Many chefs at the finest restaurants are now using pricier precious farm fresh eggs as protein options to steak or chicken or pork on dinner menues. Yes morning entrees are not just for breakfast anymore. Breakfast has always been considered “comfort food”. At the end of a long day, why not comfort yourself with egg entrees.
Should you want to emulate Minnesota innkeepers’ cooking for breakfast or dinner, a fine book for “grazing” is The Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook published and organized by the creative inspriring nonprofit Renewing the Countryside. They have specialized in promoting small sustainable operations way before it became popular.
Try to imagine a meal (AM or PM ) more comforting than Featherbed Eggs, maple syrup glazed ham and rhubarb muffins and then finished off with Minnesota Chocolate Cake. Why is it called Minnesota Chocolate cake? Because one of the ingredients is a cup of good strong Minnesota roasted coffee (leftover from breakfast perhaps) This menu from Ellery House in Duluth uses nearby Joel Rosen’s Park Lake Farm products.
Then imagine Maple Pecan French Toast slathered with local berries and syrup from the maple tree just outside the window of the Loghouse and Homestead in Vergas Minnesota. Sausages might be a potato sausage or a smoked country sausage also made and obtained locally or Suzanne Tweton’s own wild rice sausage. Hungry for another culinary adventure , try the seclections from Dancing Winds Farmstay (Asparagus with goat cheese and morels on fettuccine and yes the morels are from nearby forests and the the goat cheese from of course the goats at Dancing Winds); or how about an entree from Scandinavian Inn in Lanesboro (vegetarian quiche) ; or Classic Rosewood Inn in Hastings (wild rice zucchini pancakes with roasted green beans with sun dried tomatoes, goat cheese and olives on the side).
Hungry yet? You have a few options: Buy the book and get cooking OR buy the book and simply enjoy a good read. Another couple options: tour the MBBA website for your next getaway. You might search for the inns with the Green Journey labels who at very least have a Green policy in place and visit their individual sites to see what that means to them and for you. Know that all the MBBA inns serve a wonderful breakfast and many innkeepers would share their “secrets” so you can emulate for breakfast or dinner at home. Another nice option and a really fun cookbook is the one produced by the Minnesota B & B Association and avaialable from this website. It is More Minnesota Mornings and Beyond.