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THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 27, 2002
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Holiday Breakfast Traditions Mean
Good Food, Invaluable Family Time
Dear Betty:
Our kids are getting old enough that I’d like to start a holiday breakfast tradition. Can you help?
Shawano, Wisconsin
Traditions, whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner, don’t have to be elaborate, they just have to be repeated. Serve hot cocoa with marshmallows while opening packages or bake your grandmother’s famous oven pancake two years in a row, and I guarantee your family will look forward to “next year!”
One friend started buying gooey cinnamon rolls on Christmas Eve. Her girls now remind their mom, “Don’t forget the cinnamon rolls!”
She serves them with coffee, cocoa and sliced fruit, saying she wants to enjoy her children opening gifts, not spend her morning in the kitchen cooking.
These suggestions might help you create your own traditions:
•Set the table with special Christmas or New Year’s dishes—even if they’re just fancy paper plates and napkins.
•Pick up matching holiday mugs. Or take a family outing to a plate-painting shop to decorate your own.
•Look for holiday pancake molds that let you make pancakes in shapes.
•Cut up a variety of wonderful winter fruits—red and white grapefruit, star fruit, pomegranates, apples and red Anjou pears. Toss with a little sugar or a poppy seed dressing.
•Check out my website for a tasty breakfast casserole and make it just on this special occasion.
•Serve homemade or toaster waffles with fun toppings such as chocolate chips, whipped cream, toasted nuts, sliced bananas, fresh blueberries or strawberries. Stir honey or cinnamon sugar into softened butter for a special treat.
•Serve orange juice with a peppermint stick swizzle stick.
Dear Betty:
Is it possible to make fancy coffee shop coffee drinks at home?
Bountiful, Utah
Don’t you just love fancy coffees? You can make them easily at home, especially if you have an espresso maker. But if you don’t, you can still create a slightly milder version of cafe latte and cappuccino.
•Brew a very strong pot of coffee using French roast or other dark roasted coffee.
•Warm milk or cream in a glass measuring cup in the microwave, then beat with a wire whisk or fork until it’s frothy.
•Pour the coffee into cups or mugs. Using a spoon to hold back the foam, pour the milk into the coffee. Then spoon on the foam.
•Garnish with ground nutmeg, cinnamon or a dash of cocoa.
•For an eggnog latte, stir instant espresso into eggnog and heat in the microwave. It’s luscious!