Breakfast Obsession

I am obsessed with breakfast food lately. And not just at breakfast.
In the past two weeks, I've made blueberry yogurt muffins -- twice. I prepared croissants and pineapple for breakfast before Spencer returned to school.

Last Sunday, I fixed pancakes and sausage for lunch when we got home from mass.
On Tuesday, as I worked out at the YMCA, someone on TV was talking about French toast. I made French toast when I returned home, just for myself because everyone else was asleep or at work.
On Wednesday, I prepared Belgian waffles and bacon for dinner.
This morning, I cooked scrambled eggs with sauteed tomatoes.
I'm not sure why I've been fixated on breakfast food.
When I was a kid, I refused to eat breakfast food. My mom or I would fix half of a peanut butter sandwich, and I would go to school after eating the folded over sandwich and drinking a cup of milk.
Hopefully, I'm just getting all of these delicious breakfast foods out of my system.
I think my family would agree that the yummiest are the blueberry yogurt muffins.
Here's the recipe from Taste of Home website.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 tablespoons 2% milk
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

But I make these even more caloric by adding a streusel topping from the Southern Living cookbook.
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter softened
Mix the streusel and sprinkle on top of the muffins.
Hope I didn't make you all hungry.

Dreaming of France -- Hotel Breakfasts

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Recently on a France tourism website, I saw advice that visitors should skip the hotel breakfast.
In the small French hotels where we have stayed, I would definitely advise otherwise. Breakfast usually costs 7-8 euros, and it's definitely the right way to start a morning of sightseeing.

Sit down at one of the small rectangular tables and the server is sure to ask what you would like to drink. I always answer cafe au lait or if I'm in Paris, cafe creme. They'll bring a pitcher of coffee along with a small pitcher of steamed milk. 

Ah, see. Already better than getting a cup of coffee in a crowded cafe.

You can mix the coffee and the milk, and it equals a few cups of coffee. 

Earl asks for tea and they bring him a pitcher of tea. 

Next comes the basket of croissants and rolls, along with jam, butter and sometimes cheese.

A croissant each, a roll each and we're prepped for a day enjoying France. 

When we don't eat in the hotel, we often have trouble finding breakfast. We can easily find coffee in a cafe, but if we want a croissant or a pastry, we have to get in line at a bakery. 

Either way, that breakfast ends up costing us more for less food. 

Have you ever had a good breakfast in France? Do you eat in the hotel or find a restaurant?

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.

French Breakfast and Movie Review

I don't want to only post book and movie reviews during Paris in July, but I'm not in France so that does limit my experiences.
This morning, I brought France to myself by baking pain au chocolat and plain croissants for breakfast. I shared a pain au chocolat with my husband then spread homemade strawberry jam on my plain croissant, all while drinking a cafe au lait and watching the Tour de France as the bicyclists speed toward Nancy.
We have a connection to Nancy because a French boy from that town came to stay with us one summer. He brought us a delightful little book with pictures of the Villages de France.
This one is from the Lorraine region, where Nancy is also located.

But, back to food. At Trader Joe's in the freezer section, you can buy a 4-pack of chocolate croissants or an 8-pack of mini croissants each for $4.99. Set out the little frozen nuggets the night before. The next morning, they have thawed and risen. Beat an egg and spread across the top of the croissants before baking. They're very yummy and a good 2nd choice if you can't make it to France or French croissants.

Earlier this week, I watched a movie set in France. Even if I don't enjoy a movie set in France, I usually enjoy the scenery. This one -- not so much.

The Family, directed by Luc Besson and starring Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer, would be the perfect movie to watch if someone wanted to move to France, and you wanted to convince them not to. There is not one redeemable thing about France in the movie.
The premise is that an American mob family is relocated to Normandy in the witness protection program. The mob in the U.S. is still searching for them to kill the whole family. As a matter of fact, the movie begins with an assassin walking into an apartment and killing a family of four. Then he cuts off the finger of the father and sends it to the mob boss in prison. The mob boss compares it to the fingerprints of the dead guy to DeNiro's character. Nope. They killed the wrong family and continue the search. And that sets the tone for the hilarity and violence that continues throughout the movie.
I'm not big on violence, but what bothered me more than the violence was the way the French people were portrayed. The grocery store clerk and two older French women made fun of Pfeiffer's character as she searched for peanut butter in the grocery store. So she blew it up.
The worst French characters were the high school students. None of them were attractive and that offended me. They also seemed to be typically American -- bullies, jocks, nerds and sluts.
The French were shone in a bit of a better light when the family threw a barbecue, but according to the son, they were only coming to make fun of the Americans. So they served hamburgers and Cokes.
The movie ended pretty violently with the family coming out to relocate again.
Apparently this movie is based on the French movie Badfellas, which must be a play on Goodfellas. It's supposed to be funny, but don't choose it if  you're dreaming of France.

