Home » Posts tagged 'breakfast'

Tag Archives: breakfast

Easy Breakfast Quesadillas

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Rajas de Jalapeño

This is perhaps my most common breakfast, which I have with my morning tea. It contains only three ingredients: (1) Good quality flour tortillas; (2) Monterey Jack cheese; and (3) Pickled jalapeño peppers.

If you can’t tolerate chile peppers, I suppose you could try something mild like Ortega chiles, but I can’t imagine that would taste good. I use either canned Mexican rajas de jalapeño, which may also include pickled carrots, onion, and even pieces of cauliflower or else any pickled jalapeños.

For the cheese, I always prefer Monterey Jack. A particularly good brand on the West Coast comes from Joseph Farms and is available at Ralphs supermarkets (owned by Kroger).

Of primary importance are the flour tortillas. My brand of choice is El Comal or La Banderita. Avoid cheap flour torts that tear easily along the edges or that taste like cardboard. Unfortunately, most of the popular supermarket brands fall into this category.

To prepare the quesadillas, I preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit ( 175° Celsius). I take a quarter cup of jalapeños and chop them up fine. Then with a cheese slicer, I cut four slices of Monterey Jack cheese. I take two flour tortillas and on the upper half of each place two slices of cheese and half the chopped jalapeños, Then I fold the torts in two, being careful that they not tear in the process. (This is one way of learning whether you’ve bought the right flour tortillas.) Place them in the oven and cook them until the edges of the tortillas begin to turn dark brown.

It is very likely that some of the cheese will drip, so I always place a sheet of foil underneath.

The result is a bit spicy, but a very pleasant way to start your day.

The Tea Drinker

Posted on by

Iced Tea with Lemon

For many years now, I have begun each morning making a pot of Indian black tea, which I drink with a bit of honey (usually Mexican mesquite honey) and a squeeze of lime. By afternoon, what remains in the pot becomes iced tea—up to three glasses full. I try not to drink the entire contents of the pot every day, because tea acts as a diuretic. But in hot weather, I violate this rule of thumb.

Usually, I drink my iced tea without anything added. Sometimes, especially when there is company, I will fill a pitcher with iced tea and add artificial sweetener, the juice of a whole lemon, and a jigger of high quality dark rum, preferably Ron Zacapa Edición Negra from Guatemala or Myers’s Original Dark Rum from Jamaica. The rum is for flavor only and is not enough for intoxication.

My mother has told me that, as a baby, I used to sip from her coffee. Now I will not touch coffee, and do not even like coffee-flavored ice creams or candies. And when it comes to carbonated sodas, I rarely drink more than one glass every couple of weeks, usually at a restaurant.

That doesn’t quite make me a man of one beverage, but it comes close. I also like unsweetened mineral water, fruit juices, tomato juice, and lemonade. Put everything else I drink against hot and iced tea, however, and the tea I drink outweighs all my other options, except maybe for plain water, and that only during heat waves. (Too much tea, and I pretty much have to live in the bathroom.)

What is it about Indian black tea that appeals to me so much? It’s difficult o find the exact words, but good tea has a clarity of flavor that satisfies without causing satiety. For years, I have been buying Ahmad of London loose teas by the pound, usually:

  • Darjeeling, the best Indian black tea
  • Ceylon from Sri Lanka
  • Assam, Baruti and Ghalami varieties mostly in cold weather

Occasionally, when traveling, I will drink an English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast tea from tea bags. In Asian restaurants, I drink end enjoy green tea. But thank you, no Earl Grey please!

Breakfast

Posted on by | 2 Comments

My Favorite Meal of the Day? Breakfast!

I have written in the past about my love of Indian black tea, hot and iced. Even in the heat of summer, I love to start the day with a pot of Darjeeling, Assam, or Ceylon—or my personal blend of same. In the picture above, you can see my cheap Japanese metal teapot, which has an insert for the loose tea leaves so they don’t end of floating in my cup.

Of late, I have drunk my breakfast tea with either mesquite or desert wildflower honey, and a squeeze of fresh lime.

Accompanying it is usually one of the following:

  • Quesadillas with pickled rajas de jalapeño chiles
  • Huevos à la Mexicana: Scrambled eggs with chopped onions, garlic, serrano chiles, and (when available) tomatillos
  • Toasted English muffin with melted cheddar cheese and Indian red chile powder
  • Slices of cheese with crackers, the type of cheese varying with the season
  • Jimmy Dean’s frozen biscuits with sausage
  • Steel-cut oatmeal with dried cranberries or cherries and a dash of maple syrup
  • Hominy grits cooked with a chicken bouillon cube with butter, sausage, and fresh ground pepper
  • Sourdough toast with butter and garlic (for when I have a sore throat)

I would love to have grapefruit, but, like many men of my age, I am on Lipitor (generic Atorvastatin) to reduce cholesterol. It doesn’t work when you eat grapefruit.

Accompanying breakfast is my home-delivered copy of the Los Angeles Times. I scan the national, international, and local news, but spend most of my time with the puzzles and comics page.

When I have a good breakfast—and I usually do—the rest of the day starts of on a good footing.

Breakfast

Posted on by | 2 Comments

Our Dinner Table in 2011

My main meal of the day is breakfast; and the most important component of my breakfast is a fresh pot of tea. The above photo was taken nine years ago, but I am using the same cheap metal Japanese teapot. I like it because it has a removable insert which captures all the tea leaves so I don’t end up pouring any in my cup. Visible in the upper left of the photo is a green and grey houndstooth-checked tea cosy, which I hardly use any more. After breakfast, I let my tea cool and, for lunch and dinner, pour the cold tea into a glass and add ice cubes. If I want to be fancy, I could also add Splenda, a little splash of dark rum, and a squeeze of lemon or lime.

My tea preference is almost always an Indian black, consisting of Ahmad of London’s loose teas, sometimes a mix of Darjeeling, Ceylon, Assam, and Brooke Bond Red Label tea. Right now, I am drinking pure Darjeeling, which I consider the best of Indian teas. When the coronavirus eventually subsides, I will shop for a high-quality Chinese Oolong from Ten Ren Tea Company for occasional entertaining.

At present, I add a bit of Mesquite Honey to the tea in my cup and a squeeze of lime.

Along with the tea, I rotate between steel-cut oatmeal with dried cranberries; grits with sausage, butter, and pepper; scrambled eggs with Serrano chiles; onion or sesame bagel with butter and cream cheese; my own kind of Welsh Rarebit on a sourdough English muffin with sharp Cheddar cheese and spicy red chile powder; crunchy peanut butter and jelly sandwich; sausage and biscuit; or, if I am pressed for time, just buttered toast.

It’s not much, but it makes an excellent start to my day. Martine and I usually eat breakfast separately, so I usually read the Los Angeles Times, concentrating on the comics, Sudoku and Kenken games, and (finally) the news.