Breakfast

It's time to learn more about that drink you love so much.

Finally, an omelet that not only looks simple to make, but actually is easy to make.

You could say that we cracked the code.

My sister-in-law was right!

You'll get berries in every bite.

How my 11-year old discovered that our coffee frother was the secret to soft, fluffy eggs.

Can a few extra steps make for one that rises well beyond the pan to create the drama we expect without compromising taste?

“Happy flipping.”

Hint: It is sitting right on your counter.

A cup of yogurt is always an easy choice for a quick breakfast or snack, but after a while it can lose its sparkle.

Some seven-year-olds are fickle. I am parenting my third seven-year-old, and he can be a little picky. For a long time, he has enjoyed two regular breakfasts: cheese toast or peanut butter on bananas. He will also eat pancakes, waffles, the occasional chicken biscuit and toad in a hole. Those breakfasts are just fine, but variety is good. MasterChef Junior has him inspired to try new things, and I love it.

oeufs durs mayonnaisen’est-ce pas Worse — they are acutely aware what a cardboard box in the fridge means: Fancy leftovers! What could it be? Ratatouille from a favorite local chef? Pad Thai from that chic Thai bistro down the street? Maybe half of a perfectly prepared, rare filet mignon! If I want my leftovers, I have to eat them early. I can take almost any half eaten dish, sauté it in a pan, throw in a handful of microgreens, and crack an egg over the top.

I used to be a caffeine junkie. Any lull in my day called for a cup of coffee (or three). I once felt actual rage at a friend’s island house, far from a grocery store or coffee shop, because the only available caffeine was in the form of a full sugar soda, and I couldn’t handle the sugar. I was near tears in a restaurant with my children when I realized the only diet soda they served was also caffeine free. And by “near tears,” I mean that I wanted to kill someone.

I’m a grown-up. Usually, I don’t have trouble eating my veggies, including the necessary dark, leafy greens. I actually love them. It took me a while, but I do. I like them so much, I eat them for breakfast almost every day, even in restaurants, if at all possible. I make a mess of greens on Monday morning to make it easy to get a jump start on my veggie intake all week long. The greens — kale, collards, chard, or whatever else is in the market — are prepared with care.

I’ve been drinking bright green hot chocolate in the morning. This is, after all, the holiday season, where I could probably go to a party every single night, so I like to start the day right. I am an admitted jumper of bandwagons and this year, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon of spirulina and liquid chlorophyll. Why not mix them with chocolate?

Think about what you ate for breakfast as a kid. If you grew up in the U.S., chances are you were eating cereal, toast, eggs, muffins, or something similar. What happens when you give American kids traditional breakfasts from countries like Korea, Finland, Poland, and Vietnam? Not only will you get a lot of questions, but you’ll also get some of the funniest facial expressions we’ve ever seen.

The breakfast landscape is full of easy choices. It’s easy to roll out of bed, shuffle into the kitchen, and pour yourself — and your kids — the customary bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice. But that which is easy isn’t always necessarily sustainable. And that which is easy isn’t always necessarily cheap, either. The costs add up — in all kinds of ways. I decided to make it my mission to get my kids off cereal.

The one meal my husband, my 10-month-old son, and I always sit down to together is breakfast. At first, adding the meal prep (and feeding a messy, wiggly creature) was overwhelming, but as we’ve developed a routine and as the number of foods the baby can eat has expanded, the whole process has become a lot easier. There’s just one problem: it’s made me realize how much better my own breakfasts could be.

Before it came time to put my plan of kicking cereal to the curb into action (read more about why we’re doing this), I gently warned the boys (and repeatedly, out of necessity) that we’d all have to be creative and open-minded. I tried to get them excited about eating something different and turn the whole thing into an adventure; as any parent likely knows, it’s all in how you spin it, and they take their cues from us.

After a few weeks of habitually disregarding the cereal collection in our lazy Susan, we were completely in the zone; we had expanded our repertoire, eating a lot of different things. I hadn’t bought a box of cereal in at least three weeks, and although I did not experience the revolt I was sensing in my previous post, I did occasionally get some questions in the morning as to whether or not we’re “still not eating cereal.

One of the most important meals for kids to learn is breakfast. It’s not about them; it’s about you. The earlier you teach this one, the sooner you get to sleep a little later. Just this morning, I woke up to the smell of sizzling pancetta, butter, and eggs. Although it smelled delightful, I knew that meal wasn’t for me, and that’s what made it great. It smelled like 15 more minutes of sleep and the joy of having raised a competent teenager.

