Tag: breakfast

Blueberry Breakfast Casserole

This recipe is just amazing! My take-away are two things which I am going to use in the future:

  • soaking overnight, not just for ten munites before cooking or baking
  • adding almond (or vanilla or other) extract 

Both make the “dough” taste heavenly,

I made a half-portion in a rectangular baking pan. Copying it here, so that I do not need to jump to the original recipe each time:

Sliced stale bread, enough to cover the bottom of the pan 

1 cup blueberries (or other berries)

3 large eggs

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cardamon

STREUSEL TOPPING

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup flour

2 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

I used an 8X8 inch pan. Gease with nonstick spray. Line prepared baking pan with bread, filling all the cracks. Set aside.

Whisk the eggs, milk, sugar, and extracts together until well combined. Pour over the bread. Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight. 

To save time in the morning, I prepared the topping the night before as well:

Combine the brown sugar and flour together in a medium bowl. Crash the cubed butter with your fingers while mixing it in.

In the morning:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove pan from the refrigerator. Sprinkle blueberries evenly over the top. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the soaked bread. Top with walnuts.

Bake for 45-55 minutes or until slightly firm and golden brown on top. I baked it for 50 minutes. 

Summer Breakfasts Gallery

This summer and early fall, I had lots of breakfasts outside; and that’s one of my favorite things to do in summer. No other meal is as good outside as breakfast. And since some of my friends love these outside breakfasts as much as I, and always ask for the pictures, I decided to put together a breakfast retro; now that the outside breakfast season is over.

Enjoy 🙂

Nope, I do not eat acorns, they are just pretty:)

A Perfect Memorial Day Weekend (I)

Every year we hope that the weather will be nice on Memorial Day weekend and that what is considered the official start of summer will bring the summer weather.

Unfortunately, more often than not, that’s not the case. Either it is raining, or it is below 70 F or both, but most often, the weather is not good for swimming on the day when pools are official open.
This time, it was the opposite. The pools are not open, but the weather exceeds expectations! I decided to take upon the advice of the health authorities and spend most of this weekend outdoors. And also, doing some good things for myself.

Biked to the Farmers Market: they asked me to leave my bike at the entrance and kept an eye on it.
Greens, bread and chocolate – all you need! (plus coffee!)
Continue reading “A Perfect Memorial Day Weekend (I)” →

Stay At Home Meals

I like posting pictures of my meals – and I always liked it! I love it when my food looks pretty, even when I am the only person at the table (which is most of the time). Also, I do not like to spend a lot of time cooking, and I do not like recipes with many ingredients. Whatever appears at my food photographs, is always fast and easy to make.

90% of my food pictures show some breakfast food because that’s my favorite meal of the day. And my friends were keeping asking me why I never post any pictures of my dinners. Well … because by dinner time I always forget that I planned to show all my meal of the day:).

During these past two weeks, there were no changes to how I eat at home. I would still arrange everything nicely on the plate because I enjoy it. It does not take much time, and really improves your mood! These pictures are all from one day last week. Full disclosure: coffee, chocolates, and other sweets not included :).

Breakfast: egg whites with vegetables, mushrooms and two tablespoons of greek yogurt (microwaved)
Continue reading “Stay At Home Meals” →

Breakfast is the Best Meal of the Day!

I still have lots of pictures from the Labor Day weekend, and here are some of them. Why this is about a Labor Day weekend? Because one of the nice things you can do over the long weekend is to make “Sunday breakfasts” every day:).

The plenty of veggies which are delivered daily presents me with a challenge of adding them to everything:

Chocolate goes for the second course:

Also, it’s blueberry season, time to make Finnish rye blueberry meal:

Breakfasts Outside are Almost Over!

There are multiple signs that fall is nearing. One of them are these colored leaves:

More obvious is the fact I’ve complained about a while ago – the days a getting shorter, and my summer activities are going away one after another. Soon my breakfasts outside will be over, at least the weekday breakfasts – I am out of the house shortly after 7 AM. And since Boris does not like eating outside, I’ve lost one week ahead of schedule :).

Now I am going to celebrate my love for breakfasts outside, and showing some recent buys which make my morning experiences even better.


I had this wooden tray for a while, and I would always put a pretty Scandinavian design paper napkin on it. However, since for the last two times in IKEA, I was unable to find the ones I like, I ended up remembering that I have a lot of cloth napkins I do not use!

I also got two more trays, in case I will have some house guests who like eating outside 🙂 I ended up liking this one even better than the one I had before!

Continue reading “Breakfasts Outside are Almost Over!” →

About Mornings, Breakfasts, And Getting Stuff Done

Today life was much better than the previous several days. When I was leaving my house at 8-10 AM, I looked around and thought that in most of the homes, people are just starting to get up. It is a weekend, after all!

As for me, by the time I was leaving the house, I have;

  • spoken to Boris for what originally planned to be a half-hour, and ended up being close to an hour
  • gone on a 40-minute bike ride
  • done 30 -min yoga session
  • showed and got ready for a day
  • got the breakfast ready and eaten it outside

I am obsessed with breakfast. I love making nice breakfasts and eating them outside. People find it hard to believe that my numerous breakfast pictures on Instagram are my real everyday breakfasts, not the sill life and that I am making them just for myself (if I do not have anybody staying with me, of cause).

But for me, this is an essential part of the day. I am a morning person, and to start the day with some physical activity followed by a yummy and beautifully arranged breakfast is the way to set me up in a good mood. Sometimes it can’t last through the day, but at least for some time.

Today I made myself a millet hot cereal. The original recipe is here

https://hettiecooking.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/millet-hot-cereal/, although now I make it with water and some nono-fat milk. Making it takes some time, but today I put it on LOW before going biking, and after I retured, I mixed in some defrosted pumpkin puree, and spices, and left it on LOW again. It all worked so probably I will be making it more often.