Some of our favourite candle lit breakfast recipes also happen to be the simplest. Who doesn’t love a simple menu that can feed their breakfast guests? “If the divine creator has taken pains to give us delicious and exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is prepare them well and serve them with ceremony.” Fernand Point
Breakfast Menu & The Magic of Milk Kefir
Arrival:
- Gut loving shots of kimchi brine / sauerkraut brine
- Mimosa – 1-part coconut tibicos (water kefir) (in lieu of champagne) and 1-part fresh squeezed orange juice.
It is teamed with Bircher Muesli with fresh seasonal fruit & Honeycomb
Adriano Zumbo
- I love this one. So easy to prepare in advance and absolutely delicious!
- Soak organic oats in liquid milk kefir and yoghurt to cover overnight with grated apple, cinnamon, vanilla, dash of coconut oil, and berries. Drizzle with some good quality local raw honey, sprinkle topping and place a piece of honeycomb oozing with natural honey.
- Can add chia or hemp seeds, activated nuts, apple cider vinegar / raw juice / grated veggies (beet & zucchini) dried fruit pre-soaked in water kefir.
- Give your creative wings free reign. Be sure to cut the dried fruit into similar sizes. All nuts must be chunky.
- Can have several toppings to choose own combinations.
- The flavour will keep on improving.
- It is also easy to store in small glass bottles in the fridge for a quick breakfast or snack.
Bircher muesli is the invention that gave Switzerland its mojo
Interestingly, It was never intended for breakfast …
“Bircher muesli was intended as a starter to every meal, like bread and butter is today. Then, for a long time it became a Schweizer Znacht, a Swiss supper at night. But breakfast? Never.”
Dr Eberhard Wolff – University of Zurich
- Bircher Muesli was introduced around 1900 by the Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients in his hospital.
- The original recipe called for more fresh fruit than grain and soaked the raw oats overnight since they took time to soften and so much better for the digestion.
- We soak overnight in milk kefir.
Sour milk does not mean rotten or off milk, naturally.
It would be concerning something like kefir or viili, a lacto-fermented drink that is a little like yoghurt in taste but more tart and contains even more favourable organisms.
- Many years of kefir ingesting in long-lived cultures have shown the microorganisms are not pathogenic or disease causing.
- Kefir is a preventative.
- It processes antimicrobial activity against a wide variety of gram positive and gram-negative bacteria and against some fungi.
The legend of Kefir takes delight in plentiful wisdom of health claims.
- When ingesting kefir daily, you grow to love the sour taste and soon notice the difference in the wellbeing of the gut and the healthy appearance of skin and hair.
- Kefir may inhibit cravings for sweets and unhealthy food.
- It gently soothes the nervous system, would have to be great for peeps suffering from depression, sleep, attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity in children.
- While yoghurt is only a bacterial fermentation, kefir is a joint venture by colonies of beneficial bacteria + yeasts.
- It has been reported 500 ml of yoghurt contains close to 1.5 trillion organisms, the same amount of Kefir contains a mind-numbing 5 trillion beneficial and friendly bacteria.
- What this simply means is, kefir supplies a whole lot of more friendly bacteria doing lots of good little things to your body.
- Because the curd size of kefir is smaller than yoghurt, it is also easier to digest, making kefir an excellent, nutritious food for babies, invalids, the elderly and pets.
Bircher-Benner’s success was due to the easy rules he preached – raw food, early rise, early to bed, the virtues of fresh mountain air
Miso Porridge
A simple bowl of kefir overnight soaked rolled oats/ amaranth/quinoa flakes finished with a tad of miso, then topped with a load of minced chives, activated walnuts, baby radishes, and a thread of kefir cream.
Toast, scrambled eggs and quickie kimchi / toast, scrambled tofu, zucchini pickles and kimchi
How to make the best Scrambled Eggs
- In a bowl, crack 9 organic eggs and beat well. Season just before you cook them.
- This recipe is enough for 6 only in this menu along with muesli and a selection of – French Toast, muffins, sourdough, sprouted bread or kimchi /sauerkraut quiche / frittata. If served on it’s own: probably more like 3.
- Add to a cold pan with a knob of quality butter and cook on a low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon / spatula. Take off just before fully set.
- The slower the better for fluffiness.
- Top with chopped dill and sliced smoked salmon.
- Serve with kimchi.
Scrambled Tofu
- A firm block of tofu is best.
- Add to heated pan – olive oil, sliced red onion and tofu.
- Mash with a potato masher. Add a good dash of turmeric powder.
- Stir until combined and looking like a great scramble.
- Top with chopped chives
- Serve with pickles, kimchi and quince apple cider and olive oil sauce.
To finish : Herb brews, Tea & Coffee
Sit down and enjoy the breakfast with your guests and keep the brews, tea and coffee flowing.
Well done. You did it and everything was fabulous!
Kefir butter
Make butter as you would with fresh moo cream, replacing the cream with kefir sour cream
Kefir sour cream
- Replace the milk you normally use to make kefir with heavy cream.
- Allow to culture a bit longer (due to the higher fat content) until thick and creamy.
- If it separates out a bit towards the end of culturing feel free to stir it together.
- Fishing the kefir grains out may be the most difficult part of this process, so you may have to use a wooden spoon or gently use your hands.
- Goat milk lacks agglutinin, making it difficult to make butter by churning. You can do it by hand and comes more like a cheese – still very tasty. We added truffles. You can also do a combination of milks – goat & cow.
- Camel milk does not contain sufficient agglutinin for efficient cream separation.
- Using either an electric mixer or a hand-crank butter churn beats the sour cream until the butterfat begins separating out from the protein (buttermilk).
- Once this happens, dump off the buttermilk, rinse the butter solids with cold water, and beat more of the buttermilk out.
- Of course, you can use the dumped buttermilk (see kefir book)
- Once the water runs clear during the butter-washing process you can add Himalayan salt and refrigerate.
- Salted rinsed orange rind is a tasty addition.
- Ground bush tomato (Akudjura) combines well with butter and kefir cheese.
- A wonderfully unique flavour when infused with herbs, especially native peppermint. Sprinkle some dry basil, oregano, tarragon, rosemary / lavender or any other herb you like over some butter (1-2 teaspoons to 125g butter).
- Pop some grated kefir hard cheese on top (1/4 cheese to one butter), mix, wrap in eco foil and store in the refrigerator. Use on fresh baked bread or over cooked meat, fish or vegetables.
- Grandma would add a pinch of turmeric or marigold petals.
- Do not just put them in a vase – eat them! Use Marigolds (Calendula) petals to colour butter and cheese. Add to dukkah. If adding to a cake, soak the petals in room temperature milk kefir.
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