LABOR DAY BRUNCH

The kids are coming for breakfast. I am cooking on all burners. We're having tomato/mango salad with arugula, zucchini pancakes, bacon (real and turkey) & eggs. For dessert, there's chocolate zucchini cake, peanut chipsters (from TWD), plus fruit salad. Turkey bacon is weird. The first batch turns crispy hard like doggie chew strips. The second batch is a horrible fake pinky-red strip with a white pinstripe.

My tomato salad was a huge hit at a recent tennis party. I made it up but imagine someone else has been eating it for years. Is there really a totally new idea out there? How is it that year after year, bake-off winners come up with their recipes, and are they really original? I read somewhere that recipes published in magazines are selected because they photograph well and are easy to duplicate. They are not necessarily the most tasty but they are colorful.

My tomato/mango salad goes like this:

1 mango cut in bite size pieces
4-6 tomatoes cut "
3 green onions - cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices, including green tops
1 cup of arugula torn into large shreds
1/2 C fresh basil leaves, torn
1/3 C fresh cilantro, well chopped

Dressing: 2 T olive oil, 2 T balsamic vinegar, 2 garlic cloves minced.

Toss all ingredients with dressing & add salt/pepper to taste. I don't add a lot of dressing because the tomatoes are juicy. If the salad gets "runny" sitting in the frig, pour off some liquid & add another hit of balsamic.

The left over fruit salad goes into a cake that I bring to a BBQ in the mountains. I made a basic sour cream cake, substituting peach yogurt for the sour cream. I added 1 T orange rind, 1/2 cup juice, 2 tsp. vanilla, 1 whole cut up banana plus 1 cup of fruit salad (mango, blueberries, peaches, bananas) cut into small pieces. While still warm, I glazed it with a syrup of OJ, powered sugar & rum (poking holes in the cake). The cake is a hit with the guests, but next time, I will add some coconut to the cake and more rum to the syrup. It is best served as a brunch/coffee cake.