I don’t often publish breakfasts on here, mainly because they don’t really excite me as much as other meals. This dish challenges me to change my mind about breakfast!
It’s the sort of dish you eat a little later (takes a little more effort to prepare) on a Sunday morning, sipping coffee on the deck and planning your day. Or planning on not planning anything as it turns out. We’ve been working hard over here at our little casa, so a lazy Sunday was just the right noteon which to start a new week.
This is a great dish to serve if you have brunch guests, because much of the work can be done the night before. I prepared the sauce in advance, so all I had to do was reheat and then cook my eggs. I used a saucepan because I was only cooking a small batch, but if you’re catering for more people I highly recommend a deep frying pan (with a lid) so the eggs cook a little more evenly.
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1 medium Onion, sliced finely
- 2 cloves Garlic, diced
- 2 Red capsicum, diced (if using)
- Fresh or dried chilli to taste
- 1 Cob corn, kernels removed
- 2 Bay leaves
- Salt and pepper
- 400 grams Tin tomatoes
- 2-4 large Eggs (depending on servings needed)
- 2-4 Tortillas, wheat or corn
- Grated cheese, to serve
- Avocado, to serve
Directions
- Heat olive oil in a large frying pan (that has a lid) on high.
- Add onion, garlic and capsicum (if using).
- Stir and cook over medium-high until onion is translucent and slightly caramelised (about 10 minutes).
- Add the tin of tomatoes, bay leaves, chilli (if using) and salt and pepper.
- Stir and bring to the boil on a high heat.
- Turn down to medium heat and cook for another 5 or so minutes until the sauce starts to reduce and thicken. (Note: this step can be done the day before and then reheated when you want to use it).
- Add your corn kernels and stir well.
- Create several little wells in the tomato sauce mixture and crack your eggs into them.
- Season and then put the lid over them.
- Let the eggs cook for 3-4 minutes until the white is cooked through but the yolk is still runny.
- Meanwhile, warm up the tortillas in the microwave or oven, slice up some avocado and grate some cheese (if using).
- Once your eggs are cooked, remove from heat and serve an egg and some sauce on a tortilla with toppings of your choice.
If there was any doubt, this picture makes it clear that J is the talented photographer in the family! J probably takes about half the photos on the blog with his fancy SLR and it puts my poor little point and shoot to shame!
Making toasted muesli is ridiculously easy, and far cheaper than buying from the shop! You can put just about anything you desire in it, and I like to buy my ingrediants from the bulk store Simply Good at Alderley. It is a little bit time consuming, and you need to keep an eye on it in the oven as it goes from toasted to burnt quite quickly. Overall it’s a great, thrifty way to spend a bit of time on the weekend and the end result is worth it.
This is one of my best versions (if I do say so myself) but use whatever your heart desires. Just a note with the dried fruit – don’t add that until after you’ve toasted the mixture.
Ingredients
- 3 cups Rolled oats
- 3 cups Puffed wheat
- 1.5 cups Coconut
- 1/2 cup Quinoa
- 1 cup Roasted hazelnuts, chopped roughly
- 2 tablespoons Butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla essence
- 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1/4 cup Maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon Brown sugar (optional)
- 1/2 cup Dried pears, chopped roughly
- 3/4 cup Dried blueberries
Directions
- Preheat oven to 150*. Line trays with baking paper.
- Combine melted butter, vanilla, cinnamon, maple syrup and brown sugar. Taste and adjust quantities as desired.
- In a large bowl combine the rolled oats, puffed wheat, coconut, quinoa and hazelnuts.
- Combine the melted butter mixture with the dried ingredients using a wooden spoon or your fingers. Make sure the butter is evenly distributed - it should be slightly moist but not wet.
- Spread the mixture on the baking trays. Make sure not to put too much mixture on each tray or it won't toast and get crispy. You will need to do several batches.
- Cook for about 5-7 minutes, until toasted as desired.
- Store in an airtight container for several weeks.
At this time of year, leftovers are a source of anxiety. I hate to waste food, but there are only so many ham sandwiches I can stomach in a short space of time! One night this week I had ham to use, and leftover chilli. The solution came to me in moments – crepes!
