stacey . smoore . the staceyfish . 
Life in a Northern Town: the exploits of an ecstatic Alaskan
Lens: the adventures of a girl and her camera
From healthy weekday breakfasts to more extravagant weekend spreads, I love that first meal of the day. Whether you make it savory or sweet, simple or sophisticated, it's one of the most versatile meals out there. In seeking to override the hurts caused the attitude that Pop-tarts or vending machine donuts with a Mountain Dew make an acceptable break to your fast, I present my homage to that often-overlooked, much-maligned meal
Muffins get a bad rap, and none more so than bran muffins. See, regular muffins are sugar-and-oil fests, full of empty calories, and most bran muffins are healthy but, well, made of twigs. Can there be a happy medium between these two extremes?
Of course there can be! Enter my breakfast-on-the-go juggernaut, the 150% whole grain banana nut muffin! Now, you may be asking yourself how the hell something can be 150% whole grain, and here's your answer: grains are made up of the germ, the bran, and the endosperm. White flour and other processed grains get poo-pooed (and deservedly so) because the nutritious and tasty germ and bran are removed, leaving behind the starchy endosperm which, while semantically being a complex carbohydrate, is treated by your body just like sugar, a simple carbohydrate. While most muffins are made of only white flour, this recipe is made up of whole-wheat flour (germ, bran, endosperm), oats (again, germ, bran, endosperm), wheat germ, and oat bran. Lots of good-parts-of-the-grain yumminess, see?
An astute reader like yourself may have picked up on the fact that while a couple of those ingredients are the fiber- and nutrient-rich parts of the grain, they do not in fact contain all three parts. So I guess it's not technically whole-grain, but really, when you're only removing the bad stuff and keeping the good stuff it's easy to see that it has way more of the good stuff than the bad stuff, so it's like an endosperm with twice the bran and twice the germ, and hence, 150% whole grain! Don't argue with me on this one, I majored in math and I'll come up with some convoluted argument to prove that It Is So.
So that's enough science geekery, let's stop talking nutrition and start talking yumminess!
This recipe is awesome because it manages to be low-fat without tasting overly low-fat. Yes, when you bite into these muffins you can tell that they are healthy and nutritious, but they are still wonderfully moist and flavorful. That's because applesauce, oil's favorite understudy, has gotten its chance to shine in this recipe, and when it teams up with the bananas you get a moist, remarkably un-twig-like consistency. When you add in things like toasted pecans, flax, raisins, and the grains, you get a complex flavor profile that keeps your tastebuds happy.
These are ideal for early-morning athletes and snooze-button-hitters since they are easy to take with you and eat, ensuring you get those morning calories your metabolism needs to function properly throughout the day. I always eat one on the way to swimming in the morning and if I think there's a chance I won't get to eat my daily oatmeal I always bring along a couple extra to tide me over until lunch. That's another benefit to this muffin's ingredients: in addition to being flavorful, they also keep you full for a long time. So what's not to love? Skip that chemical delight breakfast you were going to grab on your way out the door and eat one of these instead!
Click here for the recipe for "150% whole grain low-fat banana nut muffins" »
There is something about baking a pastry - a real, from-scratch, layered bit of flaky dough - that makes you feel like a total badass.
Let's face it, pastries have a pretty formidable reputation. They're certainly not in the "if you can boil water you can handle this" category. I've always had a huge soft spot for croissants, but there is another indulgence - the humble Danish pastry - that has a special, sentimental significance to me.
If there was ever a recipe for me to cut my pastry chef teeth on, this one had to be it.
See, this is another recipe that is near and dear to my heart. Like beef burgundy, my family has been eating these delicacies around holidays since I can remember. Perhaps even more significant, my Mom has been eating them ever since she can remember. When she was a kid, her next-door neighbor (the eponymous Mrs. B) would bring them over each Christmas Eve so that their family could chow down on them the next day. Before my parents' wedding my Mom had a kitchen shower where the guests brought treasured recipes to give to her. Mrs. B brought this.
So when, as I mentioned earlier, Cory and I were in the midst of forging our own traditions, these little gems were so in. I made my very first batch sans supervision this last Christmas (my previous foray being the year before when my Mom was visiting for Thanksgiving) and on the morning of Cory and I ate like royalty, feasting on the light, fluffy, and delicate (both in flavor and texture) yumminess.
I will warn that this is not the easiest recipe I've ever posted. In fact, if you lack the proper patience it's probably actually the hardest I've shared thus far. So with that in mind, use a light hand when folding the dough - you don't want to tear it. If it happens, don't hesitate to pinch the dough closed and put the dough in the fridge since it will start oozing butter. So take your time, enjoy being a real-life badass pastry chef, and enjoy the end result even more!
Who doesn't love a good scone for breakfast? It's like a waffle that way. Most of us have probably had blueberry or chocolate or maybe even cinnamon chip scones, but how common is a savory version?
I had run across this recipe about six months ago, and it sounded so unusual and so delicious that I tucked it away, ready to be pulled out in the right occasion. That occasion came around when I planned my Thanksgiving menu. Breakfast has a history of being all too often overlooked on that certain day, so on this Thanksgiving, my first un-adult-supervised one, I decided to start it off right.
