Hello everyone,

Sunday Breakfasts has to be postponed this week due to lack of time. Although I have written a partial post and made what I intended to, I just don’t have time to finish it before we head off on a week’s getaway.

I hope you all have a fantastic week. See you back here next week!

In the dead of winter, a favorite breakfast around my house are Belgium waffles with strawberry sauce and fresh whipped cream. Once upon a time, my husband would purchase frozen strawberries in syrup in the grocery store’s freezer.

But when I started cooking more and started shrugging off premade foods, I started making our strawberry sauce at home. Not only is it less expensive, but we know for sure what’s in it and where it came from. Totally goes with my green living aspirations, eh?

Also, though this recipe is for a big quantity, it can easily be halved or quartered to meet your specific needs.

(In the interest of full disclosure, the strawberries at right are not from our strawberry picking adventures . . . Just sayin’.)

1 cup sugar

Sunday afternoon was a blast. My good friend Virtual Frolic, Will and I went to Jones Family Farms in Shelton, Conn., to pick strawberries. It was the perfect day for it — not too hot, a nice breeze and a good amount of sun.

As a little girl, I used to go strawberry picking with my grandmother every year. It was among my favorite activities. I remember teeming with anticipation, waiting for the little sign to appear and point the way toward the pick-your-own farm near where we lived. Then, I would start asking when we would go. Incessantly. When we finally went, I would eat as many strawberries as I picked and ultimately leave covered from head to toe in red strawberry stains. One year in particular, there was intolerable heat under the bright sun . . . but that didn’t stop me. And when we’d get home, the first thing on my mind was eating more berries.

I daresay this will be an annual tradition for us, as it was for my grandmother and I.

Fortunately, Will eats his berries plain. Me, on the other hand? For years and years I would dip the berries in powdered sugar when consuming. In fact, I still do once in awhile when I want a taste of childhood.

Special thanks to VF for the great pictures – of course I left my camera in the car! Isn’t that always the way? And a double thanks for carrying my gigundo box of strawberries all the way so I could carry Will.

2. Place in a flat layer on a baking sheet or in a freezer safe container.

Okay, yes. I was supposed to post this two days ago . . . but things got busy. My apologies. The good news is that this week’s Sunday Breakfasts will appear early — on Saturday instead.

The recipe is based on one from Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten (yes, the Barefoot Contessa again). The original recipe (Tri-Berry Muffins) called for blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, but I decided to take advantage of quite ripe leftover banana in my fruit stash and switch it up a bit. Rather than a bold banana taste, these have a light banana flavoring that doesn’t overwhelm the blueberries or any other bit of the muffin.

And, since these muffins contain a good deal of anti-oxidant rich blueberries, they are a perfect submission for Sweetnicks’ ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. Check out Cate’s site tonight for other great antioxidant rich recipes.

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What is Sunday Breakfasts?
Breakfast is daunting for me, to say the least. Pancakes burn, eggs dry out, sausage turns to rubber … it’s a curse. But one I want to reverse with practice. But I am working hard to reverse the curse. Each Sunday for the next few months, I will be posting a breakfast – including the hits and misses. And when it’s all over, I will hopefully have conquered my kitchen in the morning.

See these little buggers? Normally, I hate them. I can’t quite place what it is about them – the excess saltiness or the vinageriness or what. But I hate them. Normally.

‘Cept, right now, I love them. I crave them. I want to bring big, fat ones home and stuff them with gorgonzola cheese and devour them. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the past hour. I want stuffed green olives. NOW.

I know, I know. This is one of the downsides of pregnancy – wanting foods you normally hate. Wanting them obsessively. About a month ago it was biscuits from KFC. I couldn’t get enough of them. Thank goodness that one passed. All along it’s been fruit too. Lots and lots and lots of fruit. At least it’s on the healtier side.

With Will, it was salt. Lots and lots of salt. A little secret? I bought frozen hot pretzels and ate the large grains of salt out of the package sans pretzel. Weird, I know. He also made me crave sausage and pepper grinders. I can’t tell you how many of those I consumed.

None of this is making me feel any better. Still want those tasty little stuffed olives . . . mmmm . . . where’s my husband? I think he needs to run out to the store.

