During busy weeks, sometimes my breakfast is fast and on the go.  I'll tear open a highly processed carbohydrate in a foil wrapper, and, if I plan well,  it will at least accompany an apple or banana.

But this is a much better way to enjoy fruit in the morning. It's kind of like a smoothie, except this is meant for a leisurely morning savored slowly, seated at a breakfast table and sipped with a spoon instead of a straw.

At the Bloomsbury Inn, this is the first course in a three part breakfast.  Yes, their morning includes an appetizer, entree and dessert.  Isn't that divine?  Though this is the first course, it could certainly be dessert for me.

Kathleen, Innkeeper at the Bloomsbury, said that she finds it to be a challenge to find new, exciting, unique fruit options.  (I need to send her a link to my hot pink fruit breakfast!  That one wasn't just unique, it was funky!) Her cold fruit soup recipe is definitely a fun and different way of adding fruit to your morning meal.

Let's get started with cooking.  Or in this case, I should say mixing.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with how simple this is to put together.

Notice that I picked "fat free" yogurt, "light" whipped cream and "lite" peaches and placed them right next to the "heavy" whipping cream.

Ha!

The recipe Kathleen gave me leaves the option open for choosing the fruit.  From berries to mango and even honeydew.  But I decided to have a peachy morning since it's the state fruit for South Carolina.

Unfortunately, peaches are not in season at the moment, so I used canned.  But you better believe I'm going to try this recipe again in the spring with some fresh peaches.

Next the sugar ... or how my Carolina relatives would say ... "shugah."

Next, a couple of dollops of yogurt.  The recipe calls for 6 ounces.  I had a big 'ole tub of it ... but figured that 6 ounces was equivalent to about 6 spoonfuls.  If you use vanilla bean yogurt, the extract is optional and probably not necessary unless you want a stronger vanilla flavor.

A dash of cinnamon.

Blend. Chill.

Serve and enjoy!

Bloomsbury Cold Fruit Soup

from the Bloomsbury Inn, Camden South Carolina

Total preparation time: 15 minutes, plus chilling time
Serves: 6-8

Ingredients:

2 cups fruit (peach, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango…any one of these works well…fresh is better, but canned or frozen will work when well drained)

½ cup sugar (sugar to taste depending upon natural sweetness of fruit)

1  (6 oz) vanilla bean yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract if you use plain yogurt (extract flavor based upon fruit:  vanilla, cinnamon, rum)

¼ cup heavy cream (add cream to determine consistency desired)

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Directions:

If you are using fresh fruit, carefully clean, peal, and place in the blender.  Add all remaining ingredient and blend until smooth. Chill for at least 8 hours.  Garish with whipping cream, candied/sweet-flavored nuts, fresh mint or whole fruit slices.  Serve very cold.

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Considering it is still hotter than a fresh biscuit here in Florida, and I needed an instant way to cool off.

As much as I'd like to have a hot cup of coffee or cocoa outside on my deck, that usually only happens inside with the air cranked up.  These simple little drinks are much better for Florida fall weather.  Or summer.  Or spring.  What the heck, Florida really only has one season, right?

I actually dreamed up this recipe one morning when we had some friends over and I took a look in my fridge to see what kind of cool late-morning smoothie I could whip up to calm the sweat on our brow from an outdoor photo shoot.

Here's what you'll need ... very simple ... a bag of frozen peaches ... whole milk or cream (cream makes it more rich) ... vanilla ... and mint.

You could choose to use fresh peaches ... if so ... add about 2 cups of ice.

Real simple.  Throw it all into a blender ...

About a cup of milk ...

A cap full of vanilla ...

And then blend.

If you want it to be more sweet, you could add a 1/2 Cup of sugar.

If you want it to be more relaxing, you could add some champagne.

(I actually did in our second batch!)

But just as-is you'll find it  is light and refreshing.

Relax. Refresh. Recharge.  Repeat.

These are kind of rich with the milk or cream, so I would suggest serving in a smaller glass than a standard 18 ounce smoothie.

Peaches & Cream Morning Smoothie

Ingredients

1 bag of frozen peaches

1 Cup whole milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

mint to garnish

Optional:

1/2 Cup sugar

1 Cup champagne

Directions

Add ingredients to blender and mix well.  Serve chilled.  Makes approx. 6 servings.

