When I cook for myself, I count it honest to take my own advice. For example, I’ve eaten very well during the past two years of this relentless, isolating, spirit-sapping pandemic. Being put alone in my home, to my way of thinking, does not justify having someone else — especially Ma Stouffer or her sisters Marie Callender and Sara Lee — cook for me.
For close to 24 months now, I have tried to nourish myself each day with the best of my own cooking, or even leftovers from it. (I am quite the fan of excellent leftovers.) Doing so has both done my body well and repeatedly lifted my soul when almost all else pushes it down.
Too, I’ve tried to do the same for others, especially those who also have been isolated in their homes.
Recently, I brought over to one friend one of my favorite breakfasts: two pieces of top-notch rye bread, lightly toasted, heavily salted and peppered, oozing my best Spanish extra virgin olive oil, slathered in a beef broth that I had constructed some days before and studded with a handful of cannellini beans also cooked ahead and waiting to give up their deliciousness.
She loved it, ate a second bowl the next day and asked for the recipe. Why not share the recipe with you, too, as well as one other favorite breakfast? (My kitchen has a regular rotation of four favorite breakfasts, following yet another of my cooking counsels, “Neither be boring nor get bored.”)
Yes, beans and broth and toasted rye bread oozing olive oil for breakfast. We Americans can get rutted in eggs and cereal and smoothies for the first meal of the day. Many in other countries, though, eat what we save for later in the day as their first daily meal — pho in Southeast Asia, for one example, or, for farmers everywhere, something very hearty in the dark of the morning. Makes sense to me for this very important breaking of the overnight fast.
Bircher muesli, its origins at the turn of the 20th century, was the doing of a Swiss doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner who believed in the salvific qualities of raw foods. My own recipe has evolved over several years to be heavy on plain whole milk yogurt and marked by citrus juices and orange rind zest. As a result, I’m able to tamper its tanginess with another favorite — and very healthful — everyday food: raw, unfiltered Colorado honey.
To fashion the Bircher muesli, you might adopt my habit of having on hand two 64-ounce tubs of the yogurt (one newly bought and full, the second empty and ready). They split the work nicely and you’ll have ample supply of this long-lasting, refrigerated “overnight oats.”
It is uncommon for me to recommend a brand of foodstuff, but for the beans, broth and toast recipe I cannot but help to heartily suggest what I have toasted for years, Marczyk Fine Foods’ Jewish rye. For me, it is spot-on “Goldilocks” rye bread: not too many caraway seeds, just enough; not too dense a crumb, just enough; no over-the-top rye scent or flavor, just enough.
Bircher Muesli
Good up to 10-12 days in the refrigerator. Makes 8-9 cups.
Ingredients
- 2 cups plain, whole grain rolled oats (not “instant” or “quick”)
- 4 tablespoons green or golden raisins
- 1 cup apple juice or cider
- 1 cup milk or half and half
- 1 apple, cut into small dice, skin-on
- 3/4 crushed nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts, or the like)
- 3 cups plain whole milk yogurt
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- Zest of 1 orange
Directions
Soak the oats and raisins in the apple juice overnight, refrigerated.
Add the remaining ingredients and mix very well. Serve or let ingredients blend flavors for an additional few hours.
If desired, top with squiggles of honey and additional fruit or fruit compote.
Variations: To make vegan: substitute plant-based milks and yogurt and, if averse to honey, use maple syrup. To make nut free: substitute sunflower or pumpkin (pepitas) seeds. To serve warm: heat slowly in microwave (covered) or small pot atop stove. Other additions or substitutes: nut butters or tahini; dried chopped apricots, dates, cherries, blueberries or cranberries; applesauce.
Beans, Broth and Rye Toast
Makes 1 serving.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked white beans (or half a 15.5-ounce can white beans such as cannellini or Great Northern), with whatever water or cooking liquid comes with along with the measure
- 1 1/2 cups beef, chicken, lamb or vegetable broth, preferably homemade
- 2 slices Marczyk Fine Foods Jewish rye bread, toasted to desired level
- 1 1/2 tablespoons best-quality extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 teaspoon (or more, to taste) sea or kosher salt, large-grain if desired
- Liberal grindings of black peppercorns
Directions
Heat beans and broth in small pot and, when warmed through, mash about 1/2 of the beans with a potato masher, heavy-wired whisk or the bottom of a wooden spoon or spatula.
Arrange the toasted bread in the bottom of a large (ideally preheated) bowl and top the toasts with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Spoon the beans and broth onto the toasts and serve.
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