Sunday Breakfast @ Carmel's Kitchen

Cucumber egg salad, french fries and pizza for breakfast. Yeah, this is breakfast for today. It was supposed to be lunch but I woke up seriously hungry at 7am after a late night lok-lok with Mike and the Super GT folks.

Cucumber Egg Salad:

Cucumber egg salad is about the easiest meal or snack one can make anytime of the day. Light and quite filling, its just perfect for the hot days that we're having now.

• 1 Japanese Cucumber

• 2 hard boiled eggs

• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise

• 2 tablespoon apple cider

• 1 tablespoon sunflower seeds (optional)

Slice the cucumber and mixed with cubed eggs. Mix it well with the mayonnaise and apple cider. Add cucumber, eggs, sunflower seeds into mayonnaise apple cider mixture. Chill before serving.

French Fries:

This urge came around after I read Suanie's post. Its such a comfort food with mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and mustard:D Check out Suanie's post for the fried version. I hate cleaning up, so here's the baked version.

• 1 Russet Potato

• Olive Oil

• Coarse sea salt

• Freshly ground Black Pepper

• Italian Herbs (your choice herbs)

Scrub potato skin well if you want to eat the skin too. I love the earthly taste of potato skin. Cut potato into 1 to 1.5cm width sticks. Drizzle olive oil and mix well with the salt, black pepper and herbs. Baked in a preheated oven at 180C for 20-30 minutes. Stir the fries every 10 minutes so that all sides are cooked and crisp.

## Some opt to boil the potatoes first for about 3 minutes with some salt to remove the starch. It also ensures that the potato is well cooked.

Pizza:

This is what I call lazy simple meal that I can make anytime with just any ingredients so long as I have a pizza base ready. You may buy ready made pizza base available at good supermarkets or opt to make your own. They keep quite well in the freezer.

• 1 pizza base

• 50g grated cheese (today I opted for cheddar)

• 100g bacon

• Tomato base (or pasta sauce)

• 9" pizza base

Spread a thin layer of garlic butter on the pizza base for more ooopmh. Then spread the tomato base evenly on the pizza base. Layer next with the bacon followed by the cheese. Pop into oven for 10 minutes at 180C or until cheese melts and pizza base browns. For a crispier pizza, bake it on a rack instead of a tray.

A twist to pain perdu

Pain perdu is not pain in your joints or anything. It means "lost bread" in French. I must admit lost bread doesn't mean anything else except perhaps you lost your bread or did the bread lose its way?

Seriously pain perdu is french toast as we all know it. Originally pain perdu was designed to put stale bread to good use instead of throwing it away.

I've made a twist to the regular french toast for breakfast this morning. I wanted something filling, something for me to play around in one of my favourite playgrounds - Carmel's Kitchen. And I opted to bake so that I don't have to mop the floor again.

It took less than 10 minutes to prepare and while it sat in the oven for 10 minutes, I was cleaning up the kitchen.

Ingredient:
• 1 egg
• 30 ml of milk
• Cinnamon, Freshly ground black pepper and Italian herbs to taste
• 4 slices of thick cut bread (any bread will do...not necessarily stale bread but stale bread makes better pain perdu)
• Grated cheese (any cheese will do)
• 2 gourmet sausages

Instructions:
• Soak bread in milk thoroughly.
• Beat egg with cinnamon, freshly ground black pepper and Italian herbs.
• Soak bread in egg mixture.
• Place bread on baking tray.
• Arrange sliced sausages on the bread.
• Top with cheese.
• Sprinkle with a little Italian herbs for some extra flavour when you bite into the cheese.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 150C for 10 minutes till cheese melts.
Bake a little longer if you like the whole toast to be crispy. I prefer mine to be crisp on the outside and slightly soft inside.
By not mixing the egg and milk as most recipes suggest, you basically get the egg to coat the goodness and flavours of the milk inside. You can imagine that every bite into the toast is an explosion of flavours in layers.

I don't make french toast with stale bread though...never seem to have them at home. And would normally go for bread with a whole lot of grains, nuts and seeds in them for some extra ooomph.

You can actually make it sans cheese and sausage. Then you top it with maple syrup, yoghurt and some fresh fruits for a wholesome healthy breakfast.

Oh! Serve it with some salad on the side for a complete meal.