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Brekky doesn’t have to consist of toast and cereal, which can get pretty boring day in and day out. Here are a few different alternatives for the most important meal of the day.

Words and photography by Simone Costi

Strawberry Muffins
Muffins are a quick and easy food to prepare. I like strawberries, but you can use a range of tinned berries – or even combine a few varieties.

2 ½ cups of self-raising flour
¼ cup of caster sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 eggs
1 ½ cups of milk
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
160g butter 425g tin of strawberries

Mix the flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Melt the butter, beat the eggs and pour them, the milk and the vanilla essence into the bowl. Mix it well with a spoon. Drain the strawberries and tip them into the bowl too. Mix it lightly (this way the strawberries don’t get too mushed up) then dollop the mix into a greased muffin tray and bung them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Serve them warm with some butter.

Fruit dip
This is a delicious sweet dish. It’s great with either winter or summer fruit. For a healthier option, use light sour cream or natural yoghurt (although the latter doesn’t taste as good).

250g sour cream
200g apricot jam
100g chopped dried apricots
1 cup of shredded coconut
Selection of your favourite fruit

Put the sour cream, jam, apricot pieces and coconut into a bowl and it mix well. Pour it into a serving bowl and put it in the fridge. Chop up your fruit into bite size pieces and arrange on a platter. Then plonk it all on the table with a few forks and tuck in.
Most fruit works well with this and if you are short on fresh fruit, tinned peaches and apricots are nice too. Apples, pears, bananas, strawberries, nectