breakfast for dinner
plus: a baby wedge salad with avocado and pickled onions
Monday, April 24, 2023
Good morning afternoon!
This Samarkand bread looks so good (but I would definitely fall in) This video made my whole heart happy.
Been waiting for this news my whole life: Ice cream is good for us! [The Atlantic]
It was a gorgeous spring morning and I am just coming back from a walk. Even better than a long walk? A walk that ends with a freshly-baked croissant. I hope your Monday is filled with a few simple blisses, too. While I understand that spring vegetables are just beginning to roll into to the local markets — I must see it to believe it this week — I am at what is hopefully the end of my post-winter cooking rut (tired of winter food, not quite warm enough to live on cold salads and snacky plates) and for this, I pull out my final stop: Breakfast for dinner. It’s a family favorite because we do not, sadly (less so if it would mean getting up earlier) ever have time for big breakfast on weekdays and lately, weekends either, so eggs, potatoes, bacon, and even some pancakes feels delightful, while also being fairly easy and budget-friendly. Below, several of my favorites almost-anytime breakfasts. Plus, a new one is coming to the site this week: Homemade Hash Brown Patties. I can’t wait for you to try them.
Cheers,
Deb
I’ve written three cookbooks and I’m a tiny bit biased but I think you, or someone you know who likes to cook or wants to start, would love them all.
Want to buy a signed cookbook as a gift for yourself or someone else? In advance of Mother’s Day, you can still order order a signed copy of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, my most recent cookbook, from from Strand Bookstore. They can ship it to you nationwide or you can pick it up at their store near Union Square. While the ordering deadline is Mother's Day (5/14), if you'd like it to arrive somewhere by Mother's Day, The Strand recommends that you order by 4/26.
While book tour events have otherwise slowed down, I will be in New Jersey at the Montclair Literary Festival on Saturday, May 6th.
baby wedge salad with avocado and pickled onions
New: A crunchy, bright, creamy, and inhalable iceberg salad that I could, and might try, to eat once a week forever.
spring asparagus pancetta hash
This potato hash has bits of pancetta and crisp-tender segments of asparagus, yielding a ton of flavor from only four (!) ingredients. Add an egg or two, then repeat again tomorrow.
chilaquiles brunch casserole
Here are some crispy corn tortillas smothered in a tomato-chile sauce, layered with cheese and beans, and topped with perfectly-cooked eggs (I'll tell you my trick) and they bake together into the brunch casserole of my dreams.
breakfast pizza
Pizza for breakfast was already one a great thing but pizza *specifically formulated for breakfast* with bacon, runny eggs, and cheese is a gift we totally deserve this weekend.
crispy crumbled potatoes
Every craggy edge and erratic angle of these restaurant-style potato nuggets get perfectly browned and transcendently crunchy with this cooking technique, which could not be simpler. I hope they make all of your brunch hopes and dreams come true.
latke waffles
There are few meals that cannot be improved by a coarsely shredded potato and onion pancake, fried until crisp, especially breakfast. But have you ever waffle-ironed them? I think you'll be glad you did, especially with an egg on top.
breakfast slab pie
A mammoth one-pan breakfast with the works (eggs, cheese, potatoes, spinach) that can be made well in advance, left for guests to reheat and eat as they wake up, plopped in little hands before sending the "underfoots" out to their day's destructive work, or, you know, a week of weekday mornings sorted. Basically, it's kind of a breakfast miracle.
caramelized onion and gruyère biscuits
Perfect with eggs for breakfast or soup for dinner, these are the butter, buttermilk, and baking soda biscuit equivalent of French onion soup, wound with caramelized onions and studded with diced bits of cheese, some which slip onto the baking sheet in crispy frico puddles as they bake.
oatmeal pancakes
These have been my go-to weekend morning pancake for over a decade because they're perfect -- hearty and filling, just sweet enough, and they make amazing leftovers, should any survive the first morning. They were developed by Kim Boyce to use up leftover oatmeal, which happens a lot around here. Have you made them yet?
cinnamon brown butter breakfast puffs
Tiny doughnut-like muffins dipped in browned butter and rolled in cinnamon-sugar with a cup of coffee are the best idea I've had on Saturday morning (since I all but gave up on sleeping in).
chocolate dutch baby
A rippled, rumpled brownie-like dark chocolate pancake that uses ingredients you probably already have on hand and comes together quickly. It's just lightly sweet -- that's where the berries and powdered sugar come in.
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? I've created a page on Smitten Kitchen with links to some of my favorite kitchen items, the ones I'm asked about the most. I recently added several new favorites I’ve bought in the last year. For each item, I've attempted to provide a range of shopping links so we're not just focusing on one giant retailer.
See you next week!
