Category: Breakfast

  • The 4 Best Healthy Breakfast Smoothies

    The 4 Best Healthy Breakfast Smoothies

    Desperation drove me into a health food shop the other day. It was an unusual day regardless of the health shop. It was a day dressed up to look like #newyearnewme, the only thing missing was a towel slung around my shoulders and a bottle of green juice or one of my newly acquired breakfast…

  • Healthy banana oat pancakes with pink peppercorn plums

    Healthy banana oat pancakes with pink peppercorn plums

    Banana oat pancakes were my fanfare for 2023. I lined up all the ingredients on my parents’ glittery red countertop (it’s not the only part of the new house that will be evicted but it will potentially be the most satisfying) and methodically measured everything into a jug then whizzed it all into a gloopy…

  • Easy Stovetop Maple Pecan Granola

    Easy Stovetop Maple Pecan Granola

    It’s often at this time of day – around 4pm – that my stomach alarm clock tinkles gently. It’s not the alarming buzz of the one which always inconveniently rings whenever there’s a moment of silence whilst in company; my physio is very polite and hasn’t mentioned it yet. But at 4pm I am alerted…

  • French recipe: Pain au Chocolat

    French recipe: Pain au Chocolat

    What are the first three foods that come to mind when you think of France? Take your time, I will wait. Ready? Let’s see – I assume baguettes are up there? Baguettes seem to grow like grass here. What about delicate pastries like eclairs? Or their 1600 cheeses? Basically, anything involving butter? France is pretty…

  • The 4 Best Toast Toppings

    The 4 Best Toast Toppings

    The easiest snack in the world. It’s a piece of cake, or should I say, toast. If there is a snack that can withstand all weathers, it is toast. From Welsh rarebit dripping with cheese in the winter to summer bruschetta with tomatoes and basil, toast is an ideal vehicle for taking those toppings from…

  • How to make crumpets

    How to make crumpets

    Gaylord will be the first to tell you that I am a messy cook. According to him, when he’s faced with the washing up which I always insist ‘really isn’t that much’, I have somehow managed to use every pan that we own to make breakfast. In my defence, Turkish eggs – poached eggs served…

  • Apple and Custard Cinnamon Rolls

    Apple and Custard Cinnamon Rolls

    Unlike babka, whose introduction started with ‘the babka incident’, cinnamon rolls have always had a ubiquitous presence in my life. I don’t recall my first cinnamon roll, although while at university in Manchester, my friend Anthony and I once visited Rollers thanks to the intoxicating scent of cinnamon hitting us like a brick as we…

  • The Best BLT

    The Best BLT

    There’s been a change of plan. The essential guide to making your own French charcuterie board – taking us all one step closer to living with joie de vivre no matter where we are in the world – never got off the ground. Instead of cheese and cured meats, there came a vicious cold and…

  • French Toast Muffins with Strawberries and Miso

    French Toast Muffins with Strawberries and Miso

    We have all heard of French toast. But French toast muffins? With strawberry and miso? Last weekend, I hosted a brunch. This wasn’t my first foray into breakfast parties as I’d cooked a spread of pancakes for my 26th birthday, and we all got drunk on Bloody Marys. As usual I never remember to take…

  • Apple, maple and thyme porridge

    Apple, maple and thyme porridge

    Is there such a thing as a French breakfast? In many ways, France is considered to be THE country of sophistication – think long thin cigarettes (back when they were cool though), black turtlenecks (yesterday, at least three of us rocked one and, interestingly, I was the only female), and a glass of wine in…