Breakfast

Before we are off on our first wee "holiday" in 4 years (we're going hiking for 4 or 5 days over the Appenines following the old partisan trails), I thought I'll give you a wee insight into our daily routine, especcially our eating habits. Today we'll start with breakfast and when we come back I'll go on about the other meals.

Compared to the majority of the western world we have the opposite problem: i.e. our lifestyle requires a rather large energy intake, which we sometimes struggle to fulfill.
Our morning routine goes somthing like this: between 7 and 8 am (depending how late the night was) Eddie will wake me up wanting to go for his early morning walk. Depending on what the plans for the rest of the day are, this can take anything from 15 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. At the moment we are alternating activities, one day on the land (walking there, except maybe once a week, when we take the car or bike), the next day at home preserving what we have picked the previous day. So on preserving days the walk is obviously longer, whilst on land days, Eddie'll get plenty of excersise later.

On this walk I will usually pick something to contribute to breakfast like blackberries, elderberries, apples, pears, peaches, hazelnuts, grapes... They all grow in the vicinity. When I come back I will make the first course.


In the juicer I will make a wholesome juice out of some of the fruit. Today for example it consisted of apples, pears, peaches and blackberries. To go with that we usually like a cereal. Not being able to grow many cereal crops, we have always bought a decent quality muesli, but I have now come up with a recipe of my own, while stocks last. I made it like this:

• Soak some dried sweet corn over night (we still use some from last year, although the new crop is ready). Next morning slow cook the corn in some salted water until soft.
• Drain the corn and place in a food processor together with dried fruit (figs and apricots in our case at the moment), nuts (hazelnuts are available now), seeds (pumpkin, but sunflower and sesame would do nicely too, and I should try amaranth in this) and some honey or brown sugar. Whizz until well chopped.
• Place the mixture on lightly oiled baking tray and bake at a low temperature for an hour or so, until the mixture is dry to the touch and crispy, without being burned. Store in a metal tin.

Serve this with either milk or as we do at the moment with a topping of stewed preserved apple and some fresh fruit, such as some figs that wanted using up today as they were attracting the attention of the local fruit fly population.

While eating that, I check out my e-mails and any internetty news and Susan prepares the second course: a cup of mocca coffee (yes I'm addicted I'm afraid! I don't function without my daily caffein fix.), 2 slices of home-made wholemeal bread (I will soon tell you how I do that too) topped with home-made jam. Today's offering was aubergine and chocolate jam and some jam made from the fruit of the strawberry tree made last winter (corbezzolo)

Now we are ready to face the day! (...until lunch that is)