I’m going to share how you can cook a simple breakfast/ brunch fare at home with very simple ingredients!

I didn’t plan this ahead and made do with whatever I had at home! It can be done within 20 minutes!

And the best part is, I don’t think the taste is inferior to brunch cafes out there!

Equipment:

• Hob
• Non stick frying pan
• Spatula
• A good oven (I use Brandt FC1042XS)

Ingredients:

• 2 tomatoes
• 1 slice of plain bread
• 2 slices of back bacon
• 2 eggs
• Raspberry jam or your choice of preserve
• Thyme/ oregano/ basil/ black pepper/ salt
• Some olive oil

Tomatoes

• Pre heat your oven to 265⁰C (most ovens do not have that temperature. That’s why it’s important to have a good oven), on top mode (yes you need top mode only. Top and bottom mode will not work).
• Cut the tomatoes in halves and coat with olive oil. Season with herbs, pepper and salt.
• Place the rack on the top shelf of the oven, and a tray on the second top shelf. Place the tomatoes, cut side facing up, on the rack. The tray will collect any juice which drips. Bake the tomatoes for 10 minutes, leaving the door slightly ajar. This is how you grill with an oven, you have to place your food on the top most level and leave the door ajar for steam to escape.
• After 10 minutes, I switch it to top mode with fan because I want my tomatoes cooked through. My oven only goes up to 230⁰C for this mode. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Bacon

• While the tomatoes are cooking in the oven, pan fry the bacon at high heat until both sides are slightly charred. Do not add any oil as bacon is naturally oily. This may take 5 minutes. Set aside.
• I like my bacon to taste like meat. If you like yours to be fully crispy, use streaky bacon instead of back bacon and cook it longer.

Fried egg

• Remove traces of soot in the pan but do not wash. With the bacon oil residue, fry one sunny side up egg with the same pan. It is not necessary to oil the pan as the pan is non-stick and the bacon oil still remains.
• The egg is ready when it no longer sticks to the pan and comes off easily when scooped up with the spatula.

French toast

• Crack the other egg in a bowl and beat it until just mixed. Cut the slice of plain bread in half and dip it into the egg mixture until completely coated. Repeat for the other half. On the same frying pan, fry the French toasts until browned.
• You can have the French toast with jam, maple syrup or even just sugar.
• If any egg remains, you could fry it or make more French toasts.

So that makes a very filling breakfast (for me)! the bacon fat gives everything an aroma so that’s important. For the grilled tomatoes, it is very important to have a high temperature because with low temperatures like 180⁰C it would take 50 minutes. If you have no oven, the next best alternatives would be to pan fry them instead.

Of course if you have other ingredients you could use them too. I wanted to sauté some mushrooms but I didn’t have any. I would like some smoked salmon with arugula but I didn’t have that too. But in any case, the portion above was filling enough for me so I’m satisfied.