Breakfast Around the World, part 52 – Austria

‘Breakfast Around the World‘, part 52 – last but definitely not least, Austria!

Tiroler Gröstl – potatoes and bacon and beef

This might look familiar to many from other countries than Austria. Like in Finland, we got a dish called pyttipannu that is very similar. In this version, we got cubed potatoes, bacon, and beef with onion and green onion. To top it all of, some sunny side up fried eggs. In Finland, we usually eat this dish after a night out drinking or the morning after a night out. 😀 Hangover food. It’s actually pretty delicious without the pounding headache or declining tipsyness too, as breakfast with a strong cup of coffee. 😀

This concludes the Breakfast Around the World saga of 2021. It had been fun, it had been delicious. Here’s to more culinary adventures in 2022!

Wrapping Up the Year 2021

Happy New Year! The year 2021 was weird af. Nothing really happened, but it felt so long at the same time. Except at work, time flew. If I really think about it, I’ve done a lot. And I know I would be proud of myself if I just list all the things I’ve done, so here we are, at this post. 😀

First, let’s look at some blog statistics. This year I accumulated 24K views, which was 10K less than last year but the year 2020 was unusual to say the least. If compared to the 19K views of 2019, it is considerable growth. I feel like I didn’t write that much this year but thanks to some fixed weekly content, I managed to write 148 posts, which was 7 posts more than last year. I’m pretty content with these results and it gives me motivation to continue writing. As long as someone is reading, I’m going to keep writing. 🙂

Talking about weekly contents, one of the largest and longest would be ‘Breakfast Around the World‘ in which every week I choose a country and make its breakfast. The point of the whole challenge is to make me fall in love with breakfast again. I’m afraid the opposite happened. 😀 It was quite hard to make breakfast even once a week, it just made me realize that maybe I don’t need breakfast. 😀 Nonetheless, I did discover some great recipes that I would definitely repeat but just not for breakfast. So here is my top 10 favorite breakfast from the 52 that I got to make, I bet you can tell that I’m Asian. 😀

1. Greece – bread with honey
2. Japan – grilled fish and rice
3. Vietnam – spicy beef soup
4. South-Korea – kimchi stew and rice
5. Thailand – fish sauce omelette
6. Philippines – tosilog aka rice and sweet pork
7. United Kingdom – full English breakfast
8. China – xian bing aka fried meat pies
9. Peru – pan con chicharron aka pork and sweet potato sandwiches
10. Argentina – fries and scrambled eggs and jamon

Apart from weekly food content and of course the evergreen Jukebox Friday where I would present a song every Friday, I let the super movie fan in me out and about on the blog in 2021. I wrote posts of monthly movie reviews about films I saw that month, and also Actor’s profiles in which I watch all the movies from one actor and write about them. And that’s why I saw a whopping 277 movies in 2021 while my yearly average is usually about 150-200. If you are on Letterboxd.com (which is a far superior movie site than IMDb), do follow me there and check out my reviews. 🙂 I am also on Instagram @MovieMignon. That IG account did great this year and I am very proud of it.

On the other hand, my book IG hasn’t done as good. I don’t have anyone else to blame, I realize that I don’t have much to say about books that I read most of the time. I did read quite a bit in 2021, altogether 46 books, not quite hitting my goal of 50, but I’m still proud. So I decided to end my book IG and instead write here if any book inspires me to write a review.

Last but not least, my fitness journey. In the beginning of the year, I promised myself to stick to the weight-lifting if nothing else and have the two-day rule. Aka I can’t skip workouts for more than two days. There were four instances that I couldn’t keep the two-day rule, but altogether I worked out 75% of the days and managed to do the whole one-year lifting program. Non-scale victories is also that I managed to get out of the calorie-counting mentality. It wasn’t easy but I did it and it’s now time to focus on other healthy eating goals. But more about that tomorrow. 🙂

Breakfast Around the World, part 51 – Argentina

‘Breakfast Around the World‘, part 51 – Argentina!

Revuelto Gramajo – Argentine Scrambled Eggs and Potatoes

The title practically said it all. 😀 This would have been the perfect drunk food – French fries, jamon, green onion and scrambled eggs. It sounds very simple and it is but it was actually really delicious.

Breakfast Around the World, part 50 – Denmark

‘Breakfast Around the World‘, part 50 – Denmark!

Æggekage – Egg cake

A simple recipe but yet so very delicious. It’s just eggs with a splash of cream, golden potatoes and crispy bacon and aromatic chives. Together they made a great and comforting breakfast that also doesn’t feel too heavy cos it doesn’t back that much fat or cheese. So to put some fat to round it up, of course we gotta have some Danish pastries! 😀 I haven’t had those in ages. It was definitely a nice trip to Denmark.

Breakfast Around the World, part 49 – Colombia

‘Breakfast Around the World‘, part 49 – Colombia!

Calentado – Traditional Colombian Breakfast

For some reason, I lost the photo that I took of the food. So please, just this once, imagine a nice bowl of long-grain rice with pinto beans and an aromatic tomato-based sauce called hogao. Paired with it some delicious chorizo and a fried egg, sunny side up. The rice tasted like comfort food even though I’ve never had it before. All of that was made even better with a cheesy bread called arepas. Simple yet delicious.