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Here in Florida, since the weather stays warm, the only way to know if the season has changed is when the store fronts change their displays.  And since orange and black and purple Halloween stuff is around every corner I turn when shopping ... we must be entering into my favorite season ... FALL!!!  I'm glad all the stores have their stuff out early because the month of October seems to fly by too fast.  I say, better to get started sooner rather than later ... even if it's still 90 degrees out.

Fall brings with it many big festivals to our quaint little town and one I'm really looking forward to this year is the 25th Annual Craft Fair. The sweet smell of kettle corn, funnel cakes and cinnamon brooms.  The buzz of the crowd.  And the many really cool artisan crafts lining the streets.

During our last festival, I had the opportunity to meet Teresa Haun, craftsman artist and creator of Mind's Eye Journals. She stayed at our cottages during Mount Dora's Annual Art Festival and we instantly became buds while sharing travel stories and philosophies on life around a fire pit while roasting marshmallows and making smores.

Teresa resides in Tahoe, but has spent the last year with her husband innkeeping at the Silver Forset Inn located in Montana between art shows. Being an innkeeper has given them both the opportunity to express their creative side in the kitchen mixing ingredients and and flavors.

She's coming back this October and I can't wait!  Teresa recently sent me two of their favorite recipes, and this one below is the perfect thing to wake your senses out of any Halloween-candy-sugar-induced coma you may find yourself in during the coming months.

I trimmed the recipe in half since I was just cooking for two ... however, I have the full recipe at the end of this post.

Here are the players ... full character roll listed at the bottom with the recipe.

Italian seasonings include marjoram, thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano and basil and are very fragrant. Usually you can find this in a gourmet spice blend. Once you add them to the simmering butter ... the aroma will lure people into your kitchen asking, "whatchya makin'?" Meaning ... "I'm going to get to taste this, right?"

Melt the butter in a sauce pan and add the spices and crushed garlic.  The garlic crusher takes two hands for me ... it was a big clove ... but no vampires will be lurking around here for Halloween with this recipe for sure!  Set your oven to 350 degrees to start warming up.

Garlic, spices and melted butter ... is anyone hovering over your shoulder making "Mmm" noises yet? I recommend doing this on low heat so that the butter doesn't bubble or burn.

While your waiting, wash your mushrooms and place them in a cake pan or cookie sheet with edges gill side up with the stems removed.

When the butter is fully melted and the spices have simmered for a minute or two,  evenly divide the mixture in all the caps. My baking dish is clear, so it looks like I'm doing this on my counter top.   Bake the caps for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

While your caps are cooking, your ready to start poaching your eggs. "I don't have an egg poacher," you say. No problem! You can poach eggs without an official egg poacher.
Next, add a tsp (maybe a dash more) of white vinegar. This helps the eggs stick together as one piece instead of making a stringy egg drop soup.

My first tip, bring the water to a boil, then turn down the heat so it is more of a simmer and not a rumbling bubbly boil.

And the secret ... crack your eggs into a small bowl and slide the egg from the bowl to the water.  This also helps them stay in one piece as opposed to plopping into some stringy Saturn-shape. Also, if you happen to break the yolk, you won't be dirtying up your water.

The eggs will take about 3 to 5 minute to cook depending on the firmness you like. I would start the process when your caps are almost complete. If you need to, you can add your eggs to an ice bath to stop the cooking process while you're preparing other things. We'll warm them up again in the oven with the mushroom caps.

You can use a slotted spoon to corral the egg when you first slide it into the water. Cover and cook for about 3 to 4 minutes.  For this recipe ... be sure not to over-cook the eggs as you're gonna add them to the oven as well.

While your eggs are cooking (and this is going to happen quickly, so don't be like me and wait until the last minute to get your spinach out of the fridge), saute/steam your spinach in another frying pan with a little olive oil and water. This should also only take about 3 to 4 minutes. We'll be flash broiling all the ingredients together in a little bit.

At this point, your caps should be done. Take them out of the oven and switch the temperature on the oven from 350 to Broil.

Arrange your spinach onto oven safe plates and gently slice your mushroom caps onto the spinach.

Next, you'll add the cream. I was a goof and forgot to divide the cream in half when I was reducing the recipe for two people. So ... I have a pint ... and at least I can use what's left over to cream my coffee. If you are baking 4 mushroom caps, then a pint is perfect. If you're only baking two, then a pint will drown them so don't add the whole thing.

