Eating Local for Breakfast

This week's Dark Days Challenge meal was breakfast: Fried potatoes and eggs with toast, one of my favorite meals at any time of day -



Excuse the glare on the pic - it really wasn't greasy ;-) All ingredients were local except for the spices and oil. The bread flour was from Bob's Red Mill and the butter from an Oregon dairy. The eggs come from very pampered chickens the next town over, delivered by a very nice woman who works just down the block from me. They are incredibly flavorful and the yolks are very dark yellow or orange. Yummy!

Now for the recipes...

My Mom can cut potatoes into perfect rounds, all the same thickness so they cook evenly, but I wasn't blessed with that gene, so my spuds are cut into cubes.

Fried Potatoes

1/4 cup +/- canola oil (use olive oil if you like a stronger flavor)
1 medium onion, chopped or diced
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
4-6 medium potatoes, cut as you wish, peeled or not - I choose not to peel
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet until hot and then add onion and fry for a few minutes. As onion gets soft, add garlic and caramelize to desired darkness, stirring enough to keep them from burning.

Add potatoes and leave the room for at least 10 minutes. The more you turn the potatoes, the mushier the dish will get. Turn them only enough to cook them all, letting them get as brown as you like.

Add salt and pepper half way through and more as a final step before serving.

Cook the eggs however you like. This particular pair was fried over hard.

The bread is a favorite recipe of mine from Betty Crocker's recipe book, modified over time to suit me. I use my KitchenAid mixer for almost all of the process.

Early Colonial Bread

2 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup corn meal
1/3 cup brown sugar, or raw sugar, or honey or leave it out altogether
1/4 cup oil (not olive oil)
1/2 - 1 t salt
1 T yeast, or one yeast packet
1/2 cup rye flour
4-6 cups white and wheat flour in whatever proportions you prefer

Mix corn meal, sugar, oil and salt together in large mixing bowl. Add boiling water and let sit until mixture cools to room temperature, stirring occasionally. This usually takes 45 minutes in my house. Be sure the mixture is cool enough not to kill the yeast when you add it.

After the mixture is cool, add yeast, rye flour and a cup or so of white flour. Mix with the flat paddle until everything is well blended. I usually mix on level 1 for a minute or so, scrape with a spatula, then mix on level 2 for a couple of minutes. It's not an exact science ;-)

Add half a cup more wheat or white flour at a time until the paddle starts to have trouble with the dough thickness and then switch to the dough hook, being sure to stop the mixer and thoroughly scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula often.

When the dough is hanging on to the hook and the sides of the bowl are pretty clean, test for stickiness and put the dough onto a lightly floured surface when ready to start hand kneading. Since I use the mixer, there's not much hand kneading to be done - it's more a test to be sure there's enough flour in and the dough is firm enough. Or maybe I just like to be obsessive.

Divide dough into two portions and shape into loaves. Put in greased bread pans and let rise as high as you like, about an hour. The original recipe calls for proofing the dough, but I generally don't bother, as I like a very firm loaf for toasting.

Bake at 350* for 40 minutes or until done.

I made the bread a couple of days in advance, knowing that the long weekend was going to be busy and I wouldn't want to expend that much energy, but I dearly love home-made toast. It will last about a week on the counter, longer in the fridge or freezer.

Enjoy!