Tasty Toast Toppings

Recently Doubleday Book Clubs had one of their "Everything's half price!" sales and I bought Julie Goodwin's cookbook, Our Family Table. It's everything Julie promised it would be, a cookbook full of straightforward family recipes. I haven't decided if I particularly like that premise personally, but there are a few recipes in there that I could see myself cooking.

These recipes do not include the ridiculously named 'Spaggy Bol'. Not because it's a simple recipe that you can work out yourself if you try, but because of the stupid name. I understand that that's what you may call it at home with the family, but I really hate it when cookbook authors try to ingratiate themselves with readers this way. Use the correct names!!! Don't even get me started on the woman in the instant pasta ads who "mixes it up" with "mushies".

Please excuse the rant above if you don't mind this sort of thing. I also shudder when I hear news announcers on the radio annouce there's been a "prang" or a "bingle" on a major road. I hold authors, news announcers and advertisers to a higher standard than a normal person and I don't need the colloquialisms, thanks. (Of course, the soup ad where the kid is slurping is a whole other matter on a whole new level than the colloquialisms. Does anybody else find that ad disgustingly rude?)

Wow, those two paragraphs probably told you more than you needed to know about me. Let's move on to the food, shall we?

So far the only recipe I have made is adapted from her Breakfast Bruschetta. Julie gives three recipes for topping a leftover French breadstick for a quick cooked breakfast: sauteed mushrooms, roasted tomatoes and scrambled eggs with feta.

As it happened, this Sunday morning we had been to markets and to the bakery and I had some beautiful pane di casa just crying out to be eaten. I also had some fresh tomatoes and free range organic eggs. The universe was telling me I had to cook this breakfast.

Julie's recipe for the roasted tomatoes was really just an inspiring idea, because I fell back on this recipe for oven-dried tomatoes and garlic, but only cooked them until the tomatoes until they were soft. I only used one clove of garlic because I do love the flavour it adds, but it was breakfast.


The scrambled eggs with feta I made (almost) as written. I did use milk instead of cream and I didn't use nearly as much butter. I didn't have any fresh oregano so I used some minced chives. I have made this a few times now and I've found that I like it best when the feta melts completely into the eggs, so I add it a little earlier than Julie calls for.

On a base of lightly toasted pane de casa, the tomatoes and the scrambled eggs were an awesome breakfast. D wasn't that big a fan, he's not really into scrambled eggs and he doesn't like tomatoes so he didn't finish his. He did let me eat it, so there were positives to this situation. I liked it very much.

Hey, Julie was even on Masterchef last night. Talk about appropriate timing. Shall we all just pretend I planned it that way?

Scrambled Eggs and Feta
adapted from My Family Table by Julie Goodwin

4 eggs
2 tbs milk
100g feta, diced
20g cold butter, cubed
1 tsp minced chives

Whisk the eggs and milk together in a bowl. In a small frypan over low heat, add the butter and the egg mixture. Stir gently for no more than 30 seconds, then add the feta.

I like my eggs to be quite creamy, so once the risk of egg mix splashing out of my frypan is reduced a little bit I start whisking my eggs a la Gordon Ramsay. I don't always do the on-the-heat, off-the-heat bit, but I do like the whisking.

Turn off the heat while the eggs are still runny as they will continue to cook. Give a final whisk until the eggs firm to your liking and then serve on toasted bread.