Dreaming of France -- Good Meals, Bad Meals

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Food is always a big draw for visitors to France. I'm not a foodie. I don't plan specific meals that I will eat or arrange tours at chocolateries or take cooking classes -- not that I wouldn't love to do all of those things.
I can't think of many meals that I haven't enjoyed in France.
Well, one does come to mind.
Earl and I enjoyed the book Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland, and last time we went to France together we decided to eat at the restaurant which inspired the painting by Renoir.
The setting did not disappoint us, but the food was not as tasty as I'd expected from a French restaurant, even a mundane French restaurant.
The restaurant is located along the Seine outside of Paris. We took a train then muddled our way along the streets in search of the river and the restaurant.
We were there in April, so it was asparagus season.

The markets in Paris were full of thick stalks of white asparagus. So we both ordered asparagus for a starter but were disappointed by the limpness (make your own sexual joke here).

Even the dessert, although pretty, was a little bland. 

 
My favorite meal in France is usually breakfast, and I like to eat it at the hotel.
The pitcher of coffee and the pitcher of steamed milk alongside the basket of croissants and mini jars of jam. Yum.

Do you have a favorite meal in France?

I hope you'll visit each others' blogs to see more posts on Dreaming of France. 

Missed Wedding and More Croissants

On Saturday, my plan was to drive the four hours to southern Kentucky for my aunt's wedding.
My Aunt June, my father's sister, was marrying an old high school crush at the age of 75.
She's been married before and has had some tough times. Her first husband died when their little girl was only 4 or 5 years old. She remarried a man who had an alcohol issue and they eventually divorced. We thought she found happiness with an older man she knew in high school. They were married for a long time, but he was sick most of the time.
When Aunt June saw Paul at a high school reunion, they hit it off. They have only dated a few months but they were eager to get married, reminding family that they have a limited number of years to spend together.
So on Saturday they were married.

Grace and I had planned to go, but on Friday when I went to pick up Grace from college, she was sick with a fever, headache and upset stomach. She felt a little better on Saturday, but not well enough to spend eight hours in the car and I didn't want to risk getting all of our relatives sick. We stayed home and got updated on the wedding from my cousin Melinda and her daughter Morgan, who we love.
Morgan stood up with Aunt June. She's just so vibrant and beautiful.
I hope Aunt June and her new husband are very happy. They're starting with a two-week honeymoon.
This morning, Grace is feeling a little better so I made chocolate croissants from Trader Joe's. Like the croissants I blogged about yesterday, these croissants had to be set out the night before and they rose, ready to be baked the next morning. As I baked the croissants and make cafe au lait, Earl cut up some strawberries. Then we watched a House Hunter's International set in Paris. The single woman got a nice apartment in the Marais for $525,000. Terrific morning.

Saturday Snapshot -- Breakfast

 To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme, post a photo that you (or a friend of family member) have taken. Then leave a direct link to your post on West Metro Mommy. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.
Part of living the way I want my life to turn out (see my post from Thursday), means enjoying treats that I want in my future too. So I have no problem buying these mini croissants from Trader Joe's and letting them rise overnight.

They're so tiny when I lay them on my battered cookie sheet the night before. The next morning they've risen so high.

 I brush beaten egg onto the risen croissant then bake them.
Yum, they're delicious with homemade strawberry jam or honey.

Hope you're having a treat today too. 

Bastille Day

Continuing with my obsession for all things French, I celebrated Bastille Day by buying croissants for breakfast and watching the Tour de France before I had to dash off to work.

I love watching the Tour de France for the scenery but then I get sucked in to the bike race part too.
If you haven't been watching, the most awful crash happened on Sunday. Two crashes, actually, one that ended with a guy who broke his pelvis and another guy with a dislocated shoulder. The worst crash though happened when one of the media cars swerved and knocked into the leading group of five riders. One of the guys flipped in the air and landed in a barbed wire fence. He, of course, got back up and kept riding while the doctors car pulled up next to him and bandaged his legs. As he kept riding, blood fell in drips down his legs. After the race that day, he had 33 stitches.
Can you imagine?
Here's hoping your Bastille Day includes croissants, but no bike crashes.
If you want to read more about Bastille Day celebrations in France, take a look at Corey's blog or Days on the Claise