it’s a funny time of year if you’re trying to eat seasonally in the uk. well, it is when it is when it comes to fruit – apart from stored apples and pears, almost the only locally grown choice you have is rhubarb.

to be honest, this isn’t much of a hardship as it’s a favourite of mine but it’s not a cheap option so i was keen to find a way to use it in a more frugal way than just stewing it for adding to smoothies or eating with yoghurt.

this, coupled with the approaching weekend and a desire for something lovely for breakfast, saw me decide to try nigella lawson’s rhubarb-crumble kuchen. the kuchen is a spiced sweetened dough which is topped with pieces of rhubarb and sprinkled with a crumble mix.

as promised by nigella, this is a lovely fruity bread to have with a cup of tea – just perfect for a slightly chilly weekend breakfast. and perfect too for the meeta’s monthly mingle which i have the pleasure of hosting this month and which has the theme spring fruit sensations! if you’re a food blogger, the 7th is the last day for you to post your recipe, just make sure you let me know about it.

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muesli (as i now know it is spelt) is a peculiar word. it’s not similar to other words, it’s a little odd to say and i always spell it wrong - check the photo label which was set before i checked the dictionary!

regardless of this it’s a very easy thing to make at home. and is a great way to add an instant dose of healthiness to your diet. it’ll encourage you to eat breakfast (always top of any nutritionist’s hit list of eating sins) and, if you make your own, its full of natural and healthy ingredients.

my muesli varies every time i make it but there are three ground rules which i always follow:

1. toast your oats – toasted oats are incomparably nicer than those straight out of the package. they have a better flavour and the texture is slightly firmer meaning your muesli won’t be based around a soggy oaty mess. i also stick to large oats as they keep their shape better.
2. add a good variety of dried fruit, nuts and seeds – exactly what goes into my muesli varies depending on what has been lurking in the cupboard for a bit too long, but i always make the effort to track down some of my favourites (dried peaches is always top of my list!) so that it’s not just leftovers.
3. add milk powder – skimmed milk powder is a really nice way to add a slightly luxurious feel to your muesli as well as some extra vitamins as it’s often fortified (vitamins a and d in the case of the one i use).

i don’t add sugar to my muesli, finding the dried fruit sweet enough but if you do want something extra, drizzle your oats with a couple of tablespoons of honey as you toast them.

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i have an ongoing desire to create breakfast rituals which help make time, usually at the weekend for david and i to spend together (our daily ritual is a homemade smoothie).

drop scones, also known as scotch pancakes, are a memory from my childhood – small warm, slightly doughy discs of thick pancake, smeared with melting butter and topped with jam or golden syrup. the key was to eat them quickly so you could work your way through as large a pile as possible… the use of that tactic continues to serve me well!

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mushrooms are tricky things in our house. i like them, but i think i like them more than i do which leads to disasters such as garlicky mushrooms on toast. and adding spinach to this was a real disaster. somehow, dishes with mushrooms as the focus make me feel overly full, add spinach, which i already find rich, and it’s just asking for trouble.

mushroom risotto or stroganoff on the other hand makes me happy. but david’s not keen when mushrooms are the focus of a dish…add to the mix an enormous bag of porcini that i bought back from italy last year (and am still working my way through) and the fact that lovely friends often give me bags of dried mushrooms as a dinner party thank you gift, and you’ve got a girl with a lot of mushrooms and not a lot of ideas.

actually, that’s not true, i always have ideas, it’s more the need for ideas which work for both of our odd mushroom requirements…

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one of the nicest things about long weekends – and the easter four day bank holiday weekend is one of the best – is all the extra opportunities for breakfast treats.

somehow i very rarely manage to find time on a normal weekend, despite having a desire to create some breakfast rituals. i suppose the one we indulge in most often is bacon sandwiches but for the past two weekends we’ve had something new.

that something has been nigel slater’s smoked mackerel and parmesan on toast. in some ways it’s not much different to the mackerel pate i often make but the addition of parmesan makes it very different. cheese and smoked fish is a bit of an odd combination for me and every mouthful sees me checking that i still like it. as of today, i do.

my other recent breakfast indulgence was a trip to the wolseley. the wolseley is in a fabulous old building which is in the style of a grand european cafe – the interior, with its venetian and florentine influences is full of grand pillars, arches and stairways. amazingly, it was originally designed, in 1921, to be a car showroom!

my friend kirsty and i went for breakfast and had a lovely time, i’d thoroughly recommend the wolseley for a breakfast treat. kirsty had poached eggs on toast (which austerely arrived without any butter!) followed by jam and toast while i had a fantastically flavoursome, but quite rich, dish of grilled field mushrooms with liver and bacon. the liver and bacon mix was lightly covered with a thyme-flavoured creamy sauce. delicious. the hot chocolate i had to accompany it was well balanced, and while rich not too sweet.

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