Easy Peasy Big Breakfast and Hangover Cure

photo by Romulo Yanes

Is there anything more warm-fuzzy-feeling inducing than a proper, hot breakfast that invariably incorporates the obligatory eggs and crispy bacon? And a big breakfast is the perfect cure after a big night, no? But unless you're happy to roll out of bed with the birds sporting your Sunday best headache, here is a recipe to get your hangover on the mend before you even hit the turps. When you wake from your medicinal purposes only alcohol induced coma, stumble out of bed, throw it in the oven and, well, you (and any other random people scattered over your lounge room) can thank me when you're able.

The Obligatory Egg: Cheese & Spinach Strata
(Nabbed then tweaked from Gourmet 2003)
Serves 6

250g frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed, and chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (or 1/4 tsp freshly grated)
8 cups torn up bread
2 cups Gruyère, grated (you could get away with a sharp cheddar)
1 cup parmesan, finely grated
2 3/4 cups milk
9 large eggs
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Sweat off the onion and butter until soft, season with salt and pepper and the nutmeg. Stir in the spinach and set aside.

In a baking dish, layer one third of the bread, then a third of the spinach mixture, and one third of the cheese. Repeat this twice.

Whisk eggs, milk, mustard together and pour over the bread layers. Cover and chill over night or about 8 hours.

The next morning, stand at room temperature for 30 minutes, (you can take this time for some hair of the dog) and preheat oven to 180c. Bake uncovered until golden and cooked through, around 50 minutes (great time for a shower and to wait for the ceiling to stop spinning). Stand for 5 minutes before serving.

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If you're feeling particularly generous towards the people who will probably drain your drinks fridge tonight, you could try some of these tips for the other components of a big breaky too.

Crispy bacon - bake in the oven with the strata, on a wire rack over a baking sheet (use rasher bacon so it is crispy and not dry).

Muffins - either savoury or sweet, muffins freeze well and can be thawed the night before and warmed slightly before serving.

Fruit Salad - use seasonal fruits and combine the night before.

Scones - cut out the dough and freeze on the baking trays, ready to go. They cook perfectly straight from the freezer.

French Toast and other eggy bakes - these are always better made the night before, they'll have a better texture.

Waste Nothing: Making Stock

It's rather chilly on the mountain today and rain clouds are looming. Perfect excuse to crack out the woolly socks, the snuggly jumpers and the stock pot. There is nothing like walking into a house that has a soup or stock simmering away on the stove. Walking in from outside, being hit with that homey smell will warm the soul from the nostrils out. But, a stock of course has a myriad of uses aside from making the eyes roll back upon inhalation.

Any professional kitchen will start the day making various stocks, many left to cook all day or overnight. In French kitchens, stocks are referred to as fonds de cuisine or "the foundations of cooking." Stocks are indispensable when making sauces, soups, risottos etc. By using offcuts of meat and vegetables, bones, seafood and aromatics, a liquid bursting with flavour, aroma, colour and nutritive value is born.

Stocks are incredibly cheap to prepare and use up kitchen scraps that would normally be thrown out. In this kitchen, I save up all of the carrot tops, onion tops and bottoms, parsley stalks, mushroom stalks, celery leaves, bones from roast dinners, supplement with bones bought from the butcher and pop them all into a bag and freeze it, ready for a day like today. Then its just a matter of throwing it all in a big pot, covering with cold water and simmering gently for as long as possible. The water should be just moving, not bubbling.

A proper commercial stock would then be checked for clarity, strained, filtered, defatted and probably reduced to a glaze or jelly. In this place it gets no such treatment and it's lucky to survive past the first night of checking to make sure it tastes ok (read gorging on huge chunks of bread dipped in stock). What's left is made into risotto or soup, and even sometimes a small portion makes a run for it to the freezer to be used for gravies and sauces.

A risotto made from great stock needs little other than a generous amount of butter and good Parmesan grated over the top. A handful of fresh herbs, some fresh sweet corn and a slush of dry white wine will catapult it to a new level again. You just got yourself a top notch meal that costs around $4, and feeds up to 8 people (if those serving sizes on the arborio packet were realistic), or 4 people and a little bit left over in this household.

