When I think of purple foods, the first thing that comes to mind are blueberries. There are, of course, other purple foods — plums, potatoes, cabbage even artichokes, eggplant and asparagus — but the easiest for me is blueberries as I have a whole bunch frozen in my fridge plus the jar of jam that I made last year. The color came out very dark but the glaze was perfectly blueberry-esque.
For those of you who have ever gone to breakfast with me, then you will know that I loooooove Eggs Benedict, so this is a little bit of a riff on those: Open-faced Tomato + Fried Egg Sandwich with Hollandaise. No english muffins, instead a piece of Anadama Bread; yellow tomatoes instead of Canadian bacon: a fried egg instead of a poached one. Either way, hit the spot this morning half-way through the week.
It wouldn’t be Easter if I didn’t make some variation on the Hot Cross Bun. Everyone has their own, there are literally thousands of styles, combinations and variations. This year, I went for the somewhat rustic Cranberry Walnut Whole Wheat Sourdough Hot Cross Buns version. It’s an enriched sweet (but not too sweet) sourdough brioche dough, fruit and nuts added. Eat with sweet jam or honey or make into a bacon sandwich. nom nom nom.
Sticking to the “mildly-Irish” Or “Irish-inspired” theme, here are some more hand pies, I do seem to be making a lot of these currently. They freeze really well and so I always have a lunch on hand. Definitely seek out the right kind of bacon, if you can. Avoid using streaky bacon, aka American breakfast bacon as the recipe will be either too greasy or too crunchy. If you can’t find Irish or British-style bacon, I’d go for Canadian bacon (like the kind in eggs benedict.