Modern Wife

Tag: breakfast

  • Giant Puffball Mushroom

    Giant Puffball Mushroom

    Overnight it seemed, these giant puffball mushrooms sprouted in our backyard. We spotted them in autumn last year and let them grow till they popped into greenish brown powdery spores. Cute, then gross. This year, we found a bunch of them in the same spot. I wondered if they were edible. Google said yes. And it has been found to contain a mucoprotein called calvacin, which is a potent antitumor agent, but becomes toxic with prolonged use. Once a year, though, and eating it as close to nature as possible instead of ingesting a distilled version? I’m willing to give it a try.

    So we plucked one out, inspected it to make sure it really was a Calvatia gigantea, and rinsed the dirt off.

    Wash the dirt off the giant puffball mushroom

    Cut off the bottom. This picture shows a couple of the defining characteristics of a Calvatia gigantea: no stem and no gills.

    giant puffball mushrooms have no stem and no gills underneath

    Slice it up. Some people slice off the outer layer and wind up with a block. We just sliced it. As you can see, we picked it early enough in its development stages. The inside is still white and perfect. Do not eat if there are spores.

    slice the giant puffball mushroom

    Store and refrigerate the rest.

    store and refrigerate the giant puffball mushroom

    Some organic extra virgin coconut oil on the cast iron griddle over medium low. Throw in a sliced onion and cook until glassy. I mixed equal parts safflower oil and soy sauce, some salt and pepper to taste, garlic powder, pinch of cayenne, dipped the giant puffball mushroom slice both sides and cooked it.

    cooking the giant puffball mushroom

    Cut it up into strips and serve it up. It would make an amazing addition to stir fry vegetables. The mushroom flavor is subtle and takes on seasonings really well. The texture is soft and smooth against the tongue. I love it!

    stir fry giant puffball mushroom strips

    Also great dipped in a beaten egg and French Toasted.

    dip giant puffball mushroom in egg and cook it

    Gluten-free French Toast Giant Puffball Mushroom with maple syrup drizzled on top and fruit on the side.

    Gluten-free French Toast Giant Puffball Mushroom with maple syrup drizzled on top and fruit on the side

    Have you ever eaten a Giant Puffball Mushroom? Got any recipes to share? Scroll below to comment. Thank you!

  • Coconut Quinoa Cereal

    Coconut Quinoa Cereal

    You might be surprised by how delicious and filling this Coconut Quinoa Cereal is, while being quite possibly the healthiest breakfast on the planet. Let’s look at the ingredients.

    Quinoa is a versatile whole grain that can be made into a salad, a lunch casserole, or a dinner side.

    Quinoa is gluten-free, high in protein, and one of the few plant foods that contain all nine essential amino acids. It is also high in fiber, magnesium, B-vitamins, iron, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin E and various beneficial antioxidants.

    – 11 Proven Health Benefits of Quinoa
    Authority Nutrition

    Coconut milk is no slouch either. Coconut milk improves heart health, builds muscle, helps lose fat, prevents fatigue, stimulates digestion, relieves constipation, manages blood sugar, and prevents anemia, joint inflammation, and ulcers. (Source: Dr. Axe)

    Don’t you feel healthier already? Now go and make this cereal.

    Coconut Quinoa Cereal

    Ingredients:
    1 cup coconut milk
    1/2 cup quinoa
    1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
    Maple syrup or raw honey to taste
    More coconut milk to taste

    Heat the coconut milk until boiling. Add quinoa and cover. Lower heat to simmer until the coconut milk is absorbed but still slightly wet. Mix the shredded coconut in. Serve warm with maple syrup or raw honey and more coconut milk to taste. Makes 2 servings.

    Experiment with some of your favorite toppings. Sliced apples with cinnamon, berries, bananas, nuts. Have a happy healthy start to your day!

  • Berry Yogurt

    Berry Yogurt

    It’s springtime and berries are back in season. Sure, you can find berries in the grocery store almost any time of the year, but more often than not, they look a little sad and travel-worn.

    I’m talking about berries you can find at your local farmers market, the kind more than likely grown just within a few miles from where you live. Yes, the kind that is bursting with nutritious ripeness because they were harvested the morning you bought it. (See Superfoods: 11 Berries to Improve Your Health.)

