Fresh coffee... really fresh coffee

                                            

A cup of coffee, from tree to mug in about an hour, in the Peruvian Andes, about a day's trek from Machu Picchu (guinea pigs living on the hut floor sadly out of shot... and sadly destined for the roasting dish come the next family birthday celebration...).



Mr Muesli Lover's avocado and chilli fetish

Saturday morning. Oxfordshire. Muesli Lover is out riding as it so transpires, but don't blame her. She is not a banker. I was consequently left home alone. Well not quite. Muesli Lover's mother was around but tucked up, ill, in bed. No breakfast served to me today at the in-laws.

Darby the dog was also there, foppishly offering me no help practical whatsoever. The hunt was on. What could I find to eat? Their fridge is enormous, having an entire-door-within-the-front-door thing going on. This did not give me much. OJ and milk. Time for the big door. Bracing myself I heaved it open. Oooooh, packets and colours galore! Not actually much use for breakfast though with lots of savoury, evening meal things like raw chicken and carrots. And that dreaded evil Soya Milk.

I spotted an avocado though and instantly thought of The Breakfast Club thing of wonder I had eaten days before. Yep, I was going to have to create that staple fave of mine: avocado and chilli on toast (copyright Best Damned Breakfast Ever).

As you can see in the photos I was rather limited with my ingredients. The avocado was of the [not so nice] variety - you know, they are just a bit soapy, flat and not as decadently *rich* as [nicer variety]. The lemon juice not fresh but from a fake plastic lemon. The bread definitely a few days old. The chilli not fresh either - probably as close as it could be but I wasn't even sure you could use this stuff in the raw form.

Nonetheless, and this is the beauty of this dish, the combination of flavours far exceed the ingredients. 2+2 really does equal 5 when making this breakfast. Why? Because you are using few ingredients, none of them particular subtle, which together create a Hockney-esque taste sensation in your mouth: borne of simple origin but reflecting something rather beautiful and with a bigger punch than a first glance may reveal. And that is that.

You want me to tell you how to make it? Seriously? Follow the pictures. Take 4 ingredients. Toast one of them. Mix the other three. Place mix on toasted ingredient. Enjoy. Be posh and grind some pepper over it. Due to the fridge limitations I went for the "pure" interpretation of this fashionably breakfast.

At The Breakfast Club I had crispy bacon with it. I think mackerel pâté is going to be my next addition. I think that would be awesome. You will know when I do.

More chilli breakfast recipes

An Indian breakfast in Dubai

  

Airport breakfasts tend to be at best Pret bircher muesli pots, and at worst an aged pastry. So I was excited to find that among Dubai airport's disappointingly and surprisingly un-dazzling shops (well, it was the non-Emirates terminal), there was a food court doing Indian breakfasts.

It was an education, having never been properly to India (3 days in Delhi...), and the menu wasn't desperately enlightening, but luckily the patient chef was. Most were pancake/egg/lentil based with either Indian coffee or 'pulled tea' poured between cups from a height to get a froth.

My egg akuri (according to Wikipedia that's a spicy scrambled egg dish eaten in Parsi cuisine) with paratha (lightly fried pancake) and tea (kinda frothy and very sweet) was huge, filling, sweet/spicy and a little bit greasy. Not a breakfast I'd long to eat again, but a welcome departure from the predictable pre-flight fodder, and great for veggies.

Breakfast-to-go, Peru style

  Limes

 Wild tomatoes

 Pineapple

 Passion fruit

Coffee

Avocado

Picking avocados from the tree, squeezing just-plucked-lime over fresh papaya, sweet wild tomato jam on homemade bread, macheting a pineapple for a fruit salad... all in a morning's work for a fresh Peruvian breakfast in the cloud forest.

I took these pictures on a recent trek in the Peruvian Andes. They are wild and cultivated species grown in little patches, a sort of rainforest allotment. The tomatoes were the most unusual - sweet enough to eat as a jam on breakfast toast, while the avocados were as big as a cantaloupe melon. Also tasted, but not seen - fresh papaya, squeezed and mixed with orange for an exotic breakfast starter.

All hail the Jubilee Breakfast...

Muesli Lover was looking for a light breakfast dish ahead of the cucumber sarnie/jam/scone fest this weekend and came up with this patriotic breakfast dish: a red, white and blue of berries, yoghurt and muesli. A fine way to start your Jubilee celebrations, come rain or shine...