Category: Breakfast

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Blog Breakfast

Breakfast in Belfast

This week I am visiting Northern Ireland for a family wedding. I’ll be making the most of the opportunity to taste some traditional delights of the local foodie scene, including the Ulster Fry, Potato Farls, Egg and Bacon Sodas and, of course, the legendary Belfast Bap!

Arriving in Belfast in the very early morning, off the overnight ferry from Liverpool, we headed to St. George’s Market on May Street, for breakfast.

St. George’s has been here in the city centre since the Victorian era. It is now the oldest survivor of the Markets District that grew up as the city began to thrive as a commercial port. Originally built for the sale of butter, eggs, poultry and fruit, it expanded over the years to include clothing, hardware and antiques.

In the 1980s it was threatened with closure, the costs of maintaining a Victorian building, the impact of the Troubles, and ever more stringent hygiene regulations, bringing severe challenges. However, a campaign by the City Council, traders and the public resulted in a Heritage Lottery Fund grant for the refurbishment of the building, making it fit for the 21st century.

That proved to be a truly inspired decision: with ever more people visiting Belfast in the years following the Good Friday Agreement, St.George’s swings into operation every weekend, its offering now including a high quality range of local, traditional food and drink.

It had been a long sailing from Liverpool, and seeing these tempting piles of freshly baked Potato Breads, Baps and Soda Farls heightened my appetite!

After a walk around the stalls, we settled on Sizzle and Roll, as shown in my main photo at the top of the post.

I opted for a Belfast Bap, shown above. It is a large, soft floury bread roll, my choice of filling being rashers of bacon, tomato, Cashel Blue cheese, rocket leaves, crispy onions and onion relish. My wife chose a mini Ulster Fry of bacon, egg and sausage served inside a toasted Soda Farl – the name for an individual portion of soda bread. Everything was cooked hot and fresh as we waited.

We bought our coffees from the S.D. Bell’s stall, which is one of Ireland’s oldest independent coffee roasters and tea merchants.

There is some excellent food for sale on the other market stalls – this home bakery had some interesting, freshly baked loaves of bread on offer.

St George’s is a great place to pass the time just wandering, checking out the diverse range of stalls, with everything from wet fish to original art, an amazing selection of local cheeses from all over Ireland, souvenirs and antique collectibles.

A hot tasty breakfast and a wonderful way to start our visit. Let’s hope the coming week brings more days like this! That reminds me of a song I’ll now add to the ADK Playlist by local boy, Van Morrison – here with Days Like This.

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Breakfast Recipes

Summer Fruit & Nut Acai Bowl

I’m home from my trip to France, to find that a spell of warm sunny weather may have finally arrived in the UK.

Reminded of the climate we enjoyed on our trip to Australia in the spring, I decided it was time to bring out the Acai powder I brought back in my suitcase, to make an Aussie-style smoothie bowl. Here it is, shown in my photo above, glinting in the British breakfast time summer sun.

We found Acai Bowls to be a popular choice in cafes and takeaway joints wherever we went in Australia. The Acai is usually served with combinations of cereal, fresh fruit and nuts (check out my earlier post on the crazy, yet delicious, peanut butter-infused option I enjoyed in Melbourne).

Acai (pronounced ah – sa – ee) is a dark purple berry grown in Brazil. It is rich in antioxidants, fibre and healthy fats, and believed to support heart health and cognitive function, while being low in sugar and calories. It tastes great, with a flavour reminiscent of dark chocolate, berries and red wine. It is suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

The berries do not travel well, so outside of Brazil they are sold in pulp form or as powder. I bought a pack of powder from Coles Supermarket in Melbourne, where it was available on the shelf, in several varieties. I have seen it in specialist health food shops here in the UK, but it is nowhere near as mainstream as it is Down Under.

For my Acai Bowl, I blended a tablespoon of Acai powder with two bananas and 3 tablespoons of Greek natural yoghurt. After a minute or so in the blitzer, it forms a thick purple cream that can then be poured on to cereal and topped with fresh fruit. This made enough for 2 Acai Bowls.

I poured it on to muesli and added some fresh strawberry that is grown locally. Just like Cristiano Ronaldo, the blueberries and kiwi are from Portugal. The crowning touch is some toasted brazil nuts, with a sprinkling of pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

It is the time of year to relax outside in the sun listening to good music on my ear buds. This week I’ve been revisiting an old playlist featuring The White Stripes, having forgotten how good they sound. Here they are with The Hardest Button to Button.

