The Two Recipes That Got Me Out of a Breakfast Rut
Two protein-rich breakfast ideas, a sandwich I make on rotation and a 5-minute lunch.
When I'm not freezing, thawing, reheating, and repeating for my freezer cookbook, other meals have been flowing through my kitchen. Here are a few recent favorites, plus my new go-to pizza spot in Oakland, for some cooking inspo leading into the 4th.
Lee Tilghman’s protein pancakes. Lee writes the lovely Substack Hand Wash Only and the author of the memoir If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die about her time as a hardcore wellness influencer in the 2010’s. I’ve followed Lee’s work for years, and I admire her return back to the industry and evolution as a creator. I rarely make recipes from IG captions, but I liked her scrambled pancakes and her latest recipe that makes a single-serve plate-size pancake. I get sick of eggs, smoothies and toast, and both iterations are quick enough for a weekday morning, no protein powder needed!
Georgia Freedman’s hot porridge and cool yogurt bowl. Continuing the theme of getting out of a breakfast rut, I loved this combo. Oatmeal never fills me up, but alongside thick Greek yogurt, strawberries, and a little homemade strawberry-raspberry jam, it felt like something from the now-closed Standard Fare in Berkeley. Georgia was inspired by another favorite local spot (where we recently met for coffee!) that has since stopped morning service, so homemade will have to do.
Another summer breakfast I love:
Temescal's Pizza Ponte. This is hyper-local, but this spot has new ownership and it is SO good. The owners ate their way through the most hyped pizza in NYC while developing their menu, and it shows. Before I knew this, I said, mouth full of pesto pizza, that it was just as good as L'Industrie in Brooklyn. We’ve never seen a line, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this place gets popular.
Alison Roman’s Old-Fashioned Strawberry Cake. I make this cake every year for my boyfriend’s birthday, with the juiciest strawberries I can find, though it’s good even with mediocre ones. Like Marian Burros’s Plum Torte, it’s a simple buttermilk cake where the strawberries add moisture without mush (see Martin Sorge’s recent diatribe about cooked strawberries). I serve it with lightly sweetened whipped cream folded with a dollop of Greek yogurt for a little tang, and it stabilizes the cream so you can make it hours ahead. Also: the cookbook photo features the actor who plays Cousin from The Bear in tiny shorts.
If you’re in the mood for something fancier…
My Dill-y Turkey Sandwich. The second in my sandwich series for my video client Material Kitchen (use code CLARE20 for 20% off). This is more or less our house sandwich: Acme’s herb slab (a cross between focaccia and ciabatta), herb-roasted deli turkey, arugula, tartar sauce (yes!), dill pickles, shaved red onion, and dill havarti. Everyone needs a good “body of water” sandwich, as I remarked on my friend Hillary Dixler Canavan’s recent post.
Tuna + Tomatoes. I freelance for a marketing agency, creating UGC-style video content and writing blog posts and emails for CPG brands (more about that here). A recent assignment for a simple tuna and tomato salad with olive oil, vinegar, and basil made for the perfect post-shoot lunch, and it’s now in my weekday rotation. While the video took hours to produce, the dish takes minutes to assemble (slice tomatoes + open can + drizzle and done).
