Breakfast of Champions

I used to not like eating breakfast. Then I bought some cool widgets such as a crepe pan, madeleine tins and yogurt maker to help make breakfast more fun. For the slow-cooked oatmeal that I learned to make from Cook's Illustrated magazine, all I need is a heavy-bottom pot. Though the pros in the culinary lab recommend toasting the steel-cut oats in butter before cooking them in a blend of milk and water, I often skip this step. I also sometimes cheat and use quick-cooking oats. But that doesn't mean I curtail the cooking time. The longer the oats can soak up the liquid, the more puffy they get. Other key steps are maintaining a 1-to-4 ratio of oats to milk/water and adding the salt before the final five minutes of cooking. Cook's Illustrated claimed that if you add the salt any earlier in the cooking process, the oats will turn out clumpy. I sweeten the gruel with honey. To help balance the flavors -- and avoid any accusations of being overly healthy -- I also fry some Jimmy Dean sausage.
Another homey dish for breakfast is a French toast souffle. You make the same egg mixture in which you'd dip the stale pieces of bread. But you let the bread soak in the mixture in a baking pan overnight. The next morning, you dot the pieces of bread with some butter and bake until the eggs set. Recently, I used stale wheat bread for my souffle. Don't be scared to drown the souffle in maple syrup.
Another breakfast recipe that requires some advanced preparing the night before is that for home-made yogurt. I've always loved the European-style yogurt made in little glass jars. But they're often too pricey. So, for my wedding registry, I requested a Euro Cuisine yogurt maker that prepares seven jars of yogurt. All you need to do is boil milk, cool it down a little and add the culture and any flavoring that you desire. It takes nine hours to cook 2 percent low-fat milk, shorter for whole milk and longer for the skim version.
For my first batch of yogurt, I mixed in a bit of fancy orange marmalade. It's a treat worth waking up for in the morning.

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