Breakfasts of Champions

We take breakfast pretty seriously, chez English. I've long been the kind of person that wakes up completely ravenous (I'm starting to think Huxley may have inherited this trait from me because dude wakes up really wanting to chow down, stat). Since Hubs needs a bit longer to rouse himself when the sun is making its climb in the sky (I'm the morning dove, he's the night owl), I typically let out the chickens and give them fresh feed and water, feed the cats, let the dogs do their thing in the yard, get Huxley out of his overnight diaper and playing in the kitchen with me, drink a glass of water, put the kettle on, grind some coffee beans (more often than not with a bit of fresh cardamom seeds), check my email quickly, and then eat some yogurt with berries and honey while feeding Huxley some plain yogurt with fresh fruit.

If I didn't start with that glass of water and that bowl of yogurt, I'd be a grouchy, cantankerous, curmudgeonly lady. I gotta eat, or I'm just no good. After Hubs wakes up, has his own glass of water (we drink water first thing to re-alkalinze, as the body does lots of restorative work overnight and renders the blood ph a bit acidic come morning), and a few sips of his coffee (I make his mug up just like he likes it and keep it ready and waiting for him), then we get down to the real business of making breakfast.

Pictured above are two breakfasts we had this past weekend. On top you'll see drop buttermilk biscuits smothered (because biscuits, you see, get "smothered", not "covered") in homemade herb sausage gravy, partnered up with a poached egg, and topped with fresh cilantro. The sausage was from nearby Hickory Nut Gap farm and is transcendent. The eggs were from our ladies. The cilantro (as well as the thyme and marjoram used in the gravy) are growing in our herb beds, and the tomatoes are from our kitchen garden.

The second photo shows a steak & egg sandwich. Again, we turned to the wonderful Hickory Nut Gap for our meat, our flock for the eggs, and our garden for the lettuces and tomatoes. The bread is locally made and was lightly toasted. I've yet to truly conqure bread-making, but it's on my life list and I'm hoping to get my skilled bread-making buddy Natalia-who is French and gorgeous and does things like make her own sauerkraut and render her own lard while homeschooling her three equally gorgeous daughters-to teach a class out here that I can learn from, too.

Both meals were crazy delicious and really pretty easy to make. I feel amazingly fortunate to both live in an area that provides such wonderful foods, and to have a spouse that gets into food and cooking as much as I do. Or maybe he just does so in order to stave off the morning hag...;^)