Sweet or Savory

When it comes to breakfast, there's always the question: sweet or savory.  For me, this usually comes down to granola with yogurt or almond milk and fruit vs. an egg with toast.  I love both options equally, but some mornings are clearly sweet mornings and others are clearly savory.  A major deciding factor is the heat, and it has been hot recently, so I've been tending more to the cold, refreshing fruit-based breakfasts.  I decided this week to photograph and document my two most favorite breakfasts to date.  These are both throw-together and taste-as-you-go dishes, so the measurements here are somewhat approximate.  Hopefully they'll inspire you nonetheless!

For the last several weeks, I've been rather predictable with regards to breakfast.  Almost every morning, I have the same yogurt, fruit, and granola bowl.  I usually hate repeating dishes, but this is just the most perfect breakfast - filling, nutritious, and cool for those already hot summer mornings.  The following recipe encompasses my favorite fruits - bananas and blueberries - but any other fruits would work beautifully.  At the beginning of the summer, I was obsessed with mangoes, so I blended mangoes into my yogurt instead of banana.

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe banana (make sure it's ripe because you want that sweet kick)
• plain, unsweetened yogurt, as much as you'd like (I probably use between 1/2-3/4 cup)*
• a very large handful of blueberries
• a sprinkling of granola, to your liking

Directions:

1. Blend your banana and yogurt to your desired smoothness in a mini-prep or blender.  
2. Pour into a bowl, add the blueberries, and sprinkle granola on top.  Enjoy!

*Now, here's where I change it up slightly.  Every time I buy yogurt, I try to buy a different kind.  However, I'm picky and only eat full-fat yogurts, of which there are a limited number of kinds.  Therefore, I can't always get a new brand, so I just try not to get the same thing I had a week or two before.  My most recent love: goat's milk yogurt.  A close second: sheep's milk yogurt.  These both have a unique little flavor to them (yes, the goat's yogurt tastes ever so slightly of goat cheese, but I love this fact), making them so much more exciting than regular old cow's milk.  However, goat and sheep yogurt are significantly more expensive (I mean, how much milk can you really get from one goat?), so I alternate with my favorite brands of full-fat cows milk yogurt.

The best part about this dish: serving it in an elegant bowl.  How sophisticated breakfast suddenly becomes!

Garnished with my current granola, featuring oats, almonds, almond butter, pepitas, sunflower seeds, coconut, brown sugar, brown rice syrup, coconut oil, applesauce, and almond extract.

As I mentioned, I eat my yogurt almost every morning when it's so hot out.  There are some mornings, however, when I feel I need an extra bit of protein or I'm just in a salty mood.  For example, the other day, I went to a pilates class in the early morning, and when I came back, I was absolutely craving something green.  Luckily, we still had a bunch of swiss chard in the fridge from our CSA!  Perfect: an egg with swiss chard.  Now, of course the recipe below takes some time, so it would not be ideal for a busy busy, rushing morning.  However, swiss chard can be cooked the night before, kept in the fridge, and then reheated (or not) in the morning, and it will still taste superb!  In an attempt to eat more savory breakfasts, I'm going to start cooking up some veggies the night before for a quick and easy, egg-y and plant-y creation in the morning.

Ingredients:

• olive oil
• half a red onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 bunch of swiss chard, stems and leaves chopped
• pinch of nutmeg 
• butter for greasing the pan
• 1 egg
• salt and pepper to taste
• parmesan cheese, grated
• basil, chopped

Directions:

1. Cook the onion in some olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes or so, until the onion is translucent and starts to brown.  Add in the garlic, and cook, stirring often, for 1 minute.  Don't burn your garlic!
2. Add in the swiss chard stems and leaves.  Season with the nutmeg as well as some salt and pepper.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chard is wilted and the stems are soft.  This will take a few to several minutes, depending on how fresh your chard is.  If you want to speed up the process, you can cover the pan with a lid to trap the steam.
3. Meanwhile, heat a small frying pan over medium heat.  Butter the pan generously then crack an egg right into it.
4. When the edges of the egg start to brown (1-2 minutes), flip it over and cook for just another minute or so if you like your yolk runny, as I do.
5. Put as much cooked chard onto a plate as you can eat (I started with half the batch...but then went back after I finished my plate and polished off the rest of the swiss chard in the pan...no vitamin K deficiency here!).  Place your cooked egg on top.  Add a little salt and pepper.  Grate some parmesan cheese on top and then spring on lots of basil.

A colorful breakfast full of vitamins, protein, and omegas!

This is why you want a runny yolk - so that is flows over the chard and envelops it in its richness.  So luscious!