Tag: savory breakfast

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The Savory Breakfast Revolution is Alive and Well!

If I can make my husband shake his head and say WTF to a new recipe idea, I know I’m probably on the right track.

This one was inspired by a new condiment we got in our swag bags from the Portland Wedge cheese festival in October. Kindly provided by Rogue Creamery was a blue cheese powder. My mind was on fire with all of the fun things I could do with it – popcorn topping, mashed potatoes, very sophisticated mac ‘n cheese, creamy soups. Then out of nowhere a new idea emerged…

Savory granola with blue cheese powder.

Weird, I know, but stay with me. I took my usual sweet granola recipe and turned it on its head. Oats combined with smoked almonds, pepitas, chopped pecans, black sesame seeds and the blue cheese powder bound together by coconut oil, a bit o’ honey with a dash of Worcestershire sauce to harken back to the Chex mix days of my youth. Stirred together and baked in the oven. The house smelled AMAZING! It wasn’t as nicely chunky as the sweet variety, probably due to the insufficient sugar product to bind, but the taste did not suffer one bit. This morning I topped some cottage cheese with this new creation and it hit every right savory note. I think I’ll try it on plain Greek yogurt too; that’s usually sweet, but I bet we can bribe it over to the dark and savory side with this yummy topping. If I can keep my kids from eating it right out of the bowl that is. Oh and my husband? Yeah, he’s a believer now.

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Breaking Breakfast Rules

Breakfast and its cousin brunch are often a desert wasteland for those of us of the savory persuasion. You have your breakfast cereals; sugary nuggets bathed in milk. What else is dunked in milk and eaten? That’s right, cookies. Basically they are the same thing. Or you stay over at a friend’s house and they go out of their way to make you a special breakfast… 10 to one you are getting pancakes or waffles. I can feel my blood sugar plummeting now. You say smoothie, I say fruit milkshake. And please explain to me how breakfast bars are any different from bar cookies?

Too much sweet! Don’t get me wrong, I like dessert. Just not for breakfast.

When I was a kid, I was the weird-o who made toasted cheese sandwiches or ate leftover cold pizza or even fried rice for breakfast. Travelling in Japan was a dream come true – savory breakfast stuff everywhere! Ramen, rice and miso oh my! Same with Eastern Europe; nothing wrong with charcuterie to start the day in my book.

My kids are apples that have stuck pretty close to my tree on the breakfast front. This has presented some opportunities for creativity over the years. One result was the development of savory oatmeal. Hear me out and don’t scrunch your face all up like that. Oatmeal is just a grain so no reason why it can’t be savory. Think rice pilaf or risotto and you kind of get the picture. So next time you are making oatmeal for breakfast (we use steel cut, but any variety works), cook it in broth instead and top it with savory delights like cheese, nutritional yeast, green onions, green chiles, salsa, beans, smoked almonds. It works.