These were perfect for the occasion - hearty, but not overly so, they satisfied without stuffing. And the bacon/smoked cheddar/scallion/fresh-ground pepper combo was fantastic and bold. Try them next time you have overnight guests - they're a very welcome surprise.
Click here for the recipe for "Savory bacon and scallion breakfast scones" »
I'll tell you a dirty little secret:
Alaskans eat Rudolph.
And he is delicious.
There are lots of things that one can do with reindeer sausage, like serving it as an appetizer, putting it in a soup, or... eating it with breakfast! My favorite way to have this particular bit of Alaskan fare is in an omlet or breakfast scramble. This is a great way to use the stuff you have in your pantry and vegetable drawer and makes a satisfying savory breakfast that will leave you smacking your lips, savoring the deliciousness. In fact, it's a variation of what I call my pantry scramble because it's something delicious you can make without having to make a special shopping trip for it. Because it's so convenient and delicious, I always make this when I have overnight visitors.
If you don't have reindeer sausage where you live, I suppose you could substitute another ingredient in (after all, this is a pantry scramble, it's made of whatever you happen to have on hand) like chicken or a different type of breakfast meat. Which brings to mind that one of the joys of this dish is that it will be different every time you make it.
When I woke up this morning i was craving something yummy and delicious and different than my usual oatmeal. Pancakes were sounding pretty delicious, but despite my large collection of health food and whole grain cookbooks, I failed to find a recipe that met my criteria whole ingredients I already had in my pretty well-stocked pantry and fridge (curses on forgetting to buy milk last time I was at the market!) exactly what I was looking for. Then I remembered a recipe that I had discovered around last Thanksgiving.
I'm, well, a pumpkin fiend, and this recipe had some whole grains in it, so it was looking like a strong contender. And luckily, it called for soy milk (something I always keep on hand for oatmeal) instead of the from-cow variety. We have a winner!
Now might be a good time to expound on the flour I used. No, white whole wheat is not in any way related to the nutritionally devoid all-purpose flour or flour used to make white bread. It is an honest-to-god whole grain flour with all the bran and germ, but made with a different variety of wheat. Most flour comes from red wheat, which is a more strongly wheaty-tasting (and more bitter or sour to some tastebuds) flour when ground in its whole state. White whole-wheat flour is more mild and can be more readily substituted into baked goods. So when I was making these waffles in which I use a fairly heavy hand with the pumpkin pie spices, I wanted the pumpkin and the spice flavors to shine, not the wheat. Since I didn't want to sacrifice the nutrition, white whole wheat was the clear choice.
White whole wheat flour is a little more difficult to find but it is gaining in popularity since at least a few Americans want to use more healthy grains but aren't gaga over the way whole-wheat flour tastes. I use King Arthur Flour's variety, but Hodgson Mill and and Bob's Red Mill also produce it.
The flavor results of the flour substitution? Undetectable. This recipe definitely hits the spot.
Click here for the recipe for "Whole-grain pumpkin spice waffles with blueberry syrup" »
I'm normally a fan of healthy breakfasts -- y'know, oatmeal, whole-grain low-fat muffins, or multi-grain pancakes or waffles. Every once in a while though, an indulgence is so much fun.
The first time these pancakes got busted out was a couple of weeks ago when a new bunch of people was assigned to me. I thought a good icebreaker would be a big breakfast feed, so everyone signed up to bring an ingredient. I nominated a couple of trusty helpers and we went down to the kitchens to cook this meal for thirty people.
These pancakes were certainly yummy, but I had a sneaking suspicion I wasn't doing the recipe justice. See, the recipe has you fold in beaten-into-peaks egg whites and I could tell that by the time the batter met the griddle -- hours after everything had been mixed together -- the volume was definitely lower. I was pretty sure these pancakes could be even lighter and fluffier.
This morning, I tested that theory. The result has me pretty well convinced I'll never order pancakes in a restaurant again. Why would I, when I could make these at home??? They're so sinfully delicious, so light and fluffy. And the aroma as the batter is mixed is indescribable.
The next time you feel like treating yourself -- or someone you love -- make up a batch of these. I know I'll be making these for my favorite person when he comes to visit in ten days! (squeeeeeeeeeeee!)
Click here for the recipe for "Blueberry buttermilk pancakes" »
I've always been a breakfast person. Not really in the way that many other Americans are, where they like lots of eggs and bacon and other really unhealthy and non-nutritious foods, but more in the way that I like to get something healthy in my tummy that will stick with me until my mid-morning snack. This is sufficiently different, versatile, receptive to substitutions, and, of course, yummy, to meet all of my needs. They do take longer to cook than their gloppy rolled cousin, so I cook a week's worth at a time and reheat as I need it. Nowadays it's impossible to open my fridge without finding a massive batch of these oats, just waiting for their turn to be consumed.
And just look at them! It's easy to see why!
Click here for the recipe for "Indulgent Irish oatmeal with berries" »