torn or rough chop 
Olive oil (for roasting mushrooms)
1 cup of shredded cheese, whatever you like

Mix eggs, half and half, salt and pepper and basil.  Set aside.  Drizzle olive oil over the mushrooms, salt and pepper them, and roast @ 425F for about 20 min.  Once browned, remove and set them aside.  Spray your baking dish, then layer half the bread, half the mushrooms, half the sausage, half of the arugula, and half of the cheese.  Repeat with the other half of the ingredients.  Slowly pour the egg mixture over everything.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.  The next morning take it out and leave at room temperature while you preheat the oven to 350 F.  Bake, covered, for 30-40 minutes, then uncover and bake another 20 minutes. 


This was a nice way to start out our morning.  More about our weekend in the next post.

What have you been eating for breakfasts lately?  
Have you ever made a strata?

1 comment:

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

That's awesome that you guys spent a weekend hunkering down at home - especially since you are returning to work this week!

My breakfasts are pretty boring these days I pretty much have oatmeal with raisins, chia seeds, and banana every day. I did go out for brunch this weekend and had this incredibly indulgent savory waffles (picture on my blog of it this am). I could only eat half of it but it was really good and nice that they had a GF waffle option as I don't see that often!

I've made lots of egg bakes but never a strata! I'm sure it would work with GF bread but GF bread is so dang expensive, I would struggle to use a half loaf of it for a dish, I think. :/