Breakfast, lunch and brunch in New York

It should come as no surprise that there are many places to get good food in New York. But it's also no secret that many tourists tend to seek the familiar and safe option. In some cases, I even suspect it's tempting to eat cheap when on holidays. I can understand this, not everyone prioritizes food when they're on trips. And sure enough, you won't have to look long or far for the $1 burger meal in NYC. But it's really nothing to write home about. Literally.

We did it a bit differently. Read on for the first of three articles with details on where to eat in New York City. This first one is about breakfast, lunch and brunch. Enjoy!

What's for supper?

Renovating a house becomes a lot easier when supper looks like this...

Fried eggs in sweet pepper

And there I was, ready to take pictures of a nifty trick for your fried eggs, when the batteries in my camera went out. I apologize for lousy phone pictures, but I have made it up to you by including a completely irrelevant, yet cool picture inside. So hop in for breakfast and b...

How to make Poached Egg

I promised on Monday to show how a poached egg is made. And the entire process is inside, in a series of pictures. It's definitely not complicated. If anything, I'd say it's the easiest way of preparing an egg. What you do is to heat up water until it boils, then turn down the temperature a bit. Crack the egg into the water. Let it boil for 5-6 minutes.
It looks more messy than it is, very little of the egg white actually drifts away. I like the poached egg. It reminds me of a fried egg in its shape, and I use it as such right below. But it's really a boiled egg.

Click in to see the pictures.

Boiled Egg, but maybe not the way you would expect...

My very first blog post on Toys and Bacon was instructions on how to boil an egg. Yes, I know. It's basic knowledge. But we're in an agreement that this blog is about something more than just "how to make food". In some ways, it's a personal diary. In other ways, it's about the pictures I take. And I also hope that the words I'm writing, the stories I tell are of some interest.

I have since come to realize that I really like eggs, and it's one of the ingredients I find myself using the most.

So when I heard of this amusing way of boiling an egg, I had to try for my self. It's basically boiling an egg without its shell. It's not the poached egg, all though I can do an article on poached eggs on Wednesday. This is something slightly different.

Read on!

G.I. Joe Month: Repaints

Either as a welcome change to something familiar, or the easy way of creating something entirely new. A simple change of colors can have a huge effect. This goes for toys, as well as food.

Read on for more about repaints.

G.I. Joe Month: Does size matter?

I promised a month of Joes, and that's exactly what you're getting. I've yet to decided how it will go down, but expect anything from character profiles to philosophical topics, and maybe even some food related entries. Quite a few articles will remind you of the Figure Friday style - where I focus on a specific toy, and throw in a few anecdotes.

After Monday's huge article on the hundred best G.I. Joe figures, I thought it would be better to have a more easily read article, focusing on a tiny vehicle I find incredibly fun. Because good things will come in all sizes!

Read on for Cobra Night Landing!

Eggs

The most loyal readers of Toys and Bacon will have noticed a recurring ingredient in most of the food I make. But it didn't actually dawn on me until recently, when I showed my buddy JP's recipe for egg-white omelet.

I use a lot of eggs.

I mean, not only do I use them in various recipes, I also eat a lot of boiled or fried eggs separated from any other ingredients.
When I started to count, I soon found out I was eating at least a dozen eggs every week, excluding those that was a part of a more complex composition. So I wouldn't be surprised if I was close to twenty eggs a week in total. Is that a lot? I don't know. It sounds like a lot.



This doesn't necessarily concern me. We have heard about cholesterol issues related to eggs, but I feel ok, healthy.

Over the last eight months, I've shown various simple ways of using the egg, and I've mentioned that this is the beauty of the egg. You can eat it alone or as an ingredient. It can be used to make breakfast, dinner, cakes and desserts. It's in my opinion the most versatile  of ingredients.
Obviously, I use eggs when I make anything from burgers to cupcakes. But I'd like to list the recipes where the eggs play the main role.

