BALSAMIC TOMATO TATIN

Pinterest can be both a blessing and a curse. While it's great for finding inspiration, I find that I often end up pinning things and never look at them again. This is especially true for me when it comes to recipes for some reason. So I decided to take a look on my pinterest boards for something to make for breakfast, and came across this recipe for a tomato tatin. I'm a bit of a breakfast enthusiast, and love trying out new things for breakfast on the weekend. The past couple of weekends, I've made tomato tatins for breakfast.

I first tried a variation of this recipe using green tomatoes from the garden. It's getting colder and I've started to lose hope that the tomatoes on my plant will ever end up actually turning red. A handful of them have made it, and they've been the sweetest and most delicious tomatoes I've ever tasted (of course I'm not biased), but we are now at the end of October, we've started lighting up the fireplace and my tomato plant is still full of green tomatoes. But at least this recipe is something that works with green tomatoes, too. But my favorite way of making it is with caramelized balsamic red onions. I love the flavor you end up with, and while some might argue this is a bit of a summer dish, I think it's perfect for a weekend breakfast/brunch in fall, when it's all stormy and wet outside.

Ingredients:
200 g flour
100 g butter
1 egg
pinch of salt
250 g tomatoes (mixed)
olive oil
1 large red onion
2 tblsp balsamic
1 tsp sugar
olive oil

Directions:
First make the dough: Mix flour, salt and butter until combined, and your dough is forming little pebbles. Combine the egg, and let chill for 30 minutes. While your dough is chilling, cut your tomatoes in half, add a bit of olive oil to the bottom of your pan, and add a layer of tomato halves, skin sides down. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle a bit of olive oil on top. Bake in the oven on 175 C for half an hour, until the tomatoes are soft. While your tomatoes are baking, slice your onion and sauté in a pan with some olive oil. Once the onions are soft, add the balsamic and sugar, and continue to cook until caramelized. Take out the tomatoes, add a layer of carmelized red onion. Roll out your dough, and place on top. Prick with a fork, and stick it back in the oven for another 30 minutes. Once the dough starts to brown, take it out and dig in!

FAVORITE PANCAKE RECIPE

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I'm sick. I won't go into details, but it's at the point where a co-worker pointed it out to me at work yesterday. And there's something about feeling like crap and knowing you also look like you feel like crap that makes it even worse. I have a very quiet weekend of recovering planned ahead of me though (and I'm still in a state able to knit, so that's good news!), so hopefully this won't last very long. But in between the Strepsils and the Lemsips, I decided I wanted pancakes for breakfast. I think pancakes might be my favouite kind of breakfast, and being ill seemed like a good excuse to treat myself. And this is my favorite pancake recipe (of the American variety). There's no fancy flavor combinations or anything, but they pretty much never fail and I usually always have the ingredients at hand. So despite feeling terrible, I can still have my pancakes for breakfast. And as it's a basic pancake recipe, you can easily add a couple ingredients to make blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes, or whichever flavor you like. 

I'm not entirely sure where I got the recipe from, as I've had it for years on a little piece of paper (that far too often gets lost!). I've also changed the recipe a little over the years to fit what I tend to have ready at hand. The only thing in the recipe that I don't always have is the yogurt, but it can easily be substituted with either sour cream or buttermilk. 

Pancakes recipe:
280 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
100 g sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
500 ml natural yogurt
2 large eggs
30 g melted butter

Directions:
Add all the dry stuff to a medium bowl: flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt. Mix it all together, and add the wet stuff: yogurt, eggs and butter. Fry in butter pan on a medium low heat. Flip once the pancake is covered in bubbles. Serve with whatever you like. Today, I opted for bacon, syrup and fresh blueberries. Good morning!