I received an advance copy of Eggs for Breakfast: Delicious, Healthy Recipes to Jump-Start Your Day by Donna Leahy. You can tell from the title this is a book about eggs for breakfast. It doesn't disappoint. Donna Leahy is a chef who formerly owned a county inn where she also ran the kitchen. So one hopes if you're stuck at a small hotel in the middle of nowhere that you can at least get a decent breakfast. Most people think of eggs as either a boring pile of rubbery protein or a runny goo of protein slid on top of some other protein or carb. As Chef Leahy explains, eggs are cheap and versatile and do not deserve such a bad wrap. The book explores eggs as a breakfast item from the simple boiled egg or scrambled egg to more integrated dishes in which the eggs remain a key element. The recipes are mostly easy to prepare with ingredients readily available at most supermarkets.
The book is broken up into sections based upon the technique and companion ingredients. The book starts with a section on basic egg cooking techniques that are reused throughout the book but can be put to use for a simple egg. The book's next section discusses classic egg dishes like eggs benedict, French omelets and eggs in a basket. The next section turns to what is labeled "simply eggs" which mostly includes eggs mixed with vegetables and/or cheese to produce a wide range of both expected and unexpected dishes. Next comes eggs with meat and then eggs with seafood. These sections include a wide range of dishes across cuisines that range from the expected egg dishes like frittatas and souffles to less expected dishes like lentils with prosciutto and eggs or asparagus and sweet onion tart. The book wraps up with a catchall section of recipes for companion ingredients that include baked goods, sausages and sauces. Overall the recipes are extensive and could easily satisfy breakfast or brunch crowds at home.
I like the book and I expect to try my hand at a number of recipes in the book but I had a couple criticisms about it. First, I disliked the way some of the recipes were written. Sometimes the instructions were bunched into paragraphs that had to be dissected because there are several steps of the process in single paragraphs. This is uneven through the book so some recipes are harder to read than others. I would probably find myself rewriting the recipes so I'm not hunting around in blocks of text for the next step. Second, I really disagree about the book's label "Healthy" for these recipes. These are generally not recipes I consider healthy. There's heavy cream, loads of cheese, whole milk, potatoes and loads of carbs across most of the recipes. Some of the recipes are very healthy but most of these recipes do not count as healthy for the average health-conscious home cook. I would have liked to have seen more healthy recipes in the book but these recipes will make for some nice cheat breakfasts. Overall I think the book is good value at it's current ebook price ($6.99) and offers up plenty of recipes to win over your family on breakfast that isn't made up of doughnuts or Lucky Charms.