Homemade soup is easy, and it’s always comforting. Whether or not my kids reach for the occasional can of soup, I want them to know how to make an economical, easy version from scratch, so they can have a healthy meal any day of the week. I like to make my own stock. (True story: I recently requested my fish in a restaurant be decapitated before it was cooked, so I could take home the raw fish head to make stock. Delicious!

We all hear that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but not everyone wakes up with a roaring appetite and a desire to sit at the table. And for families with kids in particular, there are often distinct “breakfast personalities” to work around. Here you’ll find a lineup of common breakfast table challenges with strategies for each, whether you’re a grown-up with no time to eat or have a child calling a mealtime strike. This is a tricky one.

School day mornings are much more hectic than I could have ever imagined. Between getting everyone dressed and bags and lunch boxes packed, it feels almost impossible to get breakfast on the table too. For those mornings when we can’t get it together before the ride to school, here are a few tips for making school mornings easier with breakfasts that can be eaten at the bus stop.

Nope, it isn't just the frosting!

Remember this tip and say goodbye to splattering bacon grease.

Homemade English muffins are one of those things we whip out whenever we want something extra special in the morning – a birthday brunch, in-laws are in town, you name it! One guest recently asked about the difference between crumpets and English muffins, and we were honestly stumped…with good reason, it turns out!One thing that all the blogs, websites, and cookbooks seem to agree upon is that crumpets and English muffins are two different creatures.

It takes a fraction of the time!

It's done before the coffee is even ready!

Hint: It might be on your bar cart.

I will never go back to my old egg-frying method again.

Here's what you can do to ensure tall results.

Who knew you could re-crunchify those oats?

It doesn't take any more time, but it does make the eggs taste amazing.

We pitted a pancake warmer against the tinfoil method and the oven method. Guess which one won?

You can use it in any mix or recipe!

You don't even have to work harder for it!

No mixing bowl or whisk required.

Now you can enjoy a stack without feeling like you're starving an hour later.

You don't even have to do any extra work.

Brioche is great, but not when I'm cooking for a crowd.

Constantly dealing with cracked eggs? Here's why.

It's what makes your short stack so toasty sweet.

It's gut friendly, it's tasty, and it's *not* Greek yogurt.

Cinnamon-scented and oh-so-good.

Eggs are good for you, but let's stop and talk about how luxurious they are. These five recipes show off the glamorous side of these yolky delights.

Avoid these common mistakes — and your breakfast will thank you.

Meet the "chaffle," aka a waffle made with cheese and eggs.

Your breakfast will thank you.

And it's not an extra ingredient!

It's all about the eggs.

And you only have to clean the blender once.

Meghan introduced us all to the everyday beauty of miracle meals, the dinners that emerge miraculously through sheer wit and pluck. But we need miracles at breakfast, too — perhaps even more so, given how tough it can be to eat a hearty breakfast on a busy morning. And miracles do emerge to rescue you from breakfast poverty — it’s time for you to know the magic of the slow cooker breakfast casserole.

Hint: It's in your freezer!

These will change your breakfast game forever.

You can learn a lot about someone by how they like their eggs. You too have a favorite, and the answer is not something wishy-washy like, “Depends on what I’m eating.” If you were on a deserted island and you were given only eggs to eat and you could only choose one style of egg for all of eternity, you know exactly what you’d choose.

This trick is a total game-changer.

The Cooking Cure is rolling into Week 2, and we’re moving on to lunch. But we don’t want to just leave breakfast behind, since your assignment over the weekend was to plan and strategize all of your breakfasts for this week. So here is the first Cooking Cure challenge of the week: But what if you don’t want to cook breakfast? What if breakfast needs to be the easy meal in your household? That’s the situation alicelost is in and we can relate.

Q: A lot of my favorite casserole recipes call for all sorts of dish sizes. Any thoughts on how to modify the recipe or what to do with the leftover that you can’t fit in a pan that’s too small?I’d love to be able to fit a dozen shapes and sizes into my apartment kitchen, but space doesn’t allow. In that vein, any suggestions as to which two sizes are the most used?Sent by cfelliniEditor: cfellini asked this in the comment thread on this casserole recipe.