    Now I could probably eat a whole pint of any of these berries in one sitting, just popping each one in my mouth like popcorn. But for a heavier breakfast or dessert, I like to put it on top of a bowl of raw organic yogurt.

    Raw organic yogurt is dairy that is fermented with beneficial bacteria, for a healthy digestive system. (See 10 Proven Probiotic Yogurt Benefits & Nutrition Facts.) My local health food store stocks them from a local organic dairy farm. They come in flavors such as maple, vanilla and blueberry, but I’m a stickler for keeping it simple. I get plain for its versatility.

    Raw organic yogurt is not the same as the mass-produced yogurt you can buy in the grocery stores, which is over-processed through pasteurization, killing all the beneficial bacteria naturally occurring in raw milk. Then they add back a starter culture of live bacteria, thickeners, preservatives, and artificial sweeteners. It is nowhere near the creamy goodness I get in a mason jar from my local organic dairy farm. Believe me, it’s really worth it to find a local source for raw organic yogurt, and when you do…

    Scoop out some of that raw organic yogurt into a bowl, drizzle maple syrup to taste, and sprinkle your favorite berries on top. You’re welcome.

    Raw #yogurt with #berries and maple syrup. #organic #raspberries #blueberries #blackberries

    A photo posted by Modern Wife (@modernwife) on

  • Coconut Muffins

    Coconut Muffins

    Coconuts made quite an impression on my husband and daughter when we visited the Philippines. My home has coconut trees growing right on our front yard. One Sunday morning a boy climbed one of the trees with a machete and carefully lowered bunches of coconuts down to our driveway.

    harvesting coconuts from tree in the Philippines

    We drank fresh coconut juice and ate fresh coconut “meat” that day.

    Coconuts are nutritious and can be eaten in so many different ways: juice, “meat,” oil, milk. Here’s a healthy breakfast recipe that uses various coconut products:

    Coconut Muffins

    Ingredients:
    4 tablespoons organic virgin coconut oil, melted into liquid
    6 organic eggs
    1/2 cup organic coconut milk
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/2 cup organic coconut flour
    1/2 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
    6 tablespoons shredded unsweetened coconut

    Preheat oven to 400˚F. Grease a 12-muffin pan with coconut oil or use paper muffin cups.

    Beat eggs, coconut oil, coconut milk and salt. Add coconut flour and baking powder. Whisk until smooth. Pour batter halfway into muffin cups. Sprinkle with shredded coconut.

    Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Makes 12 muffins. Serve with raw honey for sweetening.

    This is based on a recipe found in The Candida Free Cookbook by Shasta Press. I skipped the Stevia for sweetening. Stevia is the sweetener of choice for people who are on a candida-free diet. Since my family and I are not, I took the liberty of topping the unsweetened coconut muffins with raw honey to taste.

  • Yogurt with Granola Bar

    Yogurt with Granola Bar

    I’ve been buying only organic raw plain whole milk yogurt since last summer. I found some in my local health food store and now I’m hooked. Let me break it down:

    Organic: means the milk comes from cows that are not given antibiotics or hormones, and are fed organic grass and not GMO corn raised on pesticides.

    Raw: means the milk is not pasteurized, fresh as fresh can be right out of healthy cows. It has not sat in a giant vat with who knows how many other cows’ milk to get pasteurized. Also, raw milk still contains the nutrition that is the reason why we drink milk in the first place. (Raw milk is illegal in some states. Because the government wants you to buy their crappy milk.) Here’s more info about real milk.

    Plain: means I don’t have to put up with overly-sugared yogurt from questionable sugar sources. It means I don’t have to eat old fruit that’s sat in that container for who knows how long. I’ll add my own fresh fruit, thank you.

    Whole Milk: means I want the fat. Yes, I do. Real fat, not saturated fat, is good for you.

    I’ve served it with Maple Cranberry Sauce, but mostly I serve it with apple. Here’s the recipe:

    Ingredients:
    organic raw plain whole milk yogurt
    organic apple, peeled and chopped
    organic maple syrup
    Nature’s Path Organic Crunchy Granola Bars, Apple Pie Crunch Chia Plus

    Scoop out yogurt into breakfast bowl. Drizzle maple syrup and top with apple. Finish with granola bars.