Crepes are a clever way to package and present leftovers as a new dish. Growing up, my mum often made crepes when we had leftover spaghetti sauce – she’d stuff the crepes with sauce (and sometimes even leftover pasta), roll them up and grill some melted cheese on top. I tried to ensure we had leftovers whenever we ate spaghetti, just so we could have crepes later in the week.
When it came to finding a recipe for crepes, who else would do but Julia Child? She wrote the book on French food (literally!). This recipe is adapted from her classic. One thing worth noting, you need to plan ahead as the crepe mixture needs 2 hours resting time.
We ate our crepes stuffed with chilli, or stuffed with ham and grated pecorino cheese. And the other beauty of crepes? Instant dessert – several crepes were enjoyed drizzled with lemon juice and sprinkled with sugar.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Cold water
- 1 cup Cold milk
- 4 large Eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 1/2 cups Flour
- 4 tablespoons Melted butter
- Additional butter to butter the pan
Directions
- In a bowl or food processor put water, milk, eggs and salt.
- Add the flour, then melted butter.
- Blend, process or beat on high for 1 minute. Scrape down the side of the bowl for any flour. Blend again briefly.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- Once rested, head a large frying pan on moderately high heat. Rub the pan with butter.
- Using a ladle to measure out your batter, pour a ladleful of crepe mixture into pan and tilt pan in all directions to run the batter over the bottom of the pan in a thin film.
- Any excess batter should be poured back into the bowl.
- Return the pan to heat for 60-80 seconds. When you toss the pan slightly the crepe should start to come away on its own.
- Flip the crepe - either with a clever flick of the wrist or, if this is beyond you (as it is me) with a spatula.
- Brown lightly for about 30 seconds on the other side. Slide onto a plate and begin your next crepe, re-buttering the pan each time.
- You can keep the crepes warm in a low oven or reheat when you're ready to eat.
- Wrap the crepes around a filling of your choice, roll up and enjoy.
This recipe makes a hearty dinner, and the leftovers would be delicious for breakfast also. Although this version uses bacon, I’m sure this could be omitted to make the meal vegetarian (and also vegan). We didn’t have any greens with the meal (tut tut) but now that I think of it, a side of spinach or zucchini would have been lovely.
Don’t be intimidated by this dish. Although it requires a bit of foresight (you have to soak the beans the night before), and quite a bit of cooking time (up to 4 hours), it is dead easy. We only made half the recipe, but if you made the full amount you could freeze portions for an easy dinner on another night. And these baked beans leave the tinned version for dead.
Details
15 min
240 min
4 h, 15 min
Ingredients
- 500 grams Dried cannelini beans, soaked overnight
- 2 tbsps Mustard powder
- 1/4 cup Treacle
- 1/4 cup Brown sugar
- 2 Cloves
- 1 Onion, halved
- 100 grams Smoked pork belly or bacon, roughly chopped
- 2 Bay leaves
- Olive oil
- 400 grams Tin chopped tomatoes
- 1/4 cup Red wine vinegar
- Sea salt and pepper
- 1 tbsp Chopped mint
Directions
- Drain and rinse the beans. Cover with fresh water and bring to boil in a saucepan.
- Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 45 minutes. Drain and leave to cool.
- Mix together mustard powder and water to make a paste.
- Add treacle and brown sugar and stir well - it will form a thick paste.
- Preheat the oven to 150* (mine isn't fan-forced).
- Spike each onion half with a clove.
- Splash some olive oil into a dutch oven. Add the onion halves, bacon and bay leaves.
- Cook over a medium heat on the stove for about 5 minutes.
- Add tomatoes and mustard mixture and stir to combine.
- Add the beans and cover with a tight-fitting lid.
- Maggie suggests baking for 4 hours, or until the beans are cooked. There is no way my beans took that long to cook, so just keep an eye on them and play by ear.
- Remove the lid for the last 30 minutes of cooking and add the red-wine vinegar.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Once the beans are ready, add the mint and adjust seasoning as necessary. If they are still a bit too sweet for you, stir through a little more vinegar. Use a light touch, because if you add too much vinegar there will be no fixing it!