Now that my confession is over with ... add two eggs to each cap and then drizzle with a cream.

The cream will blend with the butter, garlic and seasonings and create a rich savory sauce.

Sprinkle with grated Parmesan. This is getting good ...

Cover with foil and broil (didn't mean for that to rhyme) for about 3 to 4 minutes.

Just enough for the cheese to melt.

Mmm. Delish. When you remove from the oven, sprinkle with chopped parsley and enjoy!  Be sure to add the plates to a charger for a moment as they will be hot!

Portobello Eggs

Ingredients

2 Portabello Mushroom Caps
1 Garlic Clove
1 tbsp Italian Seasonings
3 tbsp Melted Butter
1 tsp White Vinegar
(not pictured and used for poaching eggs)
4 cups Spinach
(totally forgot this in the fridge come picture time! but it's in the recipe!)
1 pint Heavy Cream
(yeah, I should have reduced this to half ... at least I had some left over cream for my coffee!)
1/2 cup Grated Parmesan
Parsley for Garnish

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2) Melt the butter, add the crushed garlic and Italian seasonings. Using a cake pan or cookie sheet with edges, place the caps gill side up and without the stem. Equally divide the butter mixture between caps and bake for about 20 minutes. Caps should be cooked but not shriveled ... firm to the touch and just a little light color left. When the caps are done, remove them and cover with foil. Turn the oven up to broil.

3) While caps are cooking, start your poached egg water. It should almost be at a boil, but not rolling bubbling boil. Add a teaspoon of white vinegar to help bind the eggs. Crack the eggs one at a time into a small bowl, and slide the egg from the bowl to the water to poach your eggs. This helps contain the egg better and prevent it from spreading out and getting stringy in the water. The eggs should only take about 4 minutes depending on the firmness desired.

4) In a separate large frying pan, saute/steam your spinach in just a touch of olive oil and a little water.

5) Arrange spinach on oven safe plates. Place 1 cap on each bed of spinach, place 2 eggs on each cap.

6) Drizzle with heavy cream over the whole plate. (this mixes with the butter mixture adn creates a rich sauce) Sprinkle with Parmesan and flash under the broiler, just enough to melt the cheese a little. Garnish with chopped parsley and serve. (I like to "chop" my parsley with kitchen scissors)

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Chef Jim, with the Mount Dora Historic Inn, shared with us this recipe to accompany his Bacon and Asparagus Stuffed Omelet. So, what exactly is Buerre Blanc Sauce? Literally, buerre blanc translates to "white butter." Now, add to that butter a little wine. And in this recipe, add a little cream. Sounds sinful and naughty, does it not? Buerre blanc sauce is a rich and savory French sauce that will make a flavorful addition to any dish, from eggs to fish. There are many different variations such as citrus, lemon, shallot, wasabi and more, but today we're going to stick with simplicity.

There are only 4 basic Ingredients: Wine, Heavy Cream, Butter & Salt.

You'll love how it starts ...

Open up a bottle of chardonnay or your favorite unfinished white wine from the night before.

Add a half cup of wine to a medium sauce pan over medium heat.

Stir wine until it becomes a little syrupy and the volume is reduced by half.

See how there is a line on the pan from the initial pour of wine?

Pick a spot as your "half way" point to measure when it's reduced by half.

The wine will also thicken and become a little syrupy.

At first it's going to smell a little weird ... like vinegar.  But don't fret.

That's normal.  And the butter and cream that's added will cut down on the acidity.

Next, add in 1 Cup of Heavy Cream and whisk together with the wine.

Also add a pinch of salt to bring out the flavor.

After the wine and heavy cream are whisked together, add a full stick of butter.

Most recipes call for "chunks" of butter to be added.

This little tid bit was Chef Jim's secret for easy whisking.

As the butter melts, you can more easily blend it with the wine and cream

without getting clumps of butter stuck to your whisk.

Let it simmer until it's bubbly.

And Chef Jim says, "when you think it's bubbly enough, let it go just a little longer.

Voila! Serve over your Bacon & Asparagus Stuffed Omelet.

Basic Buerre Blanc Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup of white wine

1 cup heavy cream

1 stick of butter

pinch of salt

Directions

1)  Add a half cup of wine to a medium sauce pan over medium heat.