Photo courtesy of MorgueFile.

The good news is that I had tremendous success grilling clams in beer on my parents’ gas grill this weekend. The bad news is I forgot my camera and have zero photo evidence to show for it. So how to grill clams on a gas grill will be a story for another day, I guess. Perhaps next week. They were really good.

I’ve been craving some unusual things lately, but the combination that surprised me the most was a light black bean and corn dish. Cold. These just aren’t ingredients I mix together under ordinary circumstances. And when I do, they are usually mixed up hot in a Southwest flavored dish. Not so with this. Instead it’s a salad with a light dressing. The result was tasty – and my mother enjoyed it a lot too so it’s not just for pregnant folk.

Good thing that this dish contains two vegetables and antioxidant-rich black beans too, because that means I can submit this for Sweetnicks‘ ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays this week.

1 cup black beans
1 cup corn
1 cup diced cucumbers
3/4 cup feta, crumbled
1/8 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Combine the black beans, corn, cucumbers and feta in a bowl.

Stir together the lemon juice, olive oil, cayenne pepper and salt. Pour over the black bean mixture.

For best results, chill for several hours before serving.

For once, I planned this breakfast menu days in advance. It actually started with the biscuit. When I saw the recipe on A Year in Bread, I knew it was something I had to try (particularly since I’ve had a monster craving for biscuits this pregnancy). But what to pair with it?

Being that it’s Father’s Day weekend, I wanted to make this a meal that my husband would enjoy. I started thinking of his breakfast favorites – corned beef hash, Eggs Benedict, Belgium waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. I don’t like to have more than one bread in a meal so the waffles were automatically discounted. But hash? Normally it’s a fatty dish, but I had a hunch that with a little work it could be not so bad. And since he loves lavender, I thought that would add a wonderful flavor he’d love.

All in all, this was a great breakfast – although we had it for dinner on Saturday instead of breakfast on Sunday (Shawn’s work schedule prevented an actual Father’s Day morning breakfast). The hash and poached egg on top were tasty. I love runny yolks on hash. Mmm. My husband suggested that a hollandaise or Bearnaise sauce would have been a great addition, but I wanted to spare the calories. Perhaps next time though. And as expected, he loved the flavor of the hash.

I have to admit though, I was disappointed with the biscuits though. They were dense and heavy, not light, fluffy and flaky like I anticipated. I suspect that was mostly poor preparation on my part, not a problem with the recipe. It’s definitely something I will attempt again in the future though. Can’t have total success, right?

2 tbsp butter
1 lb small red potatoes, diced into 1/4 inch chunks
1 lb ham steak, diced into 1/4-1/2 inch chunks
1 tsp dried lavender
1/4 tsp salt
drizzle olive oil

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the potatoes and cook, stirring frequently, for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through.

Reduce heat to low. Add the ham, lavender, salt and olive oil. Cook for another 5 minutes, until the ham is cooked through. Don’t forget to stir to keep the hash from sticking.

Boil 2-3 inches of water in a saucepan. Lower heat to medium.

Break egg into a bowl and tip into the saucepan. Cook 3-4 minutes, until whites are solid and yolk is cooked but runny. Lift out with a slotted spoon.

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What is Sunday Breakfasts?
Breakfast is daunting for me, to say the least. Pancakes burn, eggs dry out, sausage turns to rubber … it’s a curse. But one I want to reverse with practice. But I am working hard to reverse the curse. Each Sunday for the next few months, I will be posting a breakfast – including the hits and misses. And when it’s all over, I will hopefully have conquered my kitchen in the morning.

I need a tried and true coffee cake recipe. What I am imagining is a cinnamon swirl coffee cake with the yummy streusel topping. But it cannot contain sour cream or an absurd amount of butter (I am beginning to think this is a tall order). I’ve searched the web and blogosphere and haven’t found what I am looking for yet.

Can anyone help me out? The baby needs coffee cake (it’s all I’ve been able to think about for two days).

