I’ve had my eye on the chocolate chip coffee cake that Madeline wrote about a few weeks back. It sounded so good. And although I HATE sour cream with a passion, I decided to give it a try on Sunday. The few recipes that have caught my eye on Everything Rachael Ray have been really good, so I figured this would be a cinch for a yummy hot Sunday breakfast.

The morning started out as okay as can be — I got up, let the dogs out, got Will up and set out to make breakfast. Everything was going fine. I softened the butter, creamed it with the sugar and set about to mix in the eggs.

Note to Self #1: DO NOT TRY TO CARRY TWO EGGS IN ONE HAND WHILE PREGNANT.

Clumsy me (and yes, I am BLAMING it on being pregnant) dropped one of the eggs, spilling some juices into the fridge and the rest onto my kitchen floor. AWESOME. But it cleaned up quickly and I went about cooking.

Note to Self #2: DO NOT TRY TO ADD AN EGG TO THE MIXER WHILE IT’S ON, WHILE PREGNANT.

It must have been clumsy me adding the first egg to the mixer because I slipped and dropped the shell in while it was whirling — crunch, crunch, crunch.

Back to the old drawing board. I considered giving up at this point, but I was completely unwilling to let some coffee cake outwit me. So I forged on, started over, learned from my mistakes and got the darn thing in the oven.

This better be good.

About five minutes into cooking, I realized that I forgot an ingredient — baking soda. Fortunately it also has baking powder so I just hoped for the best. The cooking time was 30-35 minutes, at 32 minutes I checked it — not done. I set the timer for another 4 minutes. Still not done. I set it for another 12 minutes, since it was REALLY not cooked yet.

Why won’t this darned thing cook?

All I could remind myself was that at least it smells good (and if I can ever EAT it, I bet it will taste good too). When the timer went off, I had high hopes . . . and it was much further along. Just not done yet. Another four minutes.

This thing better be done now.

Finally, the knife (cake tester) came out clean. I didn’t even wait more than a minute before slicing it up and calling everyone to eat. Tasty? Yes. Worth making it again? Yes. I just wish I knew why this took me close to an hour to cook . . .

You can check out the recipe here. If you try it, let me know how long it takes you to cook it.

The few notes I have are:

• try substituting the 1/4 cup of sugar for 1/4 cup of brown sugar in the topping (and maybe adding a tbsp or two of flour).
• try using dark chocolate chips instead of semisweet
• don’t expect the timer to tell you when the coffee cake is done

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Chocolate is high in antioxidants, making this a great post for Sweetnicks‘ ARF/5-a-Day Tuesdays.

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.

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 was much more daring this week with my breakfast. We had Ina Garten’s Maple Roasted Bacon, hash browns, a cheddar omelet split between Will and Shawn, and French toast. Talk about carb overload.

Secret of making good breakfast #1: Lower the temperature on the burner!
You would think I already knew this, but the truth is that it’s not something that ever crossed my mind – until today. Rather than using my typical medium (5 on my stove) setting, I set the burners to 4 – or medium low. Well, except for the hash browns, which remained on 5. And guess what? Everything came out perfectly except for those darned hash browns (though Shawn pointed out that the, um, extra crispy hash browns were a huge improvement over the last time I made them when they were undercooked). Live and learn.

With the French toast, it was a pleasant surprise not to burn it (the spoils of using a lower temperature!). And it was the most flavorful French toast I’ve ever eaten. I’d say that’s good. The number of servings it produced (three slices of French toast) surprised me, but it’s easy enough to double. And if you are like me and like variety at breakfast, one slice is a perfect accompaniment to eggs and perhaps a little fruit.

The bacon recipe by Ina Garten, better known as the Barefoot Contessa, was not only simple and easy, but it made clean-up a cinch. The one thing I would change is that next time, I would line the drip pan with aluminum foil so I could just wrap up the grease and throw it out. Other than that, the Maple Roasted Bacon was fabulous – just the right mix of sweet and salty. Mmmm.

Now, here’s the funny thing about the meal. The omelet? That was supposed to be scrambled eggs, but I forgot to scramble them while they were cooking. Oops. And more funny, it’s the first perfect omelet I have made in . . . well, a long time. Sorry, no recipe to go with that though, since it was completely unplanned.

See also Spinach and Cheddar Egg White Omelet.

2 large eggs
2 tbsp skim milk
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 slices bread (white is what I used – a light wheat or raisin could be good too)

Whisk together eggs and milk. Add the cinnamon and vanilla extract and whisk together.

On the stove, preheat a griddle over medium-low heat. Spray with cooking oil.

Dredge one slice of bread through the egg mixture on both sides. Place on griddle. Cook, about 5-7 minutes per side (flip over when side facing down is golden brown).

Sprinkle with powdered sugar just before serving.

Ina Garten’s Maple Roasted Bacon
serves 4
from Barefoot Contessa at Home

8 slices bacon
maple syrup (the real stuff, not Mrs. Butterworth’s)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Lay bacon slices on the rack of a roasting pan (I used the broiler pan from my oven; Ina also suggests that you could use an oven rack over a baking sheet).

Put the bacon in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes (I did about 16.5 minutes), until beginning to crisp. Remove carefully from the oven and brush each bacon slice with maple syrup.

Return to oven and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes.

Transfer bacon to a paper towel lined plate. Serve immediately.

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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.

Cinnamon toast anyone?

Cinnamon toast happens to be a favorite breakfast for both Will and I. It could have something to do with the fact that I am a disaster when it comes to traditional breakfast foods. Pancakes burn, eggs dry out, sausage turns to rubber … it’s a curse. But one I want to reverse with practice.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I haven’t wanted to know how to cook breakfast foods well – I have. It’s just that after repeated bad incidents I got a bit worn down on the whole thing. However I do plan on working hard at my breakfast skills over the next few months and posting the results each Sunday . . . particularly because Will can now speak and tell everyone how Mommy doesn’t make him breakfast (the way I told my math teacher that I didn’t eat breakfast and that my mother was okay with it in 6th grade. Oh the horror. She asked though!).

So Sunday breakfast this week? Cinnamon toast. Simple. Easy. Tasty. Check back next week for another breakfast.

4 slices white bread
1 tbsp butter
equal parts good cinnamon and sugar

Toast the bread.

Divide the butter amongst the four slices evenly and spread well.

Combine equal parts cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over the slices. Tilt to remove any excess.

Serve immediately.