Maybe the most important meal of the day, here's a recipe to get you started in the mornings. This was a revelation when cooked for the first time by Katayoun's American housemate whilst they were studying for their PhDs back in the early 2000s. And her parents had a sense of fun - thank you Mr & Mrs Bringer for naming your lovely daughter Joy ...
Joy’s Good Morning Pancakes
Serves 2 hungry or 3 more polite people!
1. Mix together 1 slightly beaten egg, 6 fl oz milk, & 1tsp of sunflower oil.
2. Add to this 1 cup of the pancake mixture, stirring until combined.
3. Pour about ¼ cup of the batter for each pancake onto a hot buttered frying pan.
4. Place frozen or fresh raspberries or blueberries on top of each pancake.
5. Flip when the bubbles begin to pop & cook till brown on each side.
6. Serve with raspberry jam, honey, maple syrup, golden syrup etc
Great with crispy bacon!
To make a jarful - highly recommended
1 cup wholemeal flour
1¼ cups plain flour
2 cups of oats (porridge oats)
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
⅔ cup brown sugar
1½ cups sunflower seeds – or mixed seeds of choice
As mentioned yesterday re peanut butter, the name of Kellogg became a household one due to their work on good health and products aimed at maintaining it. It is a name that has gone on to dominate our breakfast tables - but who was Mr Kellogg?
In fact, there were two of them -
John Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943) was an American medical doctor, nutritionist, inventor, health activist, anti-masturbation advocate, and businessman. He was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. The sanitarium was founded by members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and it combined aspects of a European spa, a hydrotherapy institution, a hospital and a high-class hotel. Kellogg treated both the rich and famous, as well as the poor.
His brother, Will Keith Kellogg, worked as the book-keeper. Battle Creek is where corn flakes were accidentally created and led to the eventual formation of the Kellogg Company. Searching for a wheat-based granola, it was in 1894 that the brothers were in the process of cooking some wheat when they were called away. When they returned, the wheat had become stale. They decided to force the tempered grain through the rollers anyway, and surprisingly, the grain did not come out in long sheets of dough. Instead, each wheat berry was flattened and came out as a thin flake - cornflakes were 'invented'.
Dr. John Harvey forbade his brother Will from distributing cereal beyond his patients and as a result, the brothers fell out. W. K. launched the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, marketing the new cereal as an anaphrodisiac (look that word up) in 1906 and convinced his brother to relinquish rights to the product - renaming the company the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1909 and becoming simply the Kellogg Company in 1922. John Harvey was an early proponent of the new germ theory of disease, and well ahead of his time in relating intestinal flora and the presence of bacteria in the intestines to health and disease. The sanitarium approached treatment in a holistic manner, actively promoting vegetarianism, nutrition, the use of enemas to clear "intestinal flora"(presumably washing out the good as well as the bad flora) exercise, sun-bathing, and hydrotherapy, as well as the abstention from smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, and sexual activity. So just remember that the next time you are munching what's in your breakfast bowl!
Robert Macfarlane's Word of the Day is ...
""Piss-en-Lit" - straight-talking French folk-name for the Dandelion, due to its use as a herbal diuretic - Piss-a-bed in English.
Dandelions–bright now–are roadside gold, fallen stars of the football field, bane of lawn perfectionists, bee-feeders, spirit-lifters, time-keepers."
ps: The English word "dinner" (from Old French disner) also referred originally to breaking a fast. Its meaning shifted in the mid-13th century and it was the name given to the first meal of the day. It was the 15th century that saw “breakfast” come into use in written English to describe a morning meal - literally a breaking of the fasting period of the night just ended. In Old English the term had been morgenmete, meaning "morning meal."
Quotes
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength. “ - Corrie ten Boom
"The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love." - William Wordsworth
I remember as a child auntie Ruth telling me not to pick the dandelions as it would make me wet the bed, now I know why.