Breakfast Food Garden

I never developed a taste for cooked apples, but the smell is heavenly! My great grand mother made baked apples all the time in a little toaster oven to keep from heating up the whole house. Lots of amazing things came out out of that tiny oven.

Yeah, she really is pretty clever!

I love baked and cooked apples. My big oven doesn't work. Soemthing about the gsa line saftey thign is stuck, so I can't use it. I do alot of cooking in microwave and tiny toaster oven. Yumm,,, now I have to go to store and get soem apples and give it a try.

I do not recommend putting dog or cat animal waste in yoru compost pile. If you have ever studied the different diseases that a dog or cat carries and is transferable to humans, even when the mess has sat for years, you wouldn't try it. Believe me when I say it gross. You risk the health of yourself, the children and other friends too. Soem thinsg are just not made for composting and that is one of them.

We frequently use the toaster oven in lieu of the full size oven to save on utilities and to not overheat the house in the warm season. When I buy a toaster oven, I make sure it will accomodate a 9" pie pan. I have a small covered roaster that fits in there too.

Ok Tom, I want to know what you've decided to grow for breakfast!

Thanks for all the edible ideas! So far we have added dried watermelon to oatmeal ( the Cantaloupes didn't turn out so good ) , reconstituted my dried apple slices, had caned pears with lettuce, and drank the light packing liquid as juice. Would love to try the basil and tomato omlet - maybe some of left over green ones are ripe now, or we could use our canned. Jim, the sweet potato ideas are great - can not wait to try chips. Still wonder if there is a way to use corn in a mush that would taste more like grits than creamed corn?
Tom

Hey, Tom,

Actually, that should be no problem at all. In almost any reference to "flour" or "bread" you read in US history up until about 1840, it was just as likely to be "cornmeal" or "cornbread" that was intended as it was "wheat flour" or "wheat bread"; and grits or mush, being the most likely morning meal of American pioneer farmers, can be said to have built the country!

The thing is: you need to let the corn dry and then grind it!

But, fresh creamed corn is also a wonderful thing!

Cheers,
Jim

Tom, grits are made from hominy. The distinctive taste of hominy and grits is from the lime water soak. You aren't going to get that flavour from natural yellow corn.
The only creamed corn that I've had was made from fresh corn kernals, not the dried grain corn from which cornmeal is made. If you find a way to make corn meal taste like fresh kernal creamed corn, please post the recipe!

Well, there's grits and there's hominy grits. g_m is sure right about the distinctive flavour of hominy grits. On the other handm plain old grits is also know ans cornmeal mush!

LOL! Looks like we may need a dictionary to help translate regional dialects for food/recipes. My grandmother would throw you out of her kitchen if you dared call her cornmeal mush "grits"! To her, the only real grits were made of hominy. The yellow cornmeal mush was "mush", unless of course you fried some of it up while fresh, then is was a type of "corn pone" and if you let it cool, sliced it and fried it, it was "fried mush".
That particular grandmother was from Kentucky originally. They moved out west here in the late 1800's.

I would concur from Alabama mush is mush - corn meal and grits are soaked in lye.

I'se a Yankee! Of course, we mostly gave up on "grits" of any kind once the fields were cleared for wheat.

Corn cakes are nice.

cornmeal, egg, a little melted butter or oil, fresh cut off creamed corn, bit of milk to make it like thick pancake batter. Cook on griddle like pancakes.

Serve with syrup if you must, but I prefer a bit of salsa.

MMMMsounds great. I think I have the ingredients now.

This is a really good thread, I am going to read it again next spring! :-) Did I overlook it, or has no one mentioned refried beans (frijoles refritos), which are pretty much a traditional part of any Tex-Mex breakfast, along with soft-fried potatos (pappas), and assorted tomato/pepper sauces such as mild, cooked ranchero sauce, hot chile sauce or medium picante sauce? There's also nopales (young prickly pear cactus pads), which can be included in omelets or huevos rancheros.

Personally, I think tomatos and eggs are one of the very best food combinations - during tomato season I just love fresh sliced tomatos on my breakfast plate!

Tina

I just found this thread, and you all have such wonderful ideas! I love the idea of growing the grains. It is something I strive for - to grow and mill my own grains into breads and cereals. I have not had much luck with the grains listed (although those are the few I can eat) because, I thought of humidity. But a friend of mine says her amaranths do best when they start growing in the cracks of walkways. So I plan to create a special area of the garden where I use broken concrete for the amaranth to grow within.
Hopefully, it will work. I want to be able to eat nice bread with home grown fruit jams and jellies or baked cereal and fruit casseroles the grains listed are high in protein - perfect for vegetarians!
GGG

I don't know if I am cordinated enough to rind my own grain, but growign up all we had was fresh baked loaves of bread. Us kids would always fight over the heels. Don't think we ever had store bought bread til mom got sick and couldn't bake anymore.

Baked cereal and fruit casseroles sound wonderful. Any combination suggestions?

I love dried peaches and steel cut oatmeal. I have baked the leftovers - its twice as good.

Hum new food words. What is baked cereral and also what steel cut oatmeal?

Steel cut oats are oat grains cut up with a steel bladed mill, versus rolled oats which are oat grains that have been crushed and flattened by being run through a roller.
These produce different textures for oatmeal. Steel cut oats tend to be denser.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel-cut_oats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolled_oats

Baked cereal is a method of making cooked cereal by baking it instead of cooking it stovetop. If you bake it, you don't have to stir it. I just mix all the ingredients in the pan and pop it in the oven. You can do oatmeal with apples, raisins & spices that way. Actually, just about any grain will make a good baked cereal. Think of making baked rice pudding. It's the same principle. That's my idea of baked cereal. podster may have a different understanding.

Here are some links to recipe examples:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Amish-Baked-Oatmeal-117211
http://bandb.about.com/od/miscrecipes/r/baked_oatmeal.htm

Actually, I had no idea... LOL I was asking for recipes or ideas??? Maybe My post was too obtuse. Thanks for the links.

Oops! Sorry pod. Looks like is was GGG who brought up the topic of baked cereals.
This is probably one of those food names that cover a wide variety of dishes with no resemblance to each other (like halva). My brain pinged on the ones I had seen.

I love to use steel cut oatmeal and some peaches in the slow cooker for a few hours.
Soak the oatmeal in water and apple cider vinegar for a few hours, then turn on the cooker and add some sliced peaches and sweetner of your choice. Nutmeg is a nice touch, flax makes a nutty taste!
You can also cook this in your oven. For this meal I will also whip egg whites and incorporate them into the water/vinegar/oatmeal right before cooking - there is your protein (which I also believe for breakfast). I place sliced fruit on top. This is a "fancy feast" which we like for occasions such as a brunch or holidays. Grandpa Wood used to love this.
Another favorite is any grain cooked with raspberries and vanilla! YUMMY!
How about thinking of "alternative" proteins. Some mention of beans was discussed, how about growing peanuts, native hazelnuts or pecans or any other local nut? Since we are vegetarians we need these in our diet and plan to grow more of them along with legumes and grains. I can not eat my furry or feathered friends.