McDonald’s Corp. is taking a new tactic to try and make people feel okay about eating their food and feeding it to their children. They are letting six women — all mothers — visit restaurants, processing plants, test kitchens and orchards. Then the women are going to journal, not blog because there will be no opportunity for public comment on the forum, about it. I think USA Today’s headline, “McDonald’s lets 6 moms tell it like it is,” just about says it all.

Except, I wasn’t born yesterday and claims by the company that they won’t be having any input on the journal entries, that the women are getting full access, that the food is actually okay for you . . . well, that just sounds like McDonald’s is trying to pull a thick curtain of wool over our eyes.

Seriously folks, why wouldn’t comments be allowed? That is one of the things that has allowed the blogosphere to flourish – the public dialogue. And who are these women exactly? What about when should instill confidence? Check out this bit about one of the panelists from the USA Today article cited above:

Joanna Canizares, a Miami postal worker, is one of the panelists. She takes her boys to McDonald’s about twice a week, but she worries about trans fats, she says, because her 8-year-old son is “addicted” to Chicken McNuggets.

Canizares says she knows nuggets may not be the ideal food, but “it’s the lesser of two evils” because her son sometimes refuses to eat anything else.

“It’s better than eating nothing — and at least it has some protein.”

Let’s boil this down a bit: if you fed the kids real food at home, they wouldn’t have a taste for the processed and pressed chicken-like substance that has been deep fried to oblivion.

According to McDonald’s website, the four chicken nuggets have 10 grams of protein (assuming the child is eating the regular Happy Meal and not getting a more gargantuan proportion). Meanwhile it’s also got 10 grams of fat and 250 milligrams of sodium. So that “protein” she’s touting as the saving grace to the meal really shies in comparison to all the heart-stopping bad things that are in those nuggets. And that doesn’t even consider the side dish and drink he’s eating too.

Now, if Canizares was eating at home and served a grilled chicken breast (or roasted or whatever) – 4 oz, about half of a breast – to her child, he would consume 27.2 grams of protein – nearly three times the amount found in the nuggets – as well as only 1.5 grams of fat and 76.7 milligrams of sodium. That chicken could be dressed up with delicious and exciting flavors too without impacting the nutritional value.

Obviously, it’s Canizares’ choice what her children eat and don’t eat. And if McDonald’s is okay with her, that’s her prerogative. But McDonald’s chose only women who eat there at least on occasion to participate in this program. What is occasionally though? That’s such a subjective phrase. And if the other women have similar habits to Canizares, won’t they be just a bit more forgiving because they want to feel okay about what their kids are eating?

(Just as a side note, the company says that the women aren’t being paid but their travel is covered by McD’s and they receive a laptop to keep.)

Let’s talk about full access for a minute. Who’s choosing where these women go? The women or the company? Are they going to the source – the slaughterhouses where the animals are killed for their meat? Are they seeing a variety of processing plants, test kitchens and restaurants? To me, all access would mean that these women could choose their destinations. I doubt that will be the case. Chances are McDonald’s will show the women the best of the best to put their best big red shoe forward. And chances are that they will avoid anywhere that would bring negative commentary. And really, you don’t think McDonald’s isn’t going to, um, edit what these women say at all?

If this program is one thing, it’s a brilliant marketing scheme. After all, it’s got people talking. And these women will likely say lovely things about the company and leave feeling much better about their McDonald’s habits. But let’s be real. McDonald’s food is not healthy – it contains insulting amounts of fats (including trans fat) and sodium and lacks the good nutrients that real food has. Do I eat there? Sure, once in a blue moon. But I eat there out of convenience once every few months knowing that it isn’t good for me.

Me thinks the company doth protest too much. If McDonald’s was really serious about appealing to the health conscious consumer, they would clean up their act: eliminate the trans fats now; get their meat from humane slaughterhouses; quit over processing food; offer truly healthy alternatives instead of salads wrought with partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrups; and just be honest. And don’t tell me that publishing their nutritional content (required by law) and ingredients makes them honest. McDonald’s works overtime to fool consumers into believing their food isn’t that bad. Check out their recent ads in magazines like Parents!

Frankly, these women aren’t going to be telling it like it is. Let some real journalists in there to investigate the company’s processes and maybe I will consider believing the outcome. Anything else is just an insult to my intelligence.