New Year's Breakfast

I used to struggle with finding healthy, yet tasty breakfast foods.  The traditional cereal, toast, muffins, etc. are too high of a carb load for me. Hard-boiled eggs and an apple used to work, but this wasn't a particularly delicious breakfast.  On Mondays, especially rainy ones, hard boiled eggs felt especially grim.  In fact, this breakfast made me think of the kid in Oliver Twist who dared to ask for more porridge in the dining hall. However, in my case it would have been  (insert British accent here), "Please Suh, may I have something else?"

A few months back, I read this interesting blog entry from Pioneer Woman about a low-carb breakfast she ordered from room service in a New York City hotel. I was inspired!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/10/carb-buster-breakfast/comment-page-2/

Her dish started with a base of mixed roasted vegetables with two poached eggs on top. I saute vegetables instead.  Sometimes I use fresh stir fry vegetables. Or I might use leftover vegetables from dinner the night before.

The base for this morning's eggs was an odd, yet entirely delicious combination of leftover carrots and parsnips from last night's dinner and leftover quinoa (a very healthy low-glycemic grain) sauteed with onions and tomatoes and a tiny lump of goat cheese.

Bruce sauteed the perfect eggs you see above.  My eggs would not look like that, trust me. He can break the eggs and put them in the pan with one hand.  Show off.  The combination of a just barely liquid, almost solid egg yolk broken over the stir fry makes me want to swoon as yellow goodness combines with the veggies.  If you want to try this, make sure to grind some peppercorns over the eggs.

We rang in the New Year with some dear friends last night.  Rebecca brought the salad.  Instead of throwing in whatever she prepared into one bowl, she very thoughtfully brought a salad bar with a base of lettuce and all the trimmings in little bowls...avocado, crunchy onions, raw onions, goat cheese, cucumbers, shredded carrots, nuts, cherry tomatoes....sublime.

Knowing my mania for vintage china, she brought all the salad fixings in saucers in the Colonial Homestead pattern by Royal China.  I had never seen this pattern from the 1950's before.

Here's a link to the Eleventy blog which discusses this unusual pattern:
http://www.eleventytheblog.com/2011/01/colonial-homestead-vintage-dinnerware.html

After dinner,we listed all the things we wished to leave behind in 2013. We talked about some of them together and kept the ones too close to our hearts private.  Then we crumpled all our papers, put them in an old enameled bucket, and burned them to ashes.  As we prayed over 2014, I thought of the burnt offerings made to God in the Old Testament.

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13 and 14.

Have a blessed new year filled with joy!