change is good

what's even better on french toast than butter and confectioner's sugar? nutella. i'm moving away from my childhood affection to a more refined pairing. or, you know, whatever tastes good. my recipe for individual frenchtoast:

in a shallow bowl, mix:

1 egg yolk

pinch of vietnamese cinnamon

a hearty smattering of nutmeg

a dribble of madagascar vanilla

one good squirt of agave

enough almond milk for 4 slices bread

cut four 1/2 inch slices of italian bread, drown each side in mixture for the count of 5. lay onto well oiled grill for 3 minutes each side (i use coconut oil). if necessary add more milk to mixture if it becomes too depleted before you've dunked the fourth slice, mix well. warm plate under grill if possible. plate up the slices as they become ready (softly browned on each side). using butter knife, generously slather nutella onto each hot slice. pick up fork, eat, enjoy, and say yes to breakfast for dinner.

breakfast foods x 3

most people have comfort foods they favor. i realized the other day that my favorite foods are breakfast ones. it's the one meal i don't have to agonize over. it's a bowl of hearty whole grain cereal with unsweetened almond milk, two slices of manna bread with nutella and sliced strawberries or blueberries or blackberries.

the day before, i was home, it was lunchtime, i was low on groceries and hungry. so i took some strawberries out of the 5 lb bag of ones i picked last thursday, sliced them and put them in a pan along with raw sugar and gelatin. boiled, reduced and poured into a jar. i toasted myself an english muffin, slathered it in irish butter, with a scoop of fresh strawberry preserves and they were so yummy! for dinner i made lovely oatmeal on the stove and poured it over frozen wild blueberries, red raspberries, fresh strawberries, irish butter, crushed pecans, and a dollop of local savannah bee company acacia honey. breakfast foods are definitely delicious times three! the main combo is grain + butter + sugar + fruit = yum!

some others i enjoy at times are:
~whole grain toast with butter and a sprinkle of vietnamese cinammon and raw sugar
~farina with irish butter and local honey
~whole grain pancakes with mango, blueberries, and crushed pecans or walnuts

what are your favorite breakfast foods?

somewhere to sit and eat

the dolls in the dollhouse can finally sit down and have some breakfast. oatmeal, actually. the table hunt was successful; the cafe style table is a perfect size for the kitchen, not too big nor too small.
i also found a table for the living room, but i wasn't 100% sure of it at the time. i thought i was prepared to go to the dollhouse store, camera in hand, detailed list of needs and wants, in the vain hope of not becoming overwhelmed. i grabbed the above table right away, then saw one next to it that had real possibility for the main dining area. tables in hand, off i went to look for chairs to pair with it. and that, dear folks, is how one starts looking at the want list and adding things. but somehow after an hour and a half, i pulled through, two purchases poorer; purple flowers for the upstairs hallway and a table for the kitchen.

a 2 hour car trip later, upon arriving home and putting said table in it's new locale, i had second thoughts of the other table. about how the glimmer of that mirror, the shade of that frame would correspond fantastically against the table. about how dark the little nook is, how this one piece of furniture would brighten and draw attention. and i doubted my choice in not getting both tables. alas, good thing for telephones and the mail system.
the little table looked alone in the kitchen, so i pulled out my box of old furniture and placed two chairs from the previous dining set along side the sleek new marble top. looking at the pairing i thought, "this actually doesn't look that bad, i actually like the warmth of the wood in correspondence with the cool steel and glossy white." and so they stayed.