- We served our with some crusty bread. A few greens might also be a good idea!
This is a recipe that has made it into my handwritten recipe book – a sure sign of a quality recipe 
This is a great recipe for a hearty brunch – I recommend serving with some fresh strawberries, although I didn’t have any at the time the photo was taken, and a cup of tea or coffee. If you have a porch or deck I recommend taking it outside and enjoying at a leisurely pace in the sunshine.
Ingredients
- 120 grams Ricotta
- 2 Ripe bananas
- 1 Egg
- 1 tbsp Brown sugar
- 1/4 cup Self Raising Flour
- pinch Cinnamon
- pinch Nutmeg
- Butter (for pan)
- Maple syrup and icing sugar to serve
Directions
- Mash ricotta in a large bowl with a fork.
- Add bananas, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and egg. Mash until well combined.
- Heat butter in a non-stick frying pan over high heat.
- When it starts to sizzle, reduce the heat to medium and add a ladleful of the mixture.
- Cook 2-3 minutes or until base is golden brown and bubbles appear on the surface.
- Carefully flip over and cook until golden brown on the other side.
- Serve immediately drizzled with maple syrup and icing sugar. Particularly nice served with fresh strawberries.
Treacle is a cafe/restaurant that prides itself on using the freshest and most seasonal produce. Executive Chefs and Owners Richard Gardner and Shenyia Laverack have put together a Modern Australian menu and have focused on using some of the excellent Queensland produce at their fingertips.
Breakfast is beautifully presented and the menu has a great variety of sweet, savory, gluten-free and vegetarian options. The coffee was very good and the meal sizes are generous. I enjoyed my breakfast but I think perhaps my dining companians made better selections.
I ordered roasted field mushrooms on sourdough with grilled haloumi cheese and roasted tomato. It was enjoyable, but I felt my mushrooms were a bit plain and I would have preferred if they had more flavour to them.
One dining companion ordered herb-roasted potatoes, oven baked with baby roma tomatoes served with spinach and poached eggs and toast. Her eggs were perfectly poached – breaking them open the yolk ran out onto the toast and potatoes.
My other companion dislikes eggs, so she ordered the zesty avocado on sourdough with bacon, roast tomato and rocket. She opted to add haloumi as well. The avocado was generously slathered on the toast and I think the addition of haloumi was inspired (but then, I think cheese makes nearly everything better).
On a separate occasion, I visited Treacle for lunch with J and friends who were visiting from Sydney. The lunch menu seems to stay pretty constant year around, although they do have daily specials which seem to have a more seasonal focus. I was hoping to have something reasonably light as we were going out for dinner the same night. I ordered the Thai style rice fish cakes which are served with a side salad and dipping sauce. The flavour of this dish was lovely, but I didn’t realise the cakes would be deep fried. I think they might have been left in the a fryer a bit too long also, as they were a bit crispy for my liking. I think I probably would have enjoyed this dish a bit more if there had been several smaller cakes, rather than two enormous ones. However, overall I still enjoyed my meal, and ate with gusto.
J ordered one of the specials – lamb ribs in crispy breadcrumbs with a sticky Asian dipping sauce. Our server informed us that one of the secret ingrediants in the sauce is actually Coca Cola. I am not a big ribs person (I find them too fatty), but J loved this dish. I was impressed by the dish, particularly as it was something really different that I haven’t seen on a menu elsewhere.
Overall I enjoyed my Treacle dining experience, and I will probably be back before too long – hopefully for a wine matching night they are having in May! I’m always keen to support local businesses with sustainable practices when the owners are passionate about what they do.
Treacle is located at Grange and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday and breakfast and lunch on Sundays.
Treacle
Shops 2-3 Days Rd
Grange
Ph: 3352 4144
Web: www.treaclecafe.com.au
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I don’t often publish breakfasts on here, mainly because they don’t really excite me as much as other meals. This dish challenges me to change my mind about breakfast!
02.02.12 | 
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