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Blog Breakfast

Sunshine Breakfast

Our Australian road trip has now reached the area known as the Sunshine Coast, just over an hour’s drive north of Brisbane.

The name is very apt, there being no shortage of beautiful bays with near-deserted golden sandy beaches and, of course, plenty of surf and warm sunshine. Here’s Alexandria Bay viewed from the coastal headland in Noosa National Park.

The sunshine does wonders for the abundance of fresh fruit growing here. As you can see from my main photo at the top of the post, I just had to put together a fresh fruit salad, with juicy mango, golden kiwi, red grapes, red plums, blueberries, raspberries, apple and banana – all local Queensland produce.

It has helped make what I call my Sunshine Breakfast, shown here over toasted Australian-grown oats and grains, and with thick, creamy Australian yoghurt. The crowning touch is a drizzle of honey from a jar I bought in the Blue Mountains. It is made from beehives in the eucalyptus forests there.

A bowl full of all-Australian Sunshine Breakfast. What a super way to start any day!

From one all-Australian classic to another, with the latest addition to the ADK playlist: this is Icehouse with Hey Little Girl.

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Blog Breakfast

G’day Sydney

After a 7 hour flight from Singapore, we arrived in downtown Sydney just before 8am. What better way to begin our stay in Australia than by having breakfast at one of the city’s excellent cafes.

My wife’s order is shown in the photo below: eggs benedict with spinach and bacon on sourdough toast, with balsamic drizzle.

I ordered smashed avocado on sourdough toast, with soft poached eggs. I especially liked the addition of crumbled feta and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

These were accompanied by a couple of long blacks (what we in the UK would call an americano) with milk.

There is a very strong cafe culture in Australia, and standards are high. The making of a cup of coffee is something of an art form.

Singapore also had a distinct culture in its kopitiams (coffeeshops). One very popular dish there was 2 lightly boiled, and still runny, eggs, served cracked into a shallow bowl, making a dip for kaya toast – toasted bread sandwiches with coconut jam.

Also a little different was kopi (white coffee made with condensed milk), and kopi C (white coffee with evaporated milk). Both had a pleasant enough taste, and seemed to work as part of the overall quirky kopitiam experience, though I can’t see either catching on back in the UK.

Or Australia for that matter – I shudder to think what the barista’s reaction would be if I asked them to open a tin of Carnation milk, and pour it into that long black they’ve been carefully crafting for the past 10 mins.

After breakfast, we’ll be picking up a hire car and heading out past the Opera House (see my main photo above) and Sydney Harbour Bridge into New South Wales. There really is only one song to be played when setting off on the start of an Australian road trip, so it’s time to add this track to the ADK Playlist: AC/DC with Highway to Hell.

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Breakfast Recipes

Seville Orange Marmalade

For these past few days, the ADK Kitchen has been passed over to my wife, Lesley, for the making of some Seville Orange Marmalade. I do, of course, have a vested interest in this, as I shall be scoffing a fair amount of it spread on toast for breakfast over the coming months (starting today, in fact – see my main photo above). Over to Lesley to explain…….

This time of year we have Seville oranges in our shops – the only time in the year when they are in season. Grown in Spain, their bitter taste and high pectin content makes the ideal marmalade – a traditional and uniquely tangy breakfast treat. I have vivid memories of my parents making jars and jars of this when I was little. It involved a major kitchen takeover at the time.

I set out to recreate it in the modern day, based on a recipe from Riverford. I was interested to see if the kitchen equipment available in the 2020s made the process any different from how it was in the 1970s. I found that using an electric slow cooker and a normal saucepan, I didn’t have to patiently keep watch over a large, boiling preserving pan for several hours, as my parents had done!

To ease on storage, I wanted to make just a couple of 1lb jars, rather than enough to last a full year – see the photo below.

The remaining oranges in the pack have been prepped and stored in the freezer, so that I can make another batch during the year, as a special treat when the oranges are no longer in season.

Servings

This makes 2 1lb jars (or 400 – 450ml each jar).

Timings

The first stage, in the slow cooker, takes 8 hours. The second stage takes 1 hour on the hob. Then allow 24 hours to cool and set.

