Breakfast for Dinner

If there’s one trick a daily cook has up his or her sleeve after countless days and evenings of meal planning and preparation, it’s making breakfast for dinner.  On the days when many people would just give up and go through a drive-through, I use my trump.  Breakfast is by far my favorite meal, and there are several options to choose from.  If I’m feeling really lazy, it’s granola, yogurt and fruit.  Oatmeal with nuts and raisins fit the bill for lighter fare.  If we haven’t already had our allotment of eggs, I make an omelet or frittata.  Tonight, however, pancakes and bacon called to me.

Last fall we went to a local orchard to get apples.  We asked the owner which apples kept the longest, and how we should store them.  He showed us several varieties that would last until December or January, and we dutifully put them in bags and stored them in the bottom of our spare refrigerator.  The last two big boys had been slightly ignored long past their expected shelf life, but this evening in mid-February remained without blemish, perfect still for cooking.  As there were only two, I decided to supplement with a quart bag of frozen cut-up peaches from last summer’s farmer’s market.  I peeled and sliced the apples, then added them with the frozen fruit to a saucepan; I sprinkled two tablespoons of demerara sugar and a teaspoon of ground ginger over the top, then added a ½ cup of water.  After the mixture came to a boil, I simmered it, uncovered, until the mixture was thickened to the consistency of applesauce.

While the compote was cooking, I defrosted some Triple S thick-cut nitrate-free bacon and put it into the oven at 350 degrees.  I usually use my giant cast iron skillet for this task, but I would need it for the pancakes…..OK, confession:  I actually forgot this, started out my bacon in the skillet, then moved the bacon into a 9 x 13 pan for the oven.  I thought the bacon grease would be great for the pancakes, but that was a serious error….

Meanwhile, I mixed up the pancake batter.  For this I “cheat”, since I’ve never found a baking mix better than the Trader Joe’s multigrain pancake mix.  (Please send me recipes if you find one!)  The first four pancakes got stuck to the bottom of my skillet.  The second four, after much wiping of bacon bits and spraying of canola oil, then coconut oil, didn’t turn out much better.  At the same time I was dancing around my boys, who had chosen this inopportune moment to empty the dishwasher.  By this time there were bits of pancake, oil, bacon and fruit syrup all over the stove.  It took quite a bit of effort to apologize profusely to the person on dish/kitchen-cleaning duty (tonight, my husband) while simultaneously trying to salvage the bacon-bit pancakes.

But whatever they were lacking in appearance, they made up for in flavor.  Topped by a warm, flavorful apple-peach-ginger compote with a side of perfectly cooked bacon, they were just what I’d been craving on the drive home…that is, when I had given up trying to come up with a “real” meal plan.

The stove and skillet were returned to their former glory...