Day Twenty Eight - Australia

G'day mates! This morning, we took a trip to the Land Down Under to enjoy a traditional Australian Brekkie.  This was the first time this month that I've cooked breakfast for a tour stop, and I was excited to once again get to share it with Aunt Chris and Uncle Bill.  However, they did leave right afterwards...I'm hoping that it wasn't because of today's meal!


Traditional Australian Brekkie

8 slices of bacon
6 eggs, beaten and mixed with 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cans vegetarian baked beans
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 12 ounce package sliced white mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 loaf sourdough bread
1 loaf sunflower honey bread
Assorted jams and jellies (we had fig butter, raspberry, and orange marmalade)
Vegemite
Strong coffee
Orange juice

The Australian Brekkie shares many similarities with an Irish or English breakfast (another testament to how colonialism can shape the food culture of a region).  I didn't so much cook this one, as assemble it, and it was all about timing.  First, I cooked the bacon in a large skillet.

While this was going on, I heated the oil in another skillet and sauteed the sliced mushrooms until they were brown and had released most of their juices.

In the meantime, in a small pot I added the can of stewed tomatoes and cooked on low heat until they were steaming.

Once the bacon was all cooked, I set it on a plate and covered it with a paper towel.  I then added another pot and heated the baked beans until they were bubbling.

In a large pan, I also added the eggs and cheese and scrambled the eggs. Finally, just as the eggs were finishing cooking, I toasted the breads.

And here was the final result...

It was a great way to start a day.  Elizabeth and I occasionally have this kind of breakfast on the weekends, with a few variations (most of the time I will substitute greens for the mushrooms, or sausage for the bacon).  One doesn't usually think of beans for breakfast, but they add a sweetness to everything without being too sugary, and the tomatoes and mushrooms go well with the eggs.  It's a big, hearty breakfast, and it's great for Saturdays and Sundays when we have a lot going on and we need a large meal to kick things off.

A note on the one thing that really set this apart from an English or Irish breakfast.  That would be this...

It's called Vegemite, although the only "vegetable" that we could find listed in the ingredients was celery, and that was way down the list among the added "flavours" and "colours" (the added "u" makes those words sound fancier).  It's a yeast extract spread that is featured in both the Men at Work song and in Australian cuisine.  You can normally find it in the international aisle near the English food.

It was a black, oily looking paste that tasted a lot like sardines, but also was it's own unique flavour (hey, I could get used to spelling it that way).  And in this case, unique is not necessarily a good thing.  It was incredibly salty, with a lingering after-taste.  I put some on my finger and successfully managed to get Elliot to cringe, Elizabeth, Aunt Chris, and Uncle Bill only managed a little bit of the stuff on a bite of the sourdough.  I soldiered on and had a full piece of toast with it, but it was a bit of a struggle.

The bigger struggle now is what to do with the rest of the jar, as we really only scratched the surface of it.  There has to be a blog or a Reddit thread about what to do after you foolishly buy a whole jar of Vegemite, try it, find it wanting, but you don't want to throw away the rest of it.  Or, if there isn't, maybe a should start one. Hmm...January 2017...The Vegemite Month...