    Apple Yogurt with Granola Bars

  • Husband’s Breakfast Recipe: Emphysema Lambada

    Husband’s Breakfast Recipe: Emphysema Lambada

    Yes, you read it right. My husband made me breakfast. How sweet! He really is a good cook. Check out his bean soup here. And he also came up with the idea for Bumblebees. But in true Jay fashion, he gave his recipe the unappetizingly strange and thoroughly nonsensical name, Emphysema Lambada.

    It’s good, though. Don’t knock it till you try it. Here’s the recipe:

    Ingredients:
    1 organic carrot, peeled and chopped
    1 organic celery, diced small
    2 organic green onions, chopped
    some organic frozen mixed vegetables (it’s got peas, corn and carrots in it, I think he used about a third of a package.)
    1 organic beef hotdog, chopped up as thin as possible
    1 tablespoon organic canola oil
    1 organic egg from free roaming chicken
    salt and pepper to taste

    Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the carrot, celery, green onions, mixed vegetables and hotdog. When the vegetables are tender, make a hole in the middle of the skillet and crack the egg in it. Scramble the egg and mix it up with the rest.

    Husband's Breakfast Recipe: Emphysema Lambada

    Serve warm as is. Or do what my husband did: he set some rice to steam before he started so that by the time the rice is cooked, we are ready to Lambada on top of rice.

  • Old Fashioned Pancakes

    Old Fashioned Pancakes

    My pantry is always stocked with every ingredient on the list below, waiting for those lazy weekend mornings when we can have a slow breakfast. Yeah, I know you can get pancakes to-go at fast-food places, or get those pre-mixed pancakes that come in a box, but making pancakes from scratch means I know exactly what goes into my pancakes.

    Besides, my daughter loves to make pancakes with Mama. She’s been making pancakes with me since she was four. She loves to measure out the ingredients; great way to learn basic fractions. Me, I’ve been making pancakes since my daughter was four, too, so really, she knows how to make pancakes just as well as I do.

    Ingredients:
    1 cup all-purpose flour, unbleached and organic
    1 tablespoon organic sugar
    1 teaspoon baking powder, aluminum-free
    1/2 teaspoon baking soda, aluminum-free
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1 cup raw organic milk
    1 egg, free-range and organic
    2 tablespoons organic canola oil
    1 teaspoon vanilla, organic
    1 teaspoon extra virgin organic coconut oil
    organic maple syrup

    Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Beat in milk, egg, canola oil and vanilla until the batter is smooth. Ready for cooking.

    I have the Lodge Pro Logic Square Griddle, but a skillet will do too. Heat that griddle or skillet on the stove on medium-low and brush coconut oil on the griddle surface. Coconut oil is the healthiest cooking oil on the planet, and unlike butter, it will not burn on the griddle.

    Pour a large spoonful of pancake batter on the griddle to make silver dollar pancakes, or get a ladle for full-size pancakes. Smaller pancakes are easier to manage. Flip when bubbles form holes.

    When pretty close to cooking up all the pancakes, put some maple syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat until it bubbles. Pour warm maple syrup on top of the pancake stacks. You can add fruit to it if you like. Strawberries, blueberries, bananas are classic additions to pancakes.

    Have a lovely morning!

  • Granola Recipe

    Granola Recipe

    Warm freshly baked granola is a breakfast treat. Cold not so freshly baked granola is fun snack. You could put it in a mason jar and give it away for Christmas too. Here’s how to make it.

    Granola Ingredients

    Ingredients:
    4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
    1 cup raw wheat germ
    1 cup chopped walnuts
    1/2 cup sunflower seeds
    1/4 cup brown sugar
    1 teaspoon cinnamon
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1/3 cup organic canola oil
    1/3 cup raw honey
    1/3 cup water

    Granola Mix

    Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine oats, wheat germ, walnuts, sunflower seeds, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the canola oil, honey and water. Mix together until well incorporated. Spread evenly on a baking pan.

    Bake the granola for 40 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring every 15 minutes to keep the granola evenly browned and prevent it from sticking to the pan. Let it cool completely after removing from the oven.