Saturday, January 28, 2023

Breakfast in 2023: It’s not gourmet dining yet, but we’re getting there

Three days a week—typically Monday, Wednesday & Saturday—this is what I have for breakfast.  Tropicana Homestyle orange juice with pulp, toast from Mancini’s Bakery (pricey but the best bread I’ve eaten since my grandma’s), one strip of Kuhn’s Own Applewood bacon chopped in half, and a handful of grape tomatoes sauteed with the bacon.

And one egg—one very expensive “Jumbo” egg.  A dozen of which cost $4.85 from my local market yesterday.  (A year ago they were $1.79.)  Anyway, I know they cost even more elsewhere, they’ll set you back $9.95 in Hawaii—which doesn’t make sense to me, as chickens roam wild in the streets there. 

Anyway, I’d have this breakfast everyday if I could.  But orange juice really isn’t that good for you, let alone bacon.

I cook the egg last, just the way I saw Gordon Ramsay do it a couple years ago.  Break the egg into a bowl, slide the egg into a heated saute pan with a dob of butter.  Sprinkle a little salt & pepper on top, and a few good shakes of red pepper flakes

Boy do those flakes look mean on that egg—but they add a sweet heat that makes all the difference!  I used to scramble or poach on occasion, but no more.  Gordon’s way is now my only way.

Last, drizzle one teaspoon of water around the egg—you’ll see the egg’s white hop n’ flop, and you won’t have to flip it over and risk breaking or overcooking the yolk.  It will also slide right out of the pan.

I carry my tray into the livingroom, find something newsworthy on tv, enjoy my food and count my blessings.  I mean it, I try not take too much for granted and am thankful I have the time and resources to enjoy a hot breakfast.  

When I was working, I lived on Nutri-Grain bars or Lilttle Debbie oatmeal pies during the work-week, then cold cereal on the weekends.

Eggs were so much cheaper then…  I should’ve eaten more eggs.  Be right back

 
 

41 comments:

  1. Looks really tasty! A bit much for me to eat for breakfast, but still. :-)

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    1. Thanks DJan--well like I said, only 3 days a week. The other days I'm happy with one slice of toast and some peanut butter. :^)

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  2. I do enjoy a good breakfast like yours occasionally. Bacon is a downfall for me, so I'm impressed you can limit it to one slice - I always end up with two or three.
    While I was on my cruise, I got into the habit of having an egg each morning, either a hardboiled or one egg ham and cheese omelet. There were fried eggs available but I don't trust eating those in restaurants. I do enjoy an over easy egg if I make it myself. Prices of eggs are silly here too, nearly $5 for a dozen, though my local Co-op puts them on "sale" for a little over $4 occasionally.
    Enjoy!

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    1. P.S. this is Maebeme - I'm signed into my cat blog...oops.

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    2. Thanks for sharing Maebeme, you made me hungry again just reading this! PS I will have to check out your cat blog :^)

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  3. Your breakfast looks excellent and eggs 3 days a week sounds perfect. Our eggs are selling at 5-6 dollars a dozen too. Lately, a grocery store visit costs $100. When will it stop? Recently, I like oatmeal with berries and honey for breakfast. Occasionally, eggs, pancakes or french toast is good for dinner. Bacon is always required.

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    1. Thank you Susan and you know what, we used to have pancakes for dinner sometimes when we were kids--I need to revisit that. I can't believe the prices either, I pretty much stopped buying soup precisely for that reason.

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  4. You've got me salivating! I'm embarrassed to admit that when I have eggs -- usually once a week or so -- I fry up three eggs (but no bacon . . . I know, I'm practically unAmerican because I don't like bacon) and two pieces of toast, and I drink orange juice almost every day. Hmmm, maybe I'd better get my cholesterol checked again. Anyway, enjoy your breakfast!

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    1. Wow I could do 2 eggs but not 3--well Tom, I'm actually not that big a bacon person. Three strips a week is plenty for me. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

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  5. What a delicious breakfast! You remind me how much I LOVE eggs and how much I enjoy going out to breakfast. Ex BF (Henry) took me out to breakfast often and I always got some kind of omelet or scramble. John isn't as fond of it and prefers to cook breakfast burritos at his house. Cheaper, that's for sure! $2.99 a dozen at Albertsons here. Not jumbo eggs though.

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    1. Thank you Margaret--hey, you just made me realize something. I honestly cannot remember the last time I went out for breakfast, and we even have a restaurant in my neighborhood that specializes in omelets. Well, $2.99 for eggs sounds great! I hope we see that soon. 🙂👍

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  6. Oh wow, delicioso~ We're having breakfast for dinner tomorrow here with company. I'm making sausage and egg casserole plus baked cheesy onion hashbrowns. Your picture had me drooling.

