Well well, this has been the longest I have taken to set foot in here. But, needless to mention,just be assured that I have been cooking alot for those who follow my reels on the Instagram page. Just the down side of that is I haven’t been posting as much as I should on this blog for reasons I would rather not share but that will change henceforth. So, while I was away, I did some discoveries about Sidisfoodcuisine and from there I was able to establish BreadnWine. It’s not physically present, for anyone who might be wondering what it is in the first place but maybe in the nearest future that name will make some sense. So BreadnWine is an arm of Sidisfoodcuisine that serves brunch on Sundays.At times dinner too. So it’s more of a brunch dinner thing. But for the purpose of this post, I will focus on just brunch.
Brunch is basically breakfast and lunch combined nothing fancy. Many a times I get to prepare Brunch over the weekends and precisely on Sundays, as this is the day I am free the most. I just make this for my family for now, and so far I have received a couple of requests to extend the same to other people. So before I get to do that extension, for anyone who may want to prepare brunch for themselves or family or friends here is just a guideline on how you can go about it. All you need is just a positive energy and appetite over and above good ingredients.
So what do you need to have?
You need to have done your menu days prior like two or three especially if doing it for a crowd. You will realise that unlike a normal breakfast item, brunch calls for one to make a spread of items. Ranging from food, drinks, beverages, fruits, breads, cereals etc. Depending on who or whom you would like to impress, your spread can be simple to extremely complicated as I would fancy.
Next thing is once you have selected your menu, you also need to know the number of people attending the brunch so that it makes your shopping and preparation easier. I remember when I planned for my son’s birthday brunch party, I must have spent like two weeks preparing and planning adding and removing items from my list until I had everything to my satisfaction.
Most of the time, you may want to also find out whether you will be preparing a good number of things by yourself or whether you will be buying some items. This is important because you realise making brunch is no mean feat so the purpose for that is to know also whether you may need help or you will doing everything solo. Being the chef that I am, I usually prefer preparing everything by myself because there is some gratification I derive from it. But even store bought items are perfectly okay and even necessary to cut on time and costs.
Another thing to note is, since brunch calls for most of the items cooked just shortly before serving, what you would spend your time doing the previous night would be just prep work. So save up your energy for the brunch day. For example, something like casseroles and baked toasts, these you will be required to prepare the previous night for overnight soaking. Also I love preparing my drinks the previous day, like the fresh juices, iced teas etc. That way come morning these beverages are well chilled, and even well steeped like the teas and you will have time to do final cookings for things like eggs, french toasts, pancakes, etc that need to be served hot.
The best thing about making brunch is, apart from it being fun, it helps you bring out your creativity of not just food preparation, but even setting up the eating area as well. You could choose to either go all formal or informal, just ensure you have enough cutlery to go with your set up, a good centre piece like a vase of flowers which you don’t need to incur so much on. This only plays the part of brightening the day and your table. So whenever I am preparing for a brunch that would require me to set the table, I would do it the previous night including setting up the utensils to use.
Since most of my stuff is done the previous night, come morning, my role would either being doing the last minute bakes, the last minute fries, fruit preparations and serving. Then now bring your ideas to life. Set up the food, have some good music on the background and enjoy your mid morning away. I hope this somehow inspires you to try, you can bring out your creativity even cooking something as simple as eggs and toast can be made fancy. I will share a recipe of an egg fritatta that I make occasionally during brunch. The only down side about making this brunch meals is just the dishes. You will have lots of those. If you can, get help to have those taken care of.
Ingredients
- 6 eggs.
- Cooked caramelised onions from 2 large onions.
- Grated Mozzarella cheese
- Sautéed spinach just a bunch it three to four big leaves
- Herbs for garnish. Like sage, tarragon, oregano
- Salt.
- Butter or oil for frying.
- A dash of milk though optional like two tablespoons.
Instructions
Add your eggs and milk in a bowl, salt and beat until well mixed.
Next add in the caramelised onions and sautéed spinach. Mix well using a spatula.
Add in your herbs and mix well too. You can choose just one herb. Maybe add a bit of pepper if you like
Next add in your grated cheese about 4 tablespoons of it or more.
Heat your pan, cast iron pan is most preferable but a non stick is just fine too.
Add you butter or oil, and once this is hot enough, add in the egg mixture. Cover and cook on low heat. You may add more cheese on top.
Cooking options are , either cover and let it simmer on low heat until well done, or place the pan in the oven and bake the fritatta until ready for about ten to fifteen minutes. 180 degrees.
I served this as a part of the brunch spread.
The best thing about a fritatta is that you can play around with the ingredients and you will have something very awesome and delicious. You can make it even meaty adding bacon, fish, pieces of chicken, or add sautéed mushrooms.
Notes
To make the caramelized onions, just heat your pan, add some oil, add your onions cut in rings, cook on low heat, add soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic powder if you like till you get a good brown colour of the onions remove from heat and set aside. To sauté the spinach, maybe in the same pan you used to make the onions, just pan fry the spinach for two minutes then remove from heat and set aside.
2 comments
Cheers.
Great post!