Breakfast at Bethany

I am not a breakfast person by nature, but I have become one out of Necessity and Duty.  I must say that it is one of the better things Duty has lead me to.

Breakfast is my second-language and I was a clumsy and unwilling student, yet as the days pass I become a little more fluent, a little more easy and quite a bit more skilled at preparing the feast which breaks our fast. 

At Bethany house we have three standard breakfasts; 

Oatmeal, 

Fried Eggs with Toast and 

Dirty Potatoes. 

My Mr. and son LOVE oatmeal and often eat it no matter what else we are having, but I find it unsatisfactory for a breakfast food.  Alex loves his oatmeal in a liquid state very much like the gruel fed to the orphans in Oliver Twist. Little Bear eats his much thicker (so that he can keep it on his little spoon) and decorated with stewed prunes, butter and vanilla-flavored fish oil. Yum.  If the guys are content eating oatmeal, I will make myself a smoothie with yogurt, cottage cheese, frozen fruit and veggies and some fish oil. Yum. (yes, I must add 'Yum' after every mention of fish oil.) 

I far prefer having sunny-side-up eggs on buttered toast, but my favorite breakfast is Dirty Potatoes. I got the name and recipe from a gruff old coot we used to live a mile up the road from in Ohio who claimed he ate it while stationed in the Philippines after WWII. Our family had been eating variations on the idea for years, but my brothers and I couldn't resist the romance our neighbor wove into the story and Dirty Potatoes became one of our favorite meals. 

This morning we had Dirty Potatoes with Buttered Bananas  - - the perfect way to start a day, I think! 

Dirty Potatoes, ala Roger Galbraith. Chopped up bacon is cooked until the fat is rendered and then diced potatoes are tossed in and the whole thing is salted and covered. When the potatoes are tender, eggs are broken right into the pan and scrambled. I'm usually not in the mood to cry first thing in the morning (sometimes I am...) but chopped onions make a nice addition - add them with the potatoes. 

My guys like to eat it with ketchup - brothers, son, husband, the whole caboodle. Little Bear carefully dips each and every bite into his red pool of ketchup before eating it with a finesse only toddlers can truly pull off. 

Buttered Bananas are very simple to make but they taste fancy and balance well with the heartiness of the Dirty Potatoes. I slice 2 or 3 bananas into a small sauce pot and add a few Tablespoons of butter, a teaspoon or so of cinnamon and a dusting of cocoa powder. I then cook them over low heat until the butter is bubbly and the bananas appear to have melted on the outside but are still intact. 

Oh my, oh my - these are some good eats to be sure. 

I love having a breakfast plan and I love having a breakfast rotation. These three meals are excessively inexpensive (the dirty potatoes only cost about $2.50 for the whole pan and feeds three hearty eaters) and simple to prepare while providing us with good nutrition and some sturdiness with which to begin our day. The Mr. comes home to the smell of cinnamon and bacon (what man wouldn't swoon if greeted with *that* succulence, I ask you), the Little Bear eats until he can eat no more (and then sits in a very pleasant 'after breakfast coma' before his bath), and I actually enjoy breakfast and a cup of hot coffee... 

How is the breakfast hour managed at your home? 

Peace, 

Ann