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    1. Thanks Shawn, and yum on your own dinner! I have never made hash browns, not a single time. I even see them in Frozen foods all the time too. I think I need to add those to my shopping list. 👍😋

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  7. Looks delicious! My mom used to cook up a pound of bacon (we had a large family), and after removing the bacon to drain on paper towels, she cracked the eggs into the bacon grease, basting the top of the egg yolk with the bacon grease. It was so good. I don't eat eggs that way now; instead I have a 2 egg omelette every morning.

    Locally, I can get eggs at about $3/dozen at Costco. I've seen them go for as high as $6 at other stores. Still, when you think about it, a relatively cheap source of protein. Your buttered toast looks so good! I can almost taste it melting in my mouth.

    Carole

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    1. Thanks Carole, and your eggs cooking in bacon grease is just how my dad cooked them--I might have to save my own bacon drippings and do that! Well, I wish I had cheaper place to buy eggs around me, but you're right--they're still not bad, price-wise :^)

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  8. Hi Doug, your breakfast looks delicious. I am very boring and have the same breakfast every day. Heritage Flakes with a few raisins sprinkled on top. Chuck likes variety and will have different cereals, oatmeal, cream of wheat….. Growing up Sunday’s were always special. We waited and had breakfast/brunch at 9:00. Bacon, eggs, egg bread as we called it(French toast), or pancakes. My Dad was a great cook and he always did the cooking then. Eggs have doubled in price here in the last six months but occasionally you can get them for $4.85 for 18 eggs.
    Enjoy the rest of your weekend.❤️

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    1. Thanks Robin--and thank you for sharing your own breakfast, this was interesting! I had to google Heritage Flakes, never heard of them before but they look delicious. It was sad but sweet to read about your dad cooking breakfast, my dad did that on the weekends sometimes too. He only really cooked one thing though, baked pork chops and tomato sauce which I am still trying to duplicate 45 years later. 🙄. Hope you and Chuck have a good weekend too.

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  9. That looks so yummy! Good toast and bacon really makes it. I eat oatmeal with blue berries 3-4 days a week but eat some egg concoction the other three. I like frittatas with leftover dinner veggies like asparagus with some onion and/or peppers. I save the bacon for when my two youngest grands are here. We eat up half a pound with pancakes. Yum.

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    1. Celia, I just finished my dinner (I eat pretty early) and your comment here still made me hungry, haha--yum on the frittatas, what a great idea. And now you've got me wanting pancakes & bacon, I think that will be dinner this week. :^)

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  10. I commented, but it looks like It didn’t post. I said it looks gourmet to me! And it’s nice to treat yourself. I like how you served it up nicely. Have a good weekend! Joyce

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    1. Thank you Joyce, and I'm sorry about your first comment not making it--I just tried commenting on someone's blog and it did the same thing to me. Hope you have a good weekend too :^)

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  11. Dug, your breakfast looks really good. I don't do orange juice - too acid for me, but we do either a fried or scrambled egg once or twice a week (usually just good sourdough bread with lots of the butter and olive oil spread). And we do eat pancakes or a Dutch baby for supper occasionally. Our jumbo eggs were $6.64 last week... unbelievable.
    And I want to mention something that has nothing to do with this post, I found Ovaltine the other day (something we drank when I was young). Read that it had something in it that helped you sleep (magnesium). So I got some and it's really good!

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    1. Rian, thank you for sharing--I never heard of a Dutch Baby before, had to Google it and now I have to make one for myself! 😋. And thank you for the Ovaltine suggestion, I am trying that too. 🙂

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  12. A hearty breakfast and just the thing for winter! Personally, I'd swap the animal bacon for plant based bacon and the egg would have to be flipped and cooked solid and then splattered with ketchup. By the way, have you tried grilled cheese sandwiches in your air fryer. So-o-o-o good!!!

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    1. Florence, you can really make me laugh sometimes! First, thank you for commenting. Second, I was waiting for the plant based bacon suggestion, I'm going to do it when it gets cheaper and third, I've just started using my air fryer again and I need someone like you to come up with ideas--grilled cheese sounds perfect!