You Will Need

  • a slow cooker with bowl of 3l capacity
  • 7 or 8 seville oranges (750g)
  • 1 lemon
  • 900ml cold water
  • 1kg granulated sugar
  • muslin cloth and string
  • 2 sterilised marmalade or jam jars to reuse

Method

Here are some photos I took as I went along. Instructions follow, below.

  1. Wash the oranges, and peel with a veg peeler. Chop the peel into shreds of the width that you like to have in your marmalade, whether fine or thick.
  2. Chop all the oranges and the lemon in half. Squeeze the juice from each into a bowl.
  3. Once the juice has been extracted, wrap the squeezed halves in the muslin cloth (I had a clean muslin curtain I had cut up) and scoop it up to make a bag of a size that will fit into your slow cooker bowl. Tie it around the neck with string.
  4. Put the juice, shreds and water into the slow cooker bowl. Place the muslin bag of fruit in the bowl with the neck of it draped over the side of it, held down by the lid (see photo).
  5. Cook for at least 8 hours on the high setting.
  6. 8 hours later, switch the slow cooker off and let it cool. Once cool, squeeze the rich pulpy residue, that has formed in the muslin bag, into the slow cooker bowl getting out all the lovely sticky juices formed from the pith, pips and pulp.
  7. Transfer the lovely orange scented juice to a normal saucepan, via a measuring jug, and place on the hob for the final high heat stage. I don’t think the slow cooker can achieve the fast boil you need for this. Add 450g of sugar for every 500ml of liquid. Begin with a low heat under the saucepan, and stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve the sugar so it doesn’t catch. You then increase the heat to a rolling boil once the sugar is dissolved – mine needed about 10 mins.
  8. Take a teaspoonful of the liquid and set it on a cold plate, gently pushing on it with the back of the spoon. If it wrinkles, it means the marmalade is at its setting point, which is what you are aiming for. If it isn’t wrinkling, test again (and again if necessary) every few minutes, until the wrinkling point is reached – this means it will set and be spreadable.
  9. Immediately remove from the heat and leave to stand for 15 mins. This short cooling time will mean the shreds will be evenly distributed in the jar and not all rise to the top.
  10. Taking care, spoon or pour the hot liquid into the sterilised jars, and screw on the lids (if you don’t have lids, use a piece of greaseproof paper cut into a circle on the surface of the marmalade, and another piece held on by an elastic band). Leave to cool until the next day.
  11. Open the jar at breakfast time, spreading the marmalade on toast with some butter and take in that orangey scent.

Thank you Lesley. I’ve just made a fresh pot of tea and popped another slice of harvest grain in the toaster. Lesley’s choice of track for the ADK playlist is very apt – Labelle with Lady Marmalade.

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Blog Breakfast

The Great British Breakfast!

Some people find January a tough month to get through. The buzz of Christmas has fizzled out, and the first payday of the year still seems to be an age away. It’s cold and frosty, and there are a few coughs and sniffles out there to navigate our way around.

So, what better way to blow away those winter blues, than starting the day with a Great British Breakfast! That’s the name given to the signature dish at our local Garden Centre Restaurant. Popular at the best of times, the queues are currently even longer than usual as, in a stroke of marketing genius, the Restaurant has decided to make the GBB available half price for the month of January.

Yes, this titan, ten item tray (see my photo above) can be yours for just £4.99 (North American friends, that’s just over $6). Those ten items are: 2 eggs, 2 sausages, 2 back bacon rashers, grilled tomato, fried mushrooms, baked beans and a hash brown. There are vegetarian and vegan options. In case that’s not enough to fill you up, there are also two slices of toast and butter. Oh, and a pot of tea.

We walked there early to beat the rush. The Restaurant was warm and bright – the winter sun streaming through the windows – and the atmosphere lively with tables filled with chattering local diners. The food was hot, tasty and filling, and set us up for a winter walk home afterwards, our boots crunching on the frost-encrusted paths.

If ever there was an illustration of how good food and service can perk up the community’s sense of wellbeing, this is it.

You see, we visited on the day the internet and social media would have you believe is the most depressing of the year. I don’t buy into that socially constructed nonsense at all, I’m afraid. Positivity in life is there for the taking – you just need to look for it and grab it (or, in this case, go out and eat it).

I say it’s a time of year to celebrate the wonderful music of New Order, including the appropriately named track below, that I’m adding to the ADK Playlist.

