Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, yet one I rarely get to enjoy. It’s one of the reasons I love Saturdays so much. Throughout the work week, the morning meal is often relegated to grab-and-go items like cold Greek yogurt or a breakfast bar from a box. Saturdays though, are different. I relish in the weekends when I have the opportunity to catch a few extra z's and arise well-rested to a clean kitchen. It’s then that I get the bacon sizzling in the pan, whip up some farm fresh eggs, butter the toast and fire up the Keurig.
On a cool fall morning recently when my husband, Kurt, and I were enjoying such a Saturday morning together, I decided to make a comforting batch of pumpkin pancakes. After a quick browse of the internet, I found a tempting recipe garnished with blueberries and set about making the batter. With a few good tablespoons of butter in my warm cast iron skillet, pretty soon we had a stack of deep orange-colored flapjacks with slightly crispy edges. The familiar scent of cinnamon, nutmeg and pumpkin pie spices filled the house, and the hot coffee tasted even better with my pumpkin spice creamer.
I don’t just cook breakfast for my husband and I. When we have family or friends in town, I’ll rise (not so early) and make a good old-fashioned country breakfast for everyone. My mom and dad visited recently, and while they were on their second cup of coffee, I got busy in the kitchen. I scrambled half a dozen eggs with cream and got a pot of grits simmering on the stovetop. Kurt took out a loaf of wheat bread and lightly buttered several slices, then topped the slices with thin strips of sharp cheddar cheese. I placed them under the broiler to crisp up. The cheese melts and the bread turns into a wonderful, crunchy piece of toast. That’s a trick I learned from Dad. Growing up, he would make this cheese toast and I could never eat just one piece. The funny thing is, his dad made it too, and the simplicity and nostalgia of it can bring us both to tears today. A proper breakfast always needs some meat, so I cooked up some mild sausage patties and thick-cut bacon to round out the meal. With a fresh bowl of strawberries, blueberries and blackberries sprinkled with a little sugar to balance the tartness, we had a satisfying breakfast as we talked over our plans for Christmas and what the day would bring.
If you’re like me with a full-time job or a schedule that doesn’t allow you to enjoy a morning meal, who says breakfast food has to be eaten in the a.m.? One of my favorite ways to break up the monotony of suppertime is eating breakfast for dinner. Cooking an omelet, some crispy hash browns or eating a bagel with cream cheese at 7 p.m. never made me feel more like a rebel.
It was American journalist John Gunther who said, “All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.” Now, I can raise a glass of orange juice to that!
Georgia native Rebekah Faulk Lingenfelser is a food enthusiast, writer and the cooking show host of SKG-TV on YouTube. The personality behind the blog, SomeKindaGood.com, she is a public relations graduate of Georgia Southern University and attended Savannah Technical College’s Culinary Institute of Savannah. Search Facebook for Some Kinda Good or tweet her @SKGFoodBlog.