Toasting the grains - essential for a good risotto...

The little bit left over...

Three Quarters of a Mile High Cake

I doubt there is any other cake that is subject to such broad-scoped sacrilege as the humble chocolate cake. Every second cook book has a "Best Ever" or "World's Greatest" recipe, claiming to end the eternal search for a truly great chocolate cake. Have you ever experienced butterflies and an irregular heartbeat thinking you have found the holy grail of the patisserie world, dutifully stocked up on all things buttery, creamy and chocolaty, sat patiently by the oven for the whole 62 minutes it took to work the magic, then waited for the godly offering to cool enough to cut, taken a bite, and had your heart sink through the floor? Or was that just me?

I wont tell you this is the "World's Best" or make any outrageous claims. But friends, this cake is good. It's very good. It is not a mud cake, it is a proper, cocoa-loaded, moist, sweet, chocolaty morsel of goodness. If you can leave out the 3 layers of cream, the thick lashings of butter and cream laden ganache, and forget about the two cups of sugar... it's not that bad for you. But then again, noone should have to justify eating chocolate cake.

If you're wondering why this is only 3/4 of a Mile High Cake - I had a minor altercation with the mixer, which resulted in a substantial portion of cake mix being flung from head to toe... literally. Don't despair, the recipe is for the full 4/4, 4 layer cake.

Mile High Chocolate Cake

1 cup boiling water
1 heaping cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
180g butter, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and line 4 round cake tins, 2 x 12 hole muffin trays, or one large round 12" cake tin.

Combine water and cocoa and whisk until smooth. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy, add butter and beat until smooth. Add cocoa mixture, buttermilk, vanilla and sifted dry ingredients. Beat until thickened, about 2 minutes. Cook 50 minutes for large cake, 35 minutes for layer cakes, and 20 minutes for muffins or until cakes spring back when touched.

If you made the 4 separate cakes, just stack them up with some whipped cream and pour over some ganache. This is one cake that is infinitely better the next day. You won't be disappointed, and it's seriously low effort for the final outcome.

The Bestestestest Raisin Cinnamon Swirl Bread

One of the most satisfying things (for me) is ticking another item off the list of things I no longer have to purchase from the supermarket. Added to this list now is Raisin Toast/Fruit Loaf/Cinnamon Toast.
This recipe is a perfect balance of spiciness, sweetness, softness, fruitiness and so many other nesses. It's great to have as a bread with butter or as toast with butter and honey or however you would normally eat it. It's ridiculously cheap to make, it makes 3 full sized loaves, one for now and 2 to freeze uncooked for a quick and easy breakfast, and it is far and away THE most eye-glazingly stupefying wodge of comfort food you could hope to stumble across in your kitchen. Get to it, you can thank me later!

The Bestestestest Raisin Cinnamon Swirl Bread
* 1 1/2 cups milk
* 1 cup warm water (blood temp)
* 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
* 3 eggs
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 cup raisins (more if you want, or mix it up with dried figs/stewed apple/choc chips etc)

* 8 cups plain flour (bread flour is better)
* 2 tablespoons milk
* 3/4 cup white sugar
* 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

1. Warm the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Let cool until lukewarm.

2. Dissolve yeast in warm water, and set aside until yeast is frothy. Mix in eggs, sugar, butter or margarine, salt, and raisins. Stir in cooled milk. Add the flour gradually to make a stiff dough.

3. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface for a few minutes. Place in a large, greased, mixing bowl, and turn to grease the surface of the dough. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled.

4. Roll out on a lightly floured surface into a large rectangle 1/2 inch thick. Moisten dough with 2 tablespoons milk. Mix together 3/4 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon, and sprinkle mixture on top of the moistened dough. Roll up tightly; the roll should be about 3 inches in diameter. Cut into thirds, and tuck under ends. Place loaves into well greased 9 x 5 inch pans. Lightly grease tops of loaves. Let rise again for 1 hour.

5. Bake at 175C for 30 minutes, or until loaves are lightly browned and sound hollow when knocked. Remove loaves from pans, and brush with melted butter or margarine. Let cool before slicing.

(Just wrap up and freeze 2 of the uncooked loaves before the 2nd rising. Thaw out and let them rise then cook as above.)