I saw them play live at the Ally Pally in London a few years ago. It was after Peter Hook had left, which I thought would be a fatal blow to the band, his low-slung bass playing having always been such a distinctive part of their look and sound. However, I think their last studio album, Music Complete, is actually one of their best, and that it’s given them a new sense of purpose. They encored with a tribute to Ian Curtis and their music as Joy Division, playing Love Will Tear Us Apart and Atmosphere. A memorable evening.

So if anyone’s feeling a little down this time of year, here’s my advice: treat yourself to a Great British Breakfast! And play some New Order, starting with this excellent, uplifting track: Blue Monday.

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Breakfast Recipes

Spiced Port & Cranberry Compote

It’s nearly Christmas, and today I’m sharing the fruity breakfast topper I’ve made to last the family over the holidays. It’s made with fresh cranberries, oranges, sugar and spices, and comes with a heavenly taste and fragrance that’s sure to conjure up a festive mood. It is designed for spooning over muesli, or stirring in to porridge.

Christmas on a spoon!

The compote contains a glass of Port. Well, we wouldn’t want you to lose out on those healthy polyphenols over the holiday period now, would we?

Servings

You should get about 8 – 10 servings from this.

Timings

10 mins to prepare, 20 mins to boil/simmer.

You Will Need

  • 250g fresh cranberries
  • zest and juice of 2 oranges
  • 1 glass of Port
  • 75g light brown sugar
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 3 star anise
  • 5 cardamom pods

Method

  1. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and leave for 20 mins to reduce/thicken.
  2. Er, that’s it. Leave to cool and keep in the fridge, then stir a dessert spoonful in to a bowl of muesli and greek yoghurt, as shown in the photo above. It is also great stirred in to warm porridge.
  3. You can leave in the spices, as they will continue to flavour the compote. The cinnamon and star anise mustn’t be eaten, however, so be sure to pick around them when you are filling your spoon.

Customise It!

The first time I made this, I used a glass of sherry instead of the Port and it was fine. Feel free to swap in your favourite tipple of choice, or leave it out if you prefer.

It has to be a Christmas track this week for the ADK Playlist. If you are looking for some quality festive listening that’s a little different from the fare commonly served up in shops and on commercial radio, check out Tracey Thorn’s 2012 album, Tinsel and Lights. Here’s a lovely track from it called Like A Snowman.

Have a great Christmas everyone. See you back here next week for another serving of kitchen fun and madness.

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Blog Breakfast

Solstice at Stonehenge

Fancy an online breakfast watching the sun rise over Stonehenge on the Winter Solstice this Friday? Read on.

We’re approaching that time of the year when those of us here in the northern hemisphere experience the shortest day. The Winter Solstice is a special time at Stonehenge, which I visited during my recent motorhome trip to England’s west country.

Now a World Heritage Site, Stonehenge is a very mysterious place. Historians still do not fully know how or why our Neolithic ancestors built this grand arena of standing stones some 5,000 years ago, when tools were primitive and scientific knowledge rare. However, the stone circle manages to correctly align with the movement of the sun at two key points in the year, every year – sunrise on the Summer Solstice, 21 June, and sunset on the Winter Solstice, 22 December.

The mystery has imbued the place with a magical significance. Coachloads of people from all over the world visit the stones every day of the year, to stand and gaze up in awe and wonder as to their original purpose (see my photo at the top of the post). And on the Solstice, many people make a pilgrimage here to witness the event for themselves.

To give a sense of the mystery, I took some photos of the scene under a turbulent, evolving sky. All of the shots in this post were taken within a span of around 15 mins, while I walked around the stones. A cold wind was whipping across the exposed landscape, the quality of light was changing, and the clouds gathered and churned. My final photo below shows how the scene can suddenly turn very dark and brooding. Quite an atmosphere.

This Friday, I’ll be settling down with a breakfast bowl of Brainfood to watch English Heritage’s free, live streaming of the sunrise from Stonehenge, here. Expect things to kick off after 7.00am, with the actual sunrise forecast for 8.09am. All times are GMT, so check the corresponding time for wherever you are in the world. North America, you may need to set an alarm!

Comments below will be open if anyone wishes to chat, while I’ll also be on my Twitter/X channel @differentkitch.

There aren’t many hippie artists on the ADK Playlist, but I think the nature of this post, and the time of year, justifies the addition of this track: Jethro Tull with Ring Out, Solstice Bells.