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  13. You are quite self-sufficient Chef. Yep, Hawaii has lots of mostly feral roosters running around. Some are pretty. You might not survive if you tried to catch them and tell them to produce some eggs. Stick with store-bought. Down to $4.11 for Large at a regional grocery in Kansas City. Linda in Kansas

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    1. Thank you Linda, and I am sticking to store-bought! Well, you've got me beat price wise. I wonder where we'll be a year from now.. 🙄

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  14. A dozen jumbo free range eggs in the brand I prefer sets me back $11.10, so I buy the next size down at the same price the jumbos used to be, $9.25. I'm surprised at the neon yellow orange juice, it looks like pineapple juice to me. I fry my eggs (when I'm not scrambling them with grated cheese added) in a non stick pan with just melted butter, but turn the heat down so the whites don't pop and spit, then flip them over and take them off the heat right away so the yolk doesn't cook hard. Five seconds and I flip them onto my plate. No bacon, no tomatoes, just buttered toast.

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    1. Thanks for sharing River, I know food prices can be high there, but wow. Not sure what to say about the OJ, maybe the lighting in my kitchen? The camera on my phone is lousy too. Anyway, you have a way with words--my mouth was watering just reading how you cook your eggs! 😋

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  15. Don’t fear the bacon. The whole “saturated fats = death” has been shown to be false. Sugars, refined carbs, and those man-made trans fats are the real dietary demons. Eating foods that contain cholesterol doesn’t raise your cholesterol. In fact, cholesterol numbers tend to drop and “normalize” when you eat meats and veggies and drop the aforementioned dietary demons. Eat a second slice of bacon. Add another egg. Eat like our ancestors did before all the crap food was created.

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    1. Thank you Anon. Whoever you are, you sound like a wise being and I shall obey. (I mean it--thank you!)

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    2. Oops! That was me…Jase. :)

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    3. Not forgetting of course that our ancestors did a LOT more hard physical labor than wee modern softies. Up before dawn to milk the cows, plough the fields, plant the corn or whatever, feed the chickens gather the eggs, they earned every single calorie. There weren't the trans fats and artificially-flavoured-and-sweetened diet foods then either. They ate real food and enjoyed real health.

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  16. My orange juice is Sunzest (an Oz brand), the closest I’ve found to freshly squeezed oranges.

    I most often have toast with chopped tomato (pepper and salt) on it, topped by cheddar cheese and grilled. The tomato remains pretty much raw. A cup of tea.
    If I have any on hand, I’ll chop some fresh chives into the tomato.

    When I have an egg, maybe once a week or so, I poach it. Now and then I’ll scramble a couple. I can’t remember when I last fried an egg.

    I really like bacon, but only have it every couple of months or so.

    I like to sit and read a book over breakfast rather than watch TV.

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    1. It sounds good Music Man, I was hoping I'd hear from you. I'm sticking to my fried egg & red pepper flakes, but I'll definitely be doing your toast & tomato thing this week, thank you for sharing. :^)

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  17. That looks like a delicious breakfast. The way you plated it makes it appetizing. I tend to eat carbs in the morning, such as crackers and cream cheese and toasted raisin bread with salted butter. Now and then, I'll have an egg muffin. One thing is for sure: Caffeine. I love Cold Brew Coffee and Iced Tea.

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    1. Thanks Gigi, and your own breakfast sounds delicious--I need to buy some raisin bread! I'd also love some cold brew coffee, I need to get on that. :^)

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  18. Love your food posts. Your plated meals always look so good. My plated meals often look like a mess. ;-) Standard breakfast here is peanut butter toast nearly every day (yeah, we're kinda boring.) PS Does your grocery store do electronic coupons or give you points or anything? I can score a discount on things like eggs with points. At Weis--my store--I can do an online survey, earn 100 pts, then use the points to buy a dozen eggs for $1.49.

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    1. Bobi, first of all--thank you for the kind comment about my plating. Trust me, I'm a slob! Second, I didn't mention it here (I should've) but I have peanut butter toast a couple days a week. I love it. Third--we DID have points several years back, every couple months I'd accumulate enough to get $20.00 savings towards my receipt. They got rid of collecting points almost 5 years ago, but have great weekly specials for people who still have their points card. :^)

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  19. I never eat breakfast well apart from when I go to the States and then I tend to go for French toast or maybe some pancakes. I do hate eggs but can tolerate them scrambled, mainly because my Dad used to make really good scrambled eggs and it always brings back good memories of him.

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  20. Kay of Musings: That IS a yummy looking breakfast. We really do have lots to be grateful for. I agree. Actually I saw 24 eggs for $6.48 at Sam’s Club about 2 weeks ago or was it 3? I thought we’d never use all of it and was going to give some to my brother, but he had enough. Surprisingly, we’re going through it after making omelettes, etc. Hmmm… maybe I should bake something.

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