Martha Stewart’s Genius Breakfast Hacks & Tips (Perfect Croissants, Baked French Toast & More)

I suggest that you invite some friends over this weekend, make a nice breakfast. And what breakfast would be complete without bacon? This is how I'd like to show you how to cook bacon. A cast iron pan like this, that's hot. So I lay the bacon right in a warm pan and you start cooking it slowly, not overlapping. And if the bacon has been frozen, let it thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Really important not to crowd it. The pan I just used has fat in it. I don't lay more bacon in that fat. I will pour that fat off into a can. And this too, you can just lay in a single layer. Notice it's not frozen, it's not sticking to itself. This is the Irish bacon and it's delicious. It's made from lean meat from the eye of the pork loin and it's smoke cured. And I like to cook it really slowly in a pan. In this pan, I have one of my favorite bacons cooking, Canadian bacon. It also comes from the pork loin and that's the typical bacon that one would use for Eggs Benedict. Another secret about bacon, once it's cooked like this, get it onto a heated platter and get it out to your family or to your guests. I drain it a little bit on paper toweling and because it is now still hot, still crispy, not greasy, it is ready to eat. One of the nicest things to serve for a Sunday brunch or an everyday breakfast is an omelette. Start heating the pan without any butter in it whatsoever over a medium flame. Have on hand clarified butter. Add the butter to the pan when the pan is too hot to hold your hand over it. Now I'm going to use one tablespoon. Break into a large bowl three large eggs and three gives you a very generous sized omelette. Whisk up your eggs. You can use a fork if you don't have a whisk, but you want to do this right before you cook it. Don't let the eggs sort of sit around beaten up because you'll lose the fluffiness of that omelette that you're really striving for. Pour your eggs into the pan. You can see them solidifying around the edges. Now immediately move the pan like this and draw back the edges. Keep the pan moving because you're keeping the eggs from sticking to the bottom of the pan. So here we're ready to add our little bit of herbs. I think today I'll do a dill sprinkled with a little bit of salt and pepper and a little bit of grated fontina cheese. I'll just flip this over and let it seal. You can press it down a little bit so it seals and here just roll it out onto your plate. Serve this immediately. I'm going to just garnish it with a sprig of fresh chervil and you have omelette 101. I have some observers here in the kitchen today, Francesca and Sharky. They want to learn how to make French toast. The brioche, I'm using a fresh loaf and cut the bread into a half inch slices. So there we have just the right number of slices. Hey dogs, are you waiting for your French toast? They haven't had breakfast yet. Six eggs, six large eggs, one and a quarter cups of whole milk and very important, a big pinch of salt, one tablespoon of sanding sugar and two and a half tablespoons. The orange flavored liquor, approximately one and a half teaspoons of orange zest. Just squeeze about two tablespoons of orange juice right into your mixture and now soak your bread, but not too long and just continue doing this until the liquid is used up and the bread is all soaked. Now take this to a 375 degree preheated oven, 10 minutes. Look how nice and golden these look, but they need to get a little bit brown. So make sure that the oven is on broil at 480 degrees and watch it two to three minutes done. I suggest that you invite some friends over this weekend, make a nice breakfast. One of the best sandwiches I've ever had is the bacon and egg and cheese sandwich. Highest quality bacon you can find and it can't be bacon that's been sitting around, has to be freshly cooked like this. English muffin, just warm it on the griddle outside first, turn it over and toast the inside. And we're going to fry the egg right in the bacon grease. Put on some fontina cheese. Don't break the yolk. If you break the yolk, fry another egg. Bacon looks done. So now on top of the egg, put a little bit of grated fontina and this is getting nice and soft. A little bit of pepper, put your bacon right on top and our egg is done. And I think it's the perfect way to start your day. Irish oatmeal. It's a porridge that I really love. It has a great nutty flavor and it's crunchy and it's real good for you. It's a great way to start the day. Take one cup of oatmeal the night before, put one cup into a pan, add four cups of cold water, put it on the stove and just leave it there overnight to soak. When you get up in the morning, first thing you do is just turn it on to a low flame. In about seven to 12 minutes, you have perfect oatmeal with just a little bit of skim milk and a topping of fresh berries and maybe a little bit of natural brown sugar. For a real healthy breakfast that'll really start your day, a bowl of Irish oats. It's a good thing. I'm going to show you how to make a lovely cinnamon sugar bun. Use one cup of sugar and lots of cinnamon and about a quarter of a teaspoon of fine salt and this will be your flavoring. That's your cinnamon mixture. We have buttered muffin tins. These are the regular size muffin tins and our dough has risen. Just cinnamon and sugar. So this is about 18 inches by 10 inches. One way you can do it is by stretching. It's a little stretchy and we'll even it out. Spread about two tablespoons of butter and use about a third of this mixture. Sprinkle all over. Roll up from the long side. Just cut in the middle, the middle again, and into thirds. Put it right into the muffin tin. This dough will sit in a warm place until it's doubled in size. These have more than doubled in size. They're ready to go into the oven now at 350 degrees and uncover them. Of course, the sugar buns will bake for 22 to 24 minutes and now brush with melted butter on the tops and dip in the remaining cinnamon and sugar. They will be gone within minutes. So here's our big rectangle of croissant dough. So now cut this into half lengthwise and we're going to start forming our croissant. I'm going to mark every five inches, five, and then up here every two and a half inches. And we're going to cut this into our croissant triangles. So pull the tail, which is the point, and stretch the base and roll tightly and quickly before the dough gets soft. So now if you want to change the regular croissant into something a little more extraordinary, you can add almond paste, a quarter of an ounce of almond paste folded right in the bottom of the croissant. And now before they start to rise, wash them with an egg with a teaspoon of water mixed in. And then to allow them to rise, you must cover them with plastic wrap. Use two or three of these juice glasses upside down like that and cover with a big sheet of plastic wrap. This way the plastic will not touch the croissant while it's rising. And you can see that the first egg wash is still there, but we need to put on a second. So again, with a light brush and a light hand, just coat that surface again, trying not to deflate the pretty lively dough. The ovens are preheated to 425 degrees. So there we have our almond croissant and our regular croissant, and they are going to go right now into the oven. Set your timer for 15 minutes. Oh, look how beautiful they look. They look fantastic. This tiny little grain is called quinoa. While many times it's served in savory side dishes, quinoa makes a wonderful hot breakfast cereal. And the first thing to do is wash the grains and put it in a strainer. So here we have the quinoa, all rinsed, and now we can start making our wonderful cereal. Two cups of milk, which we are going to bring to a boil, and we're going to add the quinoa to the milk. So turn this down to a simmer and cook until the quinoa is thick and plump. Add one tablespoon of brown sugar and a little bit of cinnamon to taste. Now simmer that eight minutes longer. So now 18 minutes are up. The quinoa is done. What a very healthy and delicious breakfast.