Custardy, soft french toast is a classic breakfast option. You can do so much with the basic recipe just by using different types of bread. White bread makes the most basic french toast, while cinnamon raisin bread makes the dish taste almost like a cinnamon bun. Unlike pancakes, where you can just toss in some berries, it can be difficult to add additional flavors or textures to french toast, but if you can manage it, you’ve just taken a good breakfast dish to a great one.

This is one of my favorite french toast variations: Cereal-Crusted French Toast. The concept is the same as breading chicken or pork, but instead of dipping the egg-soaked bread into breadcrumbs, you dip it into cereal. I like to use Rice Krispies for this, as they are easy to stick onto the toast and cook up nicely. Crushed cornflakes work very well, too, but there are many other cereals that should work. Kids might even like to see colorful crushed Fruit Loops coating their toast. I would just avoid using cereals that have add-ins, like dried fruits or marshmallows, both of which might burn as the french toast cooks and won’t contribute to the crunchy crust on the toast. I would also recommend using a thicker, or firmer, bread for this recipe because the bread will be a little easier to handle when you go to dip it in the crushed cereal mixture.

The crusted french toast doesn’t take any longer to cook than regular french toast, but should be served immediately to preserve the crispiness of the cereal coating. The number of pieces of french toast you get from this recipe will vary based on your bread selection, but the recipe can easily be doubled if you need to serve a crowd.

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I’ve had lots of interesting egg dishes at brunches and big breakfast get-togethers. Everything from frittatas to quiches to big piles of scrambled eggs with fresh herbs. One of my favorite egg brunch dishes is this cheesy egg casserole, which is packed with creamy cheese, can be made in advance, and serves a crowd of at least a dozen people with ease. Casseroles get a bed rep some of the time, but anything baked in a large baking dish and can be served as a main course can be a casserole, and many of them (the good ones, of course), can be great options for entertaining.

This recipe is based on a similar dish that is - or, at least, was - served at the Washington School Inn in Park City, Utah. My parents had it there several years ago and asked for the recipe. I’ve made some modifications to the cheese content of the recipe and always make a much bigger batch than the printed-out copy they shared with my parents. The basic recipe I work with is below, and it’s the one I turn to again and again. From time to time, I’ll use different types of cheeses - Gruyere, Havarti - and or I’ll add in chopped jalapeno peppers if I really want to play with it. Otherwise, I’ll put out a side of fresh salsa and just serve it as-is.

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I really like having a batch of granola around the house for snacking, and topping off yogurts and ice cream. I almost always use my recipe for Mix-n-Match Applesauce Granola. As the name suggests, it’s a versatile recipe that you can use many different kinds of flavors in, changing the nuts, fruits and the spices to suit your mood and tastebuds every time you make a batch. Another reason I like it is that there is no added fat in the granola itself; it uses applesauce to create clumps of oats and the resulting granola still manages to be crunchy. This means that I can load up on nuts and other goodies but keep the granola s a relatively healthy snack.

For this batch, I made Coconut Almond Granola. The basic elements are all still there - oats, puffed rice cereal (for lightness), brown sugar, applesauce and maple syrup - and I added in lots of sweetened shredded coconut and some almonds. The granola is baked at a low temperature, so the the coconut and the almonds don’t toast up faster than the rest of the granola and can be put into the oven with the rest of the batch. While you can simply add nuts in at the end if you already have toasted almonds around the kitchen (toasting them twice might lead to burning), too, it’s just a little bit nicer to be able to mix them in with the granola base, so there will be both coconut and almonds in all of the crunchy clusters of oats.

I didn’t mix in any dried fruit with this batch of granola, but you could certainly add dried cranberries to the mixture after it has completely cooled. I also think that chocolate chips might be a good addition if you’re thinking about going a little more decadent with the whole thing. Otherwise, just enjoy the crisp, coconutty goodness by the handful - which is what I did.

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Crustless Quiche is one of my favorite easy dinner dishes to make. Quiche doesn’t sound like it would be a quick-fix dish at any time, but this quiche doesn’t use a traditional pastry crust, which really cuts down on the prep time. Instead, the quiche filling includes some all purpose flour and baking powder, in addition to eggs, milk and other standard quiche ingredients. In the oven, the filling separates into a very thin crust layer and a tender egg/custard layer. The crust provides just enough stability to make the quiche easy to slice and give the dish some texture, but it doesn’t add any of the extra fat or calories that the traditional pastry crust has.

From start to finish, it takes very little time to throw this recipe together and, like most quiches, you can use just about any kind of vegetables or cheese that you like. It’s very easy to make these vegetarian, but I used a combination of sausage and mushrooms in this quiche. The sausage, mushrooms and any other vegetables need to be cooked beforehand on the stove, since the oven cooking time is relatively short.

I used Chicken Chipotle sausage (I get them at Trader Joe’s) in my batch, but you can use any type of sausage that you like. Since the chipotle adds a lot of spice - and I tend to like spicy sausages in general - I kept the additional peppery spices to a minimum in the recipe. If your sausages are mild, add in some more pepper, or even some red pepper flakes to jazz things up a bit.

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I suspect that one of the reasons that pancakes are usually kept fairly simple - plain or buttermilk seem to make up the vast majority of pancake recipes - is that pancakes are such a great way of serving maple syrup. It’s easy to save the bulk of the flavor for the syrup. But it is also easy to infuse a little more flavor into basic pancakes and doing so only improves breakfast, making the pancakes a little more interesting.

These pancakes get a little flavor boost from the addition of brown sugar. I used a bit more sugar than I typically would in a pancake recipe to bring it out, so the resulting pancakes are sweet and fluffy, as well as very soft and tender. They really are on the cake-like side of the pancake spectrum, and are all the more delicious for it. Still, the brown sugar flavor is relatively subtle on its own, if you want to take the time to make a batch of regular pancakes (as I did!), it is easy to see how much the flavor really stands out when you compare these to a plainer version.

To enhance the flavor even more, I made up a special syrup to serve these pancakes with. The syrup is a mixture of brown sugar, butter and real maple syrup. It tastes vaguely like pralines, and does a wonderful job of bringing out the brown sugar flavor - as well as the flavor from the butter - in the pancakes. It is best served warm, as the sugar may crystallize if the syrup sits too long at room temperature.

Both the syrup and the pancake recipe can be halved quite easily if you don’t want to make a big batch.
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Toad-in-the-hole is the name of a traditional British dish in which sausages are put into Yorkshire pudding batter and baked right into the popover-like pastry. Since it’s origination, the name has been expanded to include many other dishes, including the simple breakfast dish of eggs in toast. At least, I’ve always heard eggs-in-toast called toad-in-the-hole. It can also be called Eggs in a Basket, Eggs in the Hole, or Frog in a Hole.  The dish is very easy to make and doesn’t take much more prep time than any other style of breakfast eggs. All you need to do is fry an egg inside a piece of toast. It comes out in one piece, so it’s easy to serve. I’m opting with the most  generic name for this dish, although I will continue to call it “toad in the hole” for better or worse, since that is what I’ve always called it.

Usually, this dish is made by using a round biscuit cutter to remove a circle from the center of the toast. I gave this version a Valentine’s Day twist by cutting a big heart out. You can use a knife and cut the heart free-hand (which is what I did), or use a heart-shaped cookie cutter if you have one that is about 4-inches in diameter. The bread should be very lightly toasted before cracking the egg into it, and it helps the egg not to stick to the pan if you give your bread a very light coating of butter before putting it down to be toasted.

Get up a little bit early on Valentine’s Day and make this a cute breakfast for your valentine - or make it with them, if you both want to get up early.

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