Most of us like a little breakfast for dinner every once and a while. Some eggs, bacon, maybe even pancakes or waffles – it’s not such a stretch. But how about dinner for breakfast? We don’t usually consider last night’s leftovers as a breakfast possibility (unless it’s pizza) but one of our favorite Twitter feeds has us reconsidering.As you may have guessed, the Tweets we’re referring to are written by Ruth Reichl.

With all the bacon craziness going on these days, you’d think the Canadian version would get a little more attention! It’s classic in eggs benedictHere in the United States, Canadian bacon is very similar to ham. It can either be a whole cut from the pork loin or it can be compressed from various different cuts. Check the labeling! If the only ingredient is “pork,” then it’s probably from the loin.

We honestly think we could eat scrambled eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and be very happy. Ok, maybe not every day, but definitely more frequently than is probably good for us! But when you eat as many eggs as we do, you tend to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Here’s our favorite method – what’s yours?The not-so-secret secret is to cook the eggs low and slow, but still get breakfast (or dinner) on the table before we starve to death.

Q: I love granola that comes in big, crunchy clumps. So when I purchased some granola at a fancy gourmet market yesterday, I was so disappointed to discover that it is just coated oats mixed in with other ingredients–no clumps!Is there a way I can doctor up this store-bought granola to turn into the wonderful chunky granola I crave? — CarolynEditor: Carolyn, we love big clusters of granola, too! We have a few ideas on how to doctor your mix to get it just the way we like it.

Breakfast for dinner is one of our favorite easy weeknight meals, but what about dinner for breakfast? Believe it or not, this upside-down idea has revolutionized school-day breakfasts at my house. “Dinner for breakfast” was actually inspired by my daughter’s request for quesadillas one morning before school. It was fast and easy to toast up a tortilla filled with cheese, and I was happy she was getting protein from the cheese and a side of leftover black beans.

Does anyone know of a source? Sent by JeniferEditor: Readers, do you know of any reasonably-priced online or mailorder sources for British back bacon in the U.S.?

The Pioneer Woman loves to make pancakes from scratch. The only problem is that most of the time she actually prefers the taste of boxed pancake mix. It’s a polarizing opinion, but not an uncommon one. “I LOVE the experience of making pancakes from scratch, hearing them sizzle as I pour them onto a hot griddle, and watching everyone in my family gather around the stove and tell me how much they love me,” she wrote on her blog.

The surplus of colorful and hard-boiled eggs left after Easter weekend can feel like a blessing or a curse depending on your particular outlook on eggs and how long they’ve been lingering in your fridge! Here’s a list of everything we love to do with leftover hard-boiled eggs. They will fuel healthy breakfasts and lunches all week!

We grew up on bagels, and taking a bite of that warm, ultra-chewy bread is still one of our favorite food experiences. Ask any good bagel baker and they’ll tell you that the key to that chewy crust and slightly dense interior is boiling the bagels before baking. The question is, why?It feels very counter-intuitive to most of us to throw bread in boiling water. The point of most bread baking, after all, is to let water evaporate and dry out the interior to a certain extent.

We spotted big boxes of beautiful medjool dates at the store this week, and we’re wondering if we can think of enough things that we can make with them without getting bored. We have a few ideas – what are your suggestions?Granted it takes a long time for dates to get too shriveled and dry to use, so we have plenty of time to use them up! Dates are partially dehydrated tropical stone fruits with a chewy, moist texture.

With eggs this pretty you don’t want to futz much. Farm-fresh eggs like these need little enhancement — not much more than some butter and a warm pan, unless you’re like me, in which case the thought of eating eggs without cheese will make you very, very sad. Picking a cheese for your eggs might seem like a no-brainer: choose something with meltability that you have on hand.

There are a million and one tips out there for how to make a hard-boiled egg easier to peel, but far fewer on why eggs are so hard to peel in the first place. Let’s take a look, shall we?One of the most frequently quoted peeling tips is that old eggs are easier to peel than fresh ones. It turns out this particular tip has some truth!Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking explains that the white albumen in a fresh eggs has a low relatively low (ie, acidic) pH level.

In cooking there are few dishes that lend themselves to what cooks wistfully wish after, which is cooking without a recipe. The romantic cook in us all wishes to cook like a grandma or a trained chef — by sense and feel and grasping after a taste you know you can achieve through instinct alone. But cooking like that doesn’t come out of thin air.