Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Breakfast: How Not to Be Boring

Breakfast can be the most repetitive meal of the day for the average American with minor cooking skills. A lot of us who don't have the luxury of eating out every day get stuck with the same foods over and over like cereal, bacon and eggs, sausage, toast, bagels, english muffins, and other reasonable breakfast-y type foods. Sometimes having scrambled eggs is the best thing in the world, but other times it just gets boring really fast.

I went out searching for interesting ways to cook eggs because eggs are delicious and keep me full throughout the day better than hot or cold cereal. I finally stumbled across little mini omelets baked in a muffin tin from Nerd Fitness and decided to try them.

Two eggs, a batch of diced up onions, and three slices of bacon later I had these lovely little egg cakes wrapped in bacon. Of course, I didn't stop there and had two slices of toast with butter and some Strawberry/Cocoa fruit spread that I got from our local Farmer's Market.

This filled me up all day! I didn't even have much of a lunch or dinner just because I wasn't hungry. I had a little chicken wrap for my lunch and some crackers as my home from work snack along with lots of water, but I really wasn't hungry. Best of all, it was really easy to do. The hardest part of making the meal was figuring out how long to cook the eggs for in the oven because it was my first time baking eggs.

The moral of this little story is to wake up earlier in the morning to prepare and bake these eggs for your family. They are delicious, easy to make, and the pay off is fantastic! I just have to remember I said that so I'll wake up earlier on Sunday and prepare these little things again for my entire family. They will love them.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

The Phenomenon of Mug Cakes

Moistest Very Vanilla Mug Cake from Table for Two
Remember that one fateful day on the internet when you got really bored and started getting interested in cooking because your roommate could cook better than you?

I remember that day well. I have such a massive sweet tooth and I was looking for quick cakes and cookies. I stumbled upon the mug cake. It was quick and easy to make if you measured everything right. And it made the perfect amount for one person so you didn't have to share.

Then time passed and I forgot about the humble little mug cake. I had moved on to bigger cakes and fiddling with perfecting the proper cup of tea. Then cookies came out to play with a brief but still lingering interest in velvet cakes. Then the savory side of cooking called to me and the mug cake was all but forgotten. A novelty in a bookstore when you turned to your mom and scoffed that somebody actually published an entire cookbook on how to make different mug cakes.

Oh, sweet little tasty mug cake, forgive me in my arrogance. I see now that you are something special. Something to be written down in every family cookbook just waiting to be played with and perfected in each passing generation. Small enough to have big disasters with and big enough to satisfy a sweet craving especially made for one or two people. And the perfect way to make a cake without an oven as long as you have a microwave.

I bet you would be the perfect venue for finally figuring out my perfect red velvet cake.