State of the Plate: Breakfast for Dinner
// March 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // State of the Plate
Nothing Says lovin' Like Frittat From the Oven...
The Most Important meal of the day?
Joel Brown
(Article Taken from my “State of the Plate” column in the 03.31.09 edition of the DA.)
Growing up, when I was told that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, I can remember thinking that my mom was out of her mind and full of Honey Nut Cheerios. How could cereal and toast be the most important part of the day? Needless to say I still think that the whole “most important meal of the day” stuff is bull, but I have grown to calling breakfast one of my FAVORITE meals of the day. Hence, I bring up the subject of breakfast for dinner.
Breakfast for dinner is my favorite meal made at the PERFECT time of the day- the time when you can truly sit down and enjoy it slowly and in the company of the ones you love to hate and hate to love. All kidding aside, I think that dinnertime is the perfect time for breakfast. We used to once in a while get breakfast for dinner as a kid, but it was typically a non-verbal communication from my mom that something was wrong. Someone had either had a REALLY bad day at the office, someone might have died, or one of the parents was just pissed at the world for some reason, and pancakes were easier than meatloaf and to this day I have never had hamburger helper, so that was not EVEN an option. My mother would probably disagree with me (sorry mommy) and she might be right, but I just remember it that way. I also hold a grudge against you mom for not letting us eat dinner leftover for breakfast (pizza is a perfectly good morning meal, thank you very much). Sorry, I did not mean to go off on a Jerry Springer-esque tangent on my mother. I am not really angry with her; I just think it’s funny.
I have, however, taken a completely different opinion about breakfast food consumption times and tend to make it more after 6:00 p.m. than not. Imagine dragging your ass home from school/work at 8:30 p.m. and being able to make a banana nut waffle (and not those damn Eggo cardboard waffles) with sweet and savory bacon in less than 10 minutes. Not to sound like an infomercial, but it’s possible! I love to make homemade waffles (base recipe on my blog www.joelhblog.com) and package them in a Ziploc bag in pairs and then microwave them for about 45 seconds or so. For the bacon I lay out about 6 strips (2 portions) of the porky goodness on a small cookie sheet, sprinkle it with a mix of ½ tablespoon of kosher salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar and ½ tablespoons of freshly cracked black pepper and chuck it into the oven until crisp. Voila, Dinner! Er… I mean, Breakfast DONE! Breakfast foods are just naturally a very versatile genre of cuisine and the perfect canvas of improvisation for the newbie cook.
Frittatas are another easy and kick-ass fast dish. For ease of preparation you may want to pick up a small cast iron skillet, but this is not a must have. When you come home, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, pop the skillet on the stove under a medium-high flame, add a dash of oil or fat (olive oil, peanut oil, butter, duck fat, etc.) to the vessel crank, it to High, and wait about two minutes. While that is heating break 3 eggs into a bowl and whisk them with about ½ teaspoon of salt until fluffy. Rummage through your cheese drawer and leftovers for something that you would like to throw in (my all time favorite is left over Indian Onion Chutney and Chicken Tikka skewers). Add the eggs to the skillet and scramble them a little. While the eggs are still wet, pop in your additives and whatnot, and throw that into your preheated oven for about 15 minutes (or until the egg is set). Dinner’s Done! For more recipes and break-dinner ideas visit my blog (www.joelhblog.com). Happy eating kids!
Hi. I’m Joel. life long foodie and most recently Food Columnist. I have started 
