Winter's Day and Thoughts on Breakfast

The sun shooting rays through the clouds this morning  highlighted the Iron Mountains' brush cut ridge.  4000 feet means the snow will stay up there even as it begins to melt here at the Iron Mountain Inn about 1400 feet below.  But as I write this the sun is high in the sky, snow is dripping from the gutters and it's a gorgeous day.

But another storm is due in tomorrow night into Wednesday.  I guess I'd better check my pantry, but the last time I looked I could live up here for a month or more and not worry about running out of food.  I might end up eating some strange combinations, but that would get rid of some of those "that recipe sounds interesting" items which were bought and maybe never used.  Or maybe used part of the spice or ingredient or one time use pan and the end result wasn't as good as the anticipation so never want to make THAT recipe again!

I love reading cookbooks and dreaming about all the wonderful things I'm going to prepare.  But somehow, the dreaming is about all that happens except for breakfast items.  Now there I'm a champ!  I know, I could perfect some special Iron Mountain Inn recipes (like our chocolate chip cookies) and serve them over and over, but I'd get bored cooking the same things all the time.  And then there are the many repeat customers who want to try something new.

One of my favorite cookbooks is from the 1940's when ingredients were in short supply.  People had to make do or do without and there were some things you didn't want to "do without"!  So there is the cookbook, "How to Cook a Wolf" by M.F.K. Fisher.  Great fun just to read the chapter titles!  My mother used this book during "the War" and I don't remember feeling I was missing something.

Now that I have the bed and breakfast, I'm looking for unique breakfast items, especially for the customers who stay for a week or more and want to enjoy a full breakfast each morning.  Then I really get creative!  Which I enjoy because it gives me an excuse to check into the cookbooks looking at the beautiful pictures and reading the ingredients and spices--most of which I have at this point!  But there is still the time element and I do like to sleep in whenever possible!  So my choices run to the following:

A. Need something which is easy to prepare at the last minute
B. Need something that can be prepared the night before, put into the oven, turn on the timer and then I can
     really sleep in a little longer!
C. Need to alternate ingredients - can't serve an egg dish every morning, nor pancakes every morning.  And
     then there are the sides...bacon, Canadian bacon, sausage patties, link sausage, Vienna sausage, turkey
     rolls - all good ideas depending on what the main course is.
D. Need to get to bed no later than 9:30!

But right now it's time to squeeze the oranges for nice fresh juice tomorrow.  I've got 10 lbs of navel oranges and they are making wonderful juice!





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