Sunday Breakfast with Pauly: Bacon Chocolate Chip Cornmeal Packages with Blueberry Syrup

Recently, while visiting Chris in Philly, we went to a brunch establishment called Day by Day that offered a wholewheat cornmeal waffle. Chris ordered it, I had a bite and enjoyed the texture and flavor that the cornmeal brought to the dish. So I decided to attempt my own recipe this morning.

After looking round the interwebs for a recipe, I decided to wing it. Here's what I came up with:

Pancakes:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
4 strips bacon
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar

Syrup:
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup blueberries
1/4 cup sugar

Start off by cooking the bacon to whatever your preferred level of crispness is. While the bacon is cooking, mix the other ingredients for the pancakes, incorporating the bacon after its been cooked and broken up. While your pan is heating up for the pancakes, get your blueberry syrup going. Put all the ingredients in a small pan, cooking on medium heat, and mashing up the blueberries as you go. I'm not going to instruct anyone on how to cook pancakes, as I believe its fairly self evident. Once you're done, top with the warm blueberry syrup and enjoy. Should serve 1-2 people.

Irish Soda Bread French Toast

Or how I took one step closer to world unity.

I was trying to figure out what to make for breakfast Sunday morning, and was about to make some scrambled eggs. I asked my wife, Chrystal, if she would like some too, but she said "No, I'm just going to toast some Irish soda bread."

"We have Irish Soda Bread?"

"Yeah, I got it from work. I told them you'd probably want to make something like Irish soda bread French toast."

That is exactly what I wanted to do and I did it.

The recipe was simple enough. I started out with your basic egg batter, threw a bunch of pieces of soda bread into the batter and then heated up a pan with some butter in it. The key difference between soda bread and normal bread is that its very very dense. It doesn't absorb too much of the egg and it will crumble a bit if you're not careful.

Finally, once browned on both sides, I topped this first step* at a culinary United Nations with powdered sugar, as we were out of syrup, and it needed a bit more sweetness to complete. It was a delicious breakfast, one that I'll make again whenever we have Irish soda bread in the house.

* Afterwards, I considered the possibilities of making a breakfast with a few more nations represented. I'm open to suggestions. Canadian bacon is an obvious choice, though I think it would be really interesting with some shredded pork in an Asian BBQ sauce on top and a poached egg.