2)  Stir wine until it becomes a little syrupy and the volume is reduced by half.

3)  Add heavy cream, pinch of salt and whisk together.

4)  Add whole stick of butter, and whisk butter into wine and cream reduction as it melts.

5)  Let it get a little bubbly and simmer.  Then serve!

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Every time walk through the grocery store I can't pass by the produce section without being lured in by these berries.  They're in season right now, so how could I pass up 2 pints of this colorful goodness?  They make a great low fat snack for munching while working on your computer or watching a movie.  But this recipe ... is definitely NOT of the low-fat-guilt-free diet variety.  But they're worth every calorie!

Besides, when you look at the ingredients ... some milk, some orange juice, some eggs ... you can convince yourself that this is a healthy breakfast.  Right?  Well ... at least believe me when I say that they're super delicious.

This recipe was sent to me by Deanna at The Old Hen Bed & Breakfast in Seattle.    I have the entire ingredients list and instructions at the bottom of the post.  Enjoy!

See!  I told you!  Look at all the healthy stuff going into these scones!  Just ignore the 2/3 cup of sugar and all that flour.  It's invisible.  You don't see those extra calories ... you just get to enjoy the flavor.

Add in your dry, "invisible" ingredients ...

Pay no attention to my clumpy sugar.  I store it in the fridge as to not attempt bugs to enter my kitchen.  So it's clumpy.  And cold.

Baking Powder.  Doesn't it look fake?

Mix them all up until you've got a nice powdery batter.

Next, zest your orange.  Watch your knuckles.

Using the same orange, cut in half and juice.

After adding the fresh orange juice (isn't this starting to smell wonderful!), break open the eggs and add them to your dry ingredients.

Mix.  I'm doing this by hand ... working on those forearms of mine.

The word "chopping" and the word "butter" just don't seem to go together.  I supposed my chilled butter warmed up a bit too much while we were prepping ... cause my description would be more of a "mash."  Using any chopping/mashing style you choose ... your butter needs to end up in little bits.

Gently fold it into your nicely forming dough.

Deanna recommended getting fresh blueberries and freezing them over night.  I couldn't agree more!  Freezing them helps them not explode/burst when you add them to the dough.

Now, can you guess how frozen blueberries behave?  The sweat.  Naughty little things.  Coating them in some flour will keep them from getting stuck in your dough and make them nice and pretty little berries.  Kinda like powdering your nose.

But I forgot to flour/powder my hands!  Ugh!

Ah well.  Nothing wasted.  A little taste, a little hand washing and I'll get right back on track.

Form your dough into a ball and then press into a "disk" shape.  Don't ya just love photo examples?  I'm a "visual" person, so when Deanna wrote "disk" shape I had to wrinkly my nose and scratch my noggin ... but I got it!

Place your scones on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

I'm using a baking stone.  Don't forget to dip your fingers in flour as you're picking these up!  Unless, of course, you like to eat the raw dough.  I'm not judging!

Bake them at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.

And now ... the moment you've been waiting for ... the most divine thing I've ever licked off a plate ... orange icing!

For the recipe, click here ...

For the food porn ... keep scrolling.

That first one didn't last long enough for the mint and blueberry garnish.  It was scooped off the place and devoured before the icing even had time to pool on the plate.  And then we licked it clean.  Here's another one.

Oh yeah!  This is going on my list of favorites.

Thank you Deanna!

See the full recipe below.

--Rachelle

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Ingredients

2 3/4 cups of flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbs baking powder

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup of chilled butter

3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream

2 large eggs

zest of one orange

juice of one orange

1 pint of fresh blueberries (freeze them overnight before using)

Directions

1) Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.

2) Combine dry ingredients.

3) Add heavy cream and eggs to dry ingredients.

4) Zest one orange, then cut in half and juice.

5) Cut butter into very small pieces and mix into dough.  Don't over mix.  Butter should be about the size of peas when you are done mixing it into dough.

6) Coat fresh frozen blueberries with a light dusting of flour then add by folding gently into dough.

7) Place about a cup of flour onto counter and place half of dough on it.  Coat dough lightly with flour and form a round disk with the dough.  It should be about 10 inches around.

8 ) Cut circle of dough into 4 sections.  Remove excess flour from scones and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

9) Repeat with second half of dough.

10) Bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.

11)  Add orange icing and serve!