Baked Spanish Eggs

As quick as it came, the Shake Up Your Wake Up campaign is almost over and breakfast week will soon be a distant memory…

Ok so there’s probably no need to be quite so dramatic. Especially considering that you’re all going to eat breakfast every day from now on! Right?

The campaign this year has been fab in my opinion, with hundreds and hundreds of people sharing their breakfast pictures every day using the hashtag #breakfastwatch.

I was pretty proud of myself as I managed to send in a picture 5 out of the 7 days! Looking back on the week I had some pretty cool breakfasts!

Monday: Black cherry jam on wholemeal toast

Tuesday: Porridge with berry compote

Wednesday: Breakfast detox smoothie

Thursday: Bacon jam on toast

Friday: Spanish Baked Eggs!

It probably won’t come as a surprise that I won’t be able to keep up that level of variety much longer! With two jars of jam now open in the fridge I’ll probably be living off of jam and toast for the next month or so.

Hopefully you’ve all been just as inspired as me to try to add a bit of variety into your morning routine, so with that in mind I’m going to share with you my Spanish Baked Eggs recipe!

This recipe is guaranteed to put a smile on your face as the little egg yolks look like sun shines in your brekkie bowl (/ramekin!)

They’re also packed full of flavour which is guaranteed to wake you and your taste buds up.

Breakfast Detox Smoothie

Diet is a word you will often see on my blog. I come from a very weight conscious family, all of us have struggled with our weight at some point and most of us are healthy but now struggling to keep ourselves this way.

As a result much of my food is cooked with a subconscious desire to make it as low fat as possible. Most of the time this means substituting products such as cream, cheese, yogurt and more, for low or fat free alternatives. It also means choosing leaner cuts of meat – you will find way more turkey and chicken recipes here than you will pork for instance.

Detox however is not a word you will come across here. Until now.

Detox to me has always meant something faddy. Something that celebrities do to shed tens of pounds without even lifting a finger.

I’ve been reassured however that many detoxes do not require you to drink only strange coloured shakes and exercise every hour god sends, but instead many involve simply cutting out processed foods, going for whole grain carbs, and low in fat yet high in protein foods.

Well that’s not so bad after all is it?

With that in mind, I’ve not put myself on a detox this January as such, but I have been following some of the principles many detoxes promote.

Our griddle pan has been getting a lot of use and brown rice is most definitely back on the menu (more on that in a later post...)

I have however taken a liking to the concept of a detox smoothie for breakfast.

This year in my first post for the Shake Up Your Wake Up Campaign I mentioned how I often feel sick after eating in the morning. This is probably a combination of not needing a heavy meal in the mornings, and the fact that once I have eaten breakfast and left the house I then embark on a 40 minute commute including walking up and down millions of steps/escalators. Not a good combination!

It seems however that smoothies are the perfect start of the day for me.

This recipe includes high in fibre fruits, citrus to help cleanse your digestive tract, and oats for extra fibre (and a little more substance for a fuller stomach feeling, we don’t want to be hungry afterall!)

[Shake up your wake up] Creamy Mushrooms on Toast

Farmhouse Breakfast Week 2013 will take place 20^th – 26^th January
Disclosure: I have not been paid to do this post...I genuinely belive in the power of breakfast and support the campaign. It's also a great excuse to share my latest breakfast recipe with you!


 

Some of you may remember a post I did last year about the Shake Up Your Wake Up Campaign. The campaign is all about trying to educate the general public about the importance of eating breakfast. Each year they host the Farmhouse Breakfast Week where you too can get involved with spreading the word about breakfast. For example, did you know that one in ten people skip breakfast thinking that it will help them to lose weight, yet breakfast skippers are twice as likely to reach for a bag of crisps mid-morning! (And crisps definitely are not on the diet!)

Now I should admit...I’m not a big breakfast eater, but it is something I have been trying to work on. Even as a child I never really got on with breakfast. I’m not a cereal eater nor do I like toast as I hate all processed bread with a passion! As a result my parents used to do anything to get breakfast into me. At one stage I had had scotch pancakes with golden syrup every day. This went on for so long I even ended up getting sick of them! So surprise, surprise the thought of breakfast in the morning tends to make me feel sick. I also think part of the problem is that I wake up at 6:30 and am out of the door by 7:30 with no time to spare for putting together a breakfast other than the toast or cereal I despise so much.

So this leaves me with a bit of a problem.

Because I’ve been feeling so lethargic without a morning meal, I’ve started to listen to my body and I now buy porridge with honey on the way to law school each morning. The days I don’t manage to nip in to prêt I really notice the difference. So, I may not be a breakfast lover, but I most definitely agree with independent dietician Nigel Denby who has commented on this year’s study saying: “People who eat breakfast have better concentration, more energy and tend to be less stressed. They are also less likely to be overweight.”

If these aren’t good reasons to eat breakfast I don’t know how else to convince you...except with a simple yet scrumptious breakfast recipe.

Now I’ve said already that I’m not a massive fan of toast. BUT, if it’s from a good crusty loaf and topped with something yummy then I will more often than not give in. (Over Christmas I had toast almost every day topped with an amazing Rhubarb and Ginger preserve that had so much zing, you really noticed a spring in my step for the rest of the morning.)

These mushrooms on toast are much more warming and comforting. Their creamy, mellow flavour is extremely indulgent, so perhaps best reserved for Sunday mornings. Though, should you have the time to whip them up every day you won’t have to worry about your waistline, just go easy on the butter and use reduced fat crème fraiche as I did!

But enough trying to convince you, here’s the recipe:

Review: My Old Dutch, Holborn

My Old Dutch – 25^th September 2012

132 High Holborn

London

WC1V 6PS

When I started studying in London I vowed to hunt down the best places to eat in London and I may have been somewhat over ambitious. I not only have VERY little time on my hands between the hours of 9am and 6pm, but I also have very little money. This creates a bit of a dilemma.

Nonetheless, on the odd day that I can escape out of the big glass building that is law school in order to grab a spot of lunch I am trying my hardest to seek out some of the yummiest food in the area. And, so far so good!

My first adventure out was to My Old Dutch – a pancake house just a few hundred yards west of Holborn Underground Station along High Holborn road.

I am not entirely sure how this restaurant first came to my attention. In the first few weeks of law school I was googling away looking for interesting places to eat and it just suddenly appeared on my screen! A sucker for pancakes I knew this was the first place I was going to try.