Tea with hot buttered toast…

is what I started my day with.

Although I absolutely love hot buttered toast, I rarely have it for breakfast. Too much bread makes me sluggish, and hot buttered toast is just so moreish, so I tend to stick with other breakfast options. But this morning, the temperature had dropped, the cars were covered in ice, so it was the perfect day for hot buttered toast.

Of late, we’ve been preferring a soft and fluffy white loaf, which makes toast that is crisp on the outside while the inside remains soft – providing plenty of soak-up material for the butter as it melts. But this morning there was a brown, seeded loaf open, so that’s what went in the toaster. The slices were thinner, so less density for absorbing that melting butter, but there was a better crispness to the bite. Indeed, I may have forgotten how much I enjoy the flavour of a seeded loaf. My preferred bread is a sourdough loaf as it’s easiest on my digestion, but this morning, I didn’t miss it one iota. The truth of the matter is that I just love bread – in all it’s myriad forms 😉

Some days I go no further than just butter – by which I do mean proper butter, not some sort of spread. If I’m going to eat dairy – I do it properly. Low-fat dairy products simply replace the fat with sugary carbs, and there’s nothing healthy about those. We eat unsalted butter as we’ve cut salt almost completely out of our diet in an attempt to appease the demands of Himself’s blood pressure. And, in truth, some days, the butter is all I want.

But I also love Vegemite – which is what I had this morning. Being British, it should really be Marmite, but once I tried Vegemite courtesy of a visiting Kiwi, there was no going back for me. Himself prefers Marmite, so we have both. Other options are a good marmalade – Himself prefers traditional whereas I like lime, a proper jam – we have both strawberry (for Himself) and raspberry (for me), although sometimes a cherry (for Himself) and blackcurrant (for me) will feature. Himself likes peanut butter, but insists on smooth and likes to partner it with banana, whereas I will only eat crunchy and if partnering with anything, only a jelly (rather than jam) will do – and that’s tricky to source in the UK.

But I also have a guilty pleasure – from time to time I get a craving for a cheese spread (Laughing Cow or La Vache qui rit, depending on where you source it) on my toast. It’s in no way a proper cheese, and I feel slightly disgusted with myself at the plastic nature of what I’ve consumed (bearing in mind my strong opinions on all things dairy), but we’ve all got to have a dirty little secret, n’est pas? 😉

So, tell me, when you’re having toast for breakfast with your tea (or coffee), what bread are you toasting, and what do you have on it?

© Debra Carey, 2023