Happy Australia Day! Aside from the sometimes relentless heat, I am so happy to live in Australia, and thankful that we are still the lucky country, full of opportunities for everyone. I really hope we as a nation continue to progress with multiculturalism – racism seems too prominent in recent years.

Today I am staying home and pottering around the house and getting it in order before I return to work tomorrow. I’ll be listening to the Hottest 100 – which I didn’t realise starts at 12:00 pm this year. Later on I will crank up my indoor barbequeue that my parents bought me for Christmas – will have some lamb chops, sweet potato, capsicum and eggplant.

Cooking is a huge part of my life – I’ve certainly inherited this love from my Mum – and I realise I haven’t actually blogged about cooking much yet. So I will.

I have just finished a delicious breakfast that I cooked myself. Breakfast (excluding cereal and eggs that aren’t scrambled) is often my favourite meal of the day. I love salmon and avocado with scrambled eggs, bircher muesli, toast topped with honey and cream cheese and peaches, porridge with banana and brown sugar….

On workdays in the warmer months I make a smoothie with banana, and add berries, mango, peaches or whatever other fruits I have, and I put yoghurt and bran in with the milk. In winter I have porridge. I have a breakfast meeting with my managers once a week – we take it in turns to bring in breakfast. I love these days – it makes the meetings informal and I look forward to planning what to cook the day before.

I enjoy making breakfast but I also love going out to cafes. Yesterday I had corn cakes with bacon and roast tomato and aoli from a local cafe. Sunday I had bacon, egg and cheese crepes served with spinach and a thick, custardy hot chocolate to drink from Fraus.

Today I got up at the leisurely time of 9:45 am and showered and put on some washing, then cooked breakfast.

I have a book called Marie Claire Breakfast – I sometimes refer to the recipes, but generally I just make up recipes as I go along.

Chocolatey French toast with banana and peach and maple syrup.

I used three slices of the end of my loaf of bread (Edwards rye with soy and linseed – gluten and yeast free)
Two eggs
About a quarter of a cup of full cream milk
Two tablespoons of white sugar

Beat eggs and milk and sugar in a square container, and soak bread for about five minutes.

Heat pan with a teaspoon of butter.

When butter is bubbling, place eggy bread and egg mixture in the pan.

I topped one piece of bread with some small pieces of Green and Black Maya Gold chocolate (his is dark chocolate with orange and spices).

Cook one one side until golden, then flip bread and egg mixture over.

Serve on a plate with one cut peach and one sliced banana, and drizzle with maple syrup.

Please note – I didn’t actually eat all of this at once – I have saved a slice of French toast for later, but I did eat all the fruit.

It was delicious!