First off there was the absolute basic, the boiled egg. It's difficult to do this the wrong way.
The standard omelet is also a good one, notice how mine is extremely airy when compared to JP's thinner style. That could very well be the lack of yolk in his.
The toast with the added fried egg is a funny one, easy to make and it will impress the kids.
Classic scrambled eggs is a favorite of mine. Remember to keep stirring, and take your time. The longer, the better!
Finally, the pancake. Almost as easy to make as fried egg, can be used for breakfast, dinner or dessert.

The eggs I use come from a local farm. Pictured above is the selection. The brown ones cost slightly more than the white ones. The price I pay is roughly $10 for 30 white and $11 for the brown. Why the slight price difference?  Well, like my farmer says: "They taste the same, but the brown ones taste better".

Either way, these eggs cost far less than in the grocery stores or supermarkets. Not only that, they are also fresher, bigger and taste better.
It sounds almost utopian, and I have often wondered why it's like this. They are slightly irregular, and I assume they need to pass a certain measurement or some ridiculous control completely unrelated to actual quality or taste to be eligible for the supermarkets. It's embarrassing that our society is like this, but I can't really complain. It feels like I've found a loophole in the system, a cheat code. With my eggs, it feels like I've figured it all out. And I encourage you all to search your local community for similar solutions. Buy local products, they are probably better in every way.

JP's Leap Day Omelet

Happy Leap Day! Use the chance to do something you've never done before! A day like this only comes around every four years. So why not take some risks? It doesn't have to be something dangerous. It could very well just be a new recipe, using a few different ingredients, or maybe even removing an ingredient.

Today, my friend JP shows us how to work a "low-risk change" into his lunch, as he shares his recipe for egg white omelet.
It looks like a really tasty one, specially with the inclusion of vegetables and cheese filling. I'm a bit weirded out by the lack of egg yolks. I always  use the entire egg for my omelets, but I would be a hypocrite if I didn't like the idea of altering recipes. Specially on a day like this!


Read on!

Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled eggs are (is?) really easy to make, and takes less time than to boil the eggs... or does it?

Read on for.. well not necessarily a recipe, because I assume you know it already, but read on for a few pictures.

Breakfast Pancake (and a Teaser!)

From early on, we were being taught that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. This is obviously not correct. It's important to get nutrition to re-start the body after being asleep, but you don't really need an entire meal for this. It all depends how hungry you are, but if you're like me, the hunger doesn't kick in until noon. I know the body needs something, so I usually just throw down an egg or a banana.
Weekends are different. I won't say I wake up at noon, but I usually sleep long enough to actually be hungry. Weekends are different because I also have time to make proper breakfast.

Read on for a very simple recipe for the Breakfast Pancake.. As well as a teaser for some toys!

Cheese Omelet

This is barely a recipe, but sometimes the best meals require no effort at all. And the simplest recipes can also be the most versatile.

Read on for a fun omelet and some ideas on making cooking more interesting.

Toast of the Molten Heart

I will admit that I have a thing or two to learn about photography, and when I suddenly felt for a snack late last night, my camera did not want to cooperate. The pictures that follow will hopefully still show how to make this easy and quick dish. Here's my Toast of the Molten Heart.  I know this dish has many names, but all others are wrong and clearly not cool enough. 

Read on for recipe and badly lighted pictures! Not a lot of text this time, mainly pictures.

How to boil an egg

In relation to a holiday trip last week, I slept over at a friend's place. I'll not name this friend due to what happened next. You see, at some we found ourselves hungry, with nothing in the apartment but eggs. This is normally not a problem for me, as I consume 2-3 eggs on a daily basis. I challenge you to find a more delicious and versatile product. A meal on it's own, as well as the ingredient for some of the best dishes and cakes. Can be used for dinner, can be used for desserts. Definitely more on the broader use of the egg later. But this evening, we simply had nothing else than eggs to eat.

And that's when I found out... my friend didn't know how to boil an egg.

This is not really surprising. Some people don't eat eggs like this, for them they're just ingredients. Some probably just doesn't do it often enough to have a decent routine. And others may own devices that ehm.. boil eggs in other ways. 

I'll walk you through the process of how I cook eggs, with some extremely inaccurate science. Read on, and post comments!