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Blog Breakfast

Brainfood

If there’s anything guaranteed to give your sense of wellness a morning boost, it’s a breakfast of genuine Bircher Muesli, served with a fresh fruit topping in the form of a smiley face 🙂

I’m due to catch a plane back to London shortly, after a thoroughly enjoyable stay in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and then Graz, Austria. I’ve enjoyed some great, tasty fare while here and, before leaving, wanted to find an authentic dish based around fruit and veg.

I’m pleased to say I found it on our final morning, with a party of 4 of us meeting for breakfast in a branch of Graz’s Martin Auer delis. Billed on the menu as Brainfood, it featured oatmeal, wheat, rye flakes and linseed that had been soaked overnight in natural yoghurt. Pieces of freshly chopped apple and nuts were then stirred through. Grapes, blueberries and a raspberry had been added to make the smiley face, and honey drizzled over.

The invention of Bircher Muesli is attributed to Swiss medic Maximilian Bircher-Brenner around 1900, when he put together a mix of oats, grains, seeds and fruit for his patients. These ingredients have various health benefits – oats contribute to lowering cholesterol, for example. The name of Brainfood is likely to stem from the dish being slow to digest, meaning one stays feeling fuller for longer. Hunger is therefore less of a distraction from accomplishing one’s daily tasks and challenges.

I certainly enjoyed it, alongside the cappuccino shown in my photo. I’ll be expecting now to easily conquer the killer sudoku I’ve saved to do on the flight home!

This is me signing off from Austria. It’s been a great trip, catching up with family and friends and sampling some authentic food and drink. My next post will be from back in the UK.

Hey, with my newly heightened intellectual faculties, I’ve just worked out that the word Brainstorm is only a couple of letters away from being Brianstorm. Regular readers will know that I need little excuse to feature the Arctic Monkeys on ADK. So here they are.

Auf Wiedersehen!

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Breakfast Recipes

500 Miles?

We have walked a fair few miles so far on our motorhome tour of Scotland, though perhaps not quite the 500 that Scots duo Craig and Charlie – The Proclaimers – sing about in their popular singalong folk anthem.

My main photo above was taken on one such walk through terrific scenery – along the Aberdeenshire coast from Stonehaven to the centuries-old silhouetted ruins of Dunnottar Castle. Very gothic.

A hearty, filling breakfast is essential before setting out on a hike like this. It will probably come as no surprise that breakfast meal of choice on this trip has been Scots porridge oats. The classic Scots dish is incredibly nutritious, oats being a good source of fibre and healthy fats. Add in some fruit, nuts and seeds and you’ll have all the fuel you need for an active day in the great Scottish outdoors.

My version of porridge may not necessarily be one for the purists, as it is made in the motorhome’s microwave oven. However, it is is made entirely from local ingredients that we have picked up from shops, been gifted or, ahem, scrumped en route.

The core ingredients are oats and milk, the oats puffing up as they warm in the heat of the milk. To this I add at least one fresh fruit. At a small, very remote, rural site that we camped on in the Borders, the farmer told us to help ourselves to the plump fresh blackberries from the hedges. These work well in porridge as they burst in the heat, flavouring and colouring the oats purple.

Scottish raspberries work just as well, giving the porridge a pinkish hue.

Another pitch in Aberdeenshire was in an orchard, where we were offered as many crisp apples from the trees as we wished. Chopped apple is great stirred into the warm oats.

We have also picked up various sprinkles at refilleries in Oakham and Stonehaven – chopped nuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and some dried fruit. Refilleries are great for motorhoming as it’s possible to buy and carry on board just the quantity required.

The method is simple. Put 4 – 5 tablespoons of Scottish oats in a microwavable bowl, and cover it in semi-skimmed milk. Add in berries if using.

Microwave on full for around 3 mins, stirring half way through. Keep an eye on it, and when it starts to bubble up the sides of the bowl, remove it.

You may need to act pronto here, otherwise it can easily erupt, volcano-like, all over the sides of the bowl making a holy mess of your microwave.

Stir in your sprinkles of choice, a swirl of local honey if you like, and enjoy. With this warm, hearty fuel inside you, you’ll be ready for a healthy outdoor hike. Even if it’s not quite as far as Craig and Charlie’s. Here are the Proclaimers with I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).