October Breakfast

May this be the first of many breakfast recaps!

I realize I just hosted my 9th breakfast of the year (yeah I skipped August) and this is my first recap BUT this will be the first of many and I just wanted to have a place where I can give you guys as much information as possible and hopefully answer all of your questions!

First up: THE MENU

Ok so I always make the menu in Adobe Photoshop - I designed this one in March I think but if you don’t have photoshop or don’t know how to use it, Canva is also great for this kind of work!

Figuring out what to have on a multi course breakfast menu is truly the hardest part for me because trying to balance the sweet, the rich, the savory, the salty, the filling bread, and keep it seasonal and highlight what’s happening feels like a jigsaw puzzle every time. And every time I think I could have done something differently but there’s always next month and next year!

To be totally honest I’ve been working on apple fritters for WAY too long, like every year I attempt them a couple times and they’ve just never hit the way I want them too. So originally I was going to serve apple fritters but then I pivoted to making these maple sea salt old fashioned donuts because they’re one of my favorites but something I only gravitate towards once it starts to cool off. And then of course pumpkin bread just made sense because it’s October and I knew I could make it the day before and it would honestly be even better the next day.

For the “main” I usually try to have something savory just to break up all the sweet and I make this sauce every fall which is roasted honey nut squash, onion, garlic, feta, and chicken broth and it’s so good over pasta, so when I say honey nuts at the farmer’s market I wanted to figure out how to make it work for brunch and immediately I thought of turning it into a shakshuka. The only thing was I wanted to make sure it felt savory and didn’t lean sweet the way that squash often can so I balanced it out by really charring the onions and garlic and then adding in a bit of harissa to give it a little kick! A bunch of you asked for the recipe so I figured I would write it here - truth be told it’s not super precise and you’re going to need to taste along the way but here are the bones of it.

Honey Nut Shakshuka

Ingredients:

• 2 small honey nut squash

• 2 small or one large red onion

• 1 medium yellow onion

• 2 small heads of garlic (yes heads)

• Olive Oil for drizzling

• Salt & Black Pepper

• 1 cup (ish? start with half a cup and add more as needed)

• 6 eggs (you can probably fit 8 if you really try)

• 4 ounces feta

• Pickled red onions for topping

Method:

Turn the oven to 425 F. Cut the squashes in half and scoop out the guts, place them cut side up on a baking sheet. Then peel and quarter the onions and toss them around the squash halves. Lastly, trim about 1/4” off the top of the garlic heads to expose the cloves, set those cut side up on the baking tray. Drizzle everything with a good olive oil and then season liberally with salt and black pepper. Roast for 45 minutes to an hour until the squash is fork tender and the onions and garlic have started to char.

Take the pan out of the oven and leave to cool until you can handle the squashes. Scoop the insides of the squash into a large blender along with the charred onions. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of the skin and into the blender, then add in the chicken broth (or vegetable broth!). Blend until smooth. Taste to see if it needs more salt or pepper. The consistency should be close to a tomato soup so add more broth as needed. Then add in about a tablespoon of harissa - if you’re sensitive to spice start with less, you can always add more!

You can either store the sauce in the fridge until you’re ready to use it or use it right away. To turn the sauce into the shakshuka, pour it into a large shallow pan. Turn the heat to medium low, stirring it occasionally until it starts to bubble. Use the back of a spoon or ladle to make little wells, one at a time cracking the eggs into the well. Once all the eggs have been added in, cover the pan with a lid and let them cook until the whites have set - it’s ok to lift the lid and check on them during the process. Once the whites have set, turn off the heat and top it with crumbled feta, pickled red onions, and any herbs or micro greens you want!

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I served the shakshuka with a homemade rosemary sourdough which worked so well flavor wise. And then because I can’t help myself, I also made my classic buttermilk pancakes because it’s not breakfast without pancakes. I also made bacon because it just made sense with the pancakes and honestly worked well with the shakshuka to have a little crispy, salty meat. Sometime I feel like breakfast sausage works better with the menu but in this case, bacon just worked better!

For dessert, yeah I think there should be dessert at the end, sue me - for dessert I wanted to make a Maple Sea Salt Latte custard tart. I usually try to do something that is creamy or custardy rather than big and filling like a cake because it’s just easier after a big meal to imagine eating something like ice cream or a creme brûlée.

So many of you have been asking for the recipe and I promise it’s coming I just wasn’t 100% with the final look of it (the taste was so good though) so I’ve been testing a couple different methods to figure out what works best! Should be up by Friday though!

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Next up: THE TIMELINE

Ok I’m not going to go way in depth with this because you can really do it however you want but I try to plan the menu so that I can have some things prepped the day before because otherwise you will run out of time. For October, I had made the sourdough and let it do it’s second proof in the fridge overnight so that I could just bake it in the morning. I also made the pumpkin bread the day before and just stored it, uncut, at room temperature. For the donuts I could’ve made the dough the night before but I ended up just making it in the morning when I first woke up so that it would have time to chill. But you do want to make sure you fry the donuts day of, they just don’t taste as good the next day. Just be sure to put a lid on your oil pot once you’re done frying and open a window so you’re apartment doesn’t smell like fry oil. For the pancakes, I whisked the dry ingredients together in one mixing bowl and the wet ingredients in a separate one before my friends arrived and then whisked them together just before I was ready to start flipping them. That way everything is already measured and ready to go but you still get the taste of fresh warm pancakes. I also prepped the shakshuka sauce the day before and just stored it in the fridge overnight. The custard tart needs to be made the day before so that it can set up in the fridge overnight. So all in all this menu allowed me to do most of the prep the night before which made hosting so much easier.

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Ok I think that’s all for now! Let me know in the comments what other questions you have so I can make sure to answer them for November!

Love,

Audrey