Baguette toast without cheese

Breakfast is sacred to me. I won’t leave the house without breakfast, won’t even light a cigarette before breakfast. Big or small, I have to eat something in the morning. Usually it’s bread. That’s probably my biggest problem weight-wise: I love bread, much more than rolls.

This morning I had no bread. What I did have was half a baguette, from Saturday or thereabouts. Luckily it wasn’t a supermarket baguette, the kind that after three days you could use to clobber the hooligans setting fire to the Rainbow, so I could still do something with it. Even so, unless I baked it, it was pretty much inedible. Baguette toasts it is.

I look in the fridge. No yellow cheese. Damn, what’s a zapiekanka without cheese? There goes the whole plan. Although, come to think of it…

Warning! Keep this jalapeño baguette well away from children. It could, however, go beautifully with a beer sipped while watching the Polish national football team lose yet again today. 

At a glance:

Prep time: 3 minutes

Baking time: about 10 minutes

Oven temperature: 200 degrees Celsius

Serves: 1

How many calories: a million and two hundred

Ingredients for a cheeseless baguette toast:

• Half a 3-day-old baguette (just not a supermarket one)
• A little butter
• One portion of creamy processed cheese (a triangle)
• a few slices of pork ham (pretty much any cold cuts will do)
• pickled jalapeños
• a small onion
• dried herbes de Provence
• ketchup

Method (a bit of a no-brainer, really):

Couldn’t be simpler. I split the baguette in half and spread it with butter and processed cheese. I stick the cold cuts, jalapeños and onion rings onto the cheese and sprinkle the lot with herbes de Provence. Into the preheated oven for about 10 minutes. I drizzle the finished toast with ketchup and breakfast is ready. Perfect start to the day, ridiculously high in calories, great on a chilly autumn morning. Enjoy!