Breakfast – Hungry for Louisiana

4 crazy fast and easy weekday breakfast ideas

August 31, 2016

The weekday breakfast is like your taxes – required, but a big pain to get over the finish line. Despite what we’re told about its nutritional and social importance, it’s often a fleeting and unsatisfying moment in which food is unceremonious forced onto the plates (or into the hands) of young people as their parents suck down coffee and shoo everyone out the door. And now, here across south Louisiana, the daily sprint is further compounded by a post-flood reality with epic traffic, upended schedules and temporary housing. There’s a lot of stress out there.

So this week, I’m offering four easy breakfast dishes that are intended to provide some inspired calm. Yummy and healthy, they intentionally use minimal ingredients, and part or all of them can be put together the night before.

Breakfast, Eggs, Fresh produce, Hungry for Louisiana

Good Mornings: Eggs baked in muffin tins fast and easy – Updated and Expanded!

May 2, 2016

I’ve just updated this post to include a veggie version of these easy and delicious muffin tin eggs. This is a great way to use fresh produce before it goes bad. Enjoy!

Breakfast, Budget, Easy, Eggs, Local, Louisiana, Vegetables

Easy, fast and cheap: Sweet potato-spinach frittata

January 20, 2016

Frittatas are fast, affordable, easy and the perfect vessel for leftover meats, herbs and veggies. If they’re not yet in your repertoire, it’s time to give these quick-cooking, crust-free egg tarts a try. They’re versatile in flavor and in texture, and depending on the fat content of the dairy products, they can be rich and unctuous or lean and healthful. They’re a great use of Louisiana’s year-round local produce, and they can be served hot, cold or at room temperature. And, clean up is easy since you use minimal equipment.

One of my favorite flavor combinations in a frittata is sweet potato and spinach. Here’s how to make it….

Boudin, Breakfast, Restaurants

Good and fast: Breakfasts-to-go in Baton Rouge

October 7, 2015

Okay, it’s Saturday morning.

Where do you go for breakfast when you’re short on time and not inclined to wait for a table? (I’m not talking about fast food sausage biscuits, although I admit to occasional trashy lust).

Lately, this is the situation I’ve found myself in, as my husband and I juggle early morning swim practice, cross country meets and general family insanity. As nice as it would be to linger over a carefully composed plate of eggs Benedict, it ain’t happening on our Saturday schedule. I want something yummy, but I need it to go.

The good news is that there are plenty of delicious breakfast eats you can get on the fly around town. Here are a few of my favorites.

Tiger Deaux-nuts

Tiger Deaux-nuts on Government Street in Mid City has made a name for itself with gourmet cake-style doughnuts in trendy flavors, including maple bacon, caramel apple and strawberry lemon basil. Don’t look for a large case of pre-made pastries in this stripped-down eatery. The small batch doughnuts are made throughout the morning. Less known on the menu, but equally appealing, are the sweet-savory breakfast sandwiches. Layers of fried egg, cheese and either bacon, sausage or a boudin patty are stuffed between two halves of a grilled unglazed doughnut. Yum. Just yum.

Kolache Kitchen

I love this place. Fruit-filled or savory kolaches, breakfast tacos, stuffed-to-oblivion empanadas, sweet rolls and other stuff, the Kolache Kitchen has more hand-held breakfast items than you have room to eat. And the kolache dough is made fresh on site. I’m a big fan of the breakfast taco with chorizo, and my son is still dreaming about his spicy sausage and cheese empanada. Great prices, too.
Locations on Nicholson and Jefferson.

Strands

Downtown parking is not so awful on Saturday mornings, enabling you to dart into Strands on Laurel Street, a European-style bakery with a pastry counter brimming with beauty. Check out the plump cinnamon rolls, Australian scones and all manner of plain and stuffed croissant. There are also frittatas and great coffee and tea. Hours vary. Definitely call first.

Whole Foods Market, Baton Rouge

Before I take a thrashing about Whole Foods being a national chain, let me say that they do a great job of supporting local farmers and food producers, and I’m digging that Mississippi River mural in the newly renovated cafe area. In the morning hours, the hot food buffet features changing breakfast items, including breakfast pizzas, scrambled eggs, grits, biscuits, Belgian waffles and so on. And when they’re not on the buffet, the store stocks freshly made breakfast tacos and breakfast bagels in a case near the deli meats. They’re hot and delicious, and breakfast doesn’t get much faster.

4th of July, Breakfast, Desserts, Figs, Fresh produce, Fruit, Louisiana

Figging out: Fresh fig cake

June 29, 2015

The figs have started to ripen here in South Louisiana, and a couple of days ago, we started harvesting the sweet fat fruit from our backyard tree – braving mosquitoes and trying to beat the birds. Some days we eat every last fig over the sink within minutes of giving them a rinse. Other days I manage to set some aside and share them with my friends, especially my next-door neighbor, Martha. She paid me back for fresh figs once with a really yummy fig cake. It’s a great use of figs – super moist with a light, but sturdy texture and pleasant, subtle fig flavor. The recipe, Martha tells me, is modified from the Junior League of Monroe’s popular 1972 cookbook, The Cotton Country Collection. Tone down the sugar, and it makes a super breakfast cake. Here it is, below.

Blueberries, Breakfast, Desserts, Fruit, Local, Louisiana, Peaches

Summer fruit sauce perfect for pain perdu or pound cake

May 28, 2015

You know summer is here when long-awaited fruits emerge. Lately, I’ve been picking up pints of blueberries from our local farmers market, and my own backyard blueberries and blackberries (so easy to grow here!) are ripening like crazy. My kids and I try to head outside early so we can harvest them before the birds beat us to it. It’s a mad rush. Fresh blueberries make their way into lots of different recipes in my kitchen, but one of my favorites is a fast and easy fruit sauce that’s a perfect topper for dessert or a sweet breakfast.

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