Christmas Breakfast

One of my favorite Christmas traditions, something I started for the past maybe 5 years now, is the youngest making breakfast for everyone else, as incentive to WAKE UP AND OPEN PRESENTS!!!  This year marked the first year for a lot of changes: I’m not actually the youngest anymore (my nephew, at 9 months, is); it wasn’t held at my mother’s house; I didn’t make eggs to order or a huge platter of scrambled eggs (the first being annoying and the second, unsatisfying to everyone); I had an oven at my disposal!!!  So this year, I chose to really get “fancy” and make more gourmet-ish stuff than I normally do (it’s usually eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and toast- all store bought).

Maple Apple Chicken Sausage, which I made last year as well~ with one small change; I added a few pinches of red pepper chili flakes, which gave it a nice tingle in some bites.  (Mine were old, I knew this going in, so they weren’t as overwhelmingly spicy as they could have been).

My first ever frittata (hence the importance of an oven)!

I diced the zucchini, then slid it into a hot pan with butter.  Let it soften up a bit, then poured 12 beaten eggs (with a bit of half&half mixed in, some salt, pepper, just like scrambled eggs) over it.  I sprinkled diced red bell pepper over that (I don’t like my bell peppers cooked too thoroughly) and let it sit on the stove top until it looked to be mostly cooked through on the edges, just the middle portion looked runny, so I popped it into the oven that’d been preheated at 350.  Let it bake till the top looked cooked through, and grated Parmagiano-Reggiano on the top.  (I think I didn’t butter the pan enough because it wouldn’t flip out no matter what; oh well, it still tasted delicious, if a bit salty, but those are lessons to be learned for next time!)

Finally, last but not least, since this was my favorite part of breakfast, lazy latkes, taken from HabeasBrulee.  These came out so crispy on the outside while soft and mushy- like mashed potatoes- on the inside, oh my, I would like some right now (having skipped breakfast, this is not surprising).  Delicious.

The added beauty of these are how incredibly easy they are to make: take potatoes (I used red creamer potatoes), boil until soft, squish on baking sheet.  Liberal drizzles of olive oil, salt (I used kosher) and some freshly ground black pepper.  Bake in 425 degree oven until crispy, half hour or so (I just let mine go while I made the frittata, pulled them out when I was ready to lower the heat and slip my frittata in there).  SO GOOD.

My plate.  Slice of frittata, chicken sausage, and some lazy latkes in the background.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and ate loads of yummy food.  Happiness means different things to many, but food is generally a shared love~ if not, then at least a necessity (then why are you reading my site!)