A puff of a breakfast

I'm definitely a breakfast person. Sure it's the most important meal of the day but I'm not being any kind of nutritional purist here. It's really all about the food.

Homemade buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs fresh from the hens, juicy just-picked fruit (yes, I know it's still March... a girl can dream, can't she?) and of course a cup of rich organic fair trade coffee --I say, bring it on!

So when I read this post at Mama Pea's A Homegrown Journal for Blueberry-Banana Puff, I knew we had to try it.

First, here's the recipe for the puff part:

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 cup flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 beaten eggs

1/2 cup milk

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2.) Put butter in a 9" pie plate and place in oven until melted and hot.

3.) In a bowl, combine the flour, 1 tablespoon sugar and salt. Add the eggs and milk and whisk until smooth. Pour into the hot pie plate.

4.) Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges are puffed and golden brown (this part is really neat.)

5.) Remove from oven.

Now, Mama Pea suggested using 1 1/2 cups fresh or previously frozen blueberries, topped with one largish banana (sliced), 1/4 tsp cinnamon and one rounded tablespoon of sugar.

We're in short supply of last summer's frozen blueberries, so I decided to use canned peaches as the main fruit and only about 1/4 cup of blueberries. Readers to Mama Pea's post also suggested using apples and cinnamon or lemon juice and icing sugar. So pick your favourites and continue with the steps below.

6.) Arrange fruit evenly in puff. Sprinkle with cinnamon and icing sugar.

6.) Cut into wedges, drizzle with maple syrup and serve immediately.

First, the practical evaluation: I like this recipe because it's simple, it uses ingredients I always have in the house and it made four nice sized servings, all at once. I find when I make pancakes or homemade waffles, someone usually ends up following their nose into the kitchen before I'm even done cooking the second one. That means there's a lot of waiting. Not this with recipe -- bonus points for efficiency.

As for the taste: mixed reviews here. The best way I can describe them is like eggy pancakes with fruit. In my belly, that's a good thing. Needless to say, my daughter and I really enjoyed it, and she's becoming something of a picky eater.

My son wasn't too keen, which is surprising, but he hasn't been feeling well the last day or two. He's usually upfront about his likes and dislikes (like whenever I say I'm going to make some homemade soup, the first thing he says is, "just don't make that pumpkin soup again") so I'll assume he liked it.

My husband said it tasted kinda like french toast, but without the toast. He said it was good, though he did learn early on in our marriage to be diplomatic about these kinds of things (most things taste good with lots of maple syrup.)

On the whole, it was a lovely way to start our day. So thanks to Mama Pea for introducing our homestead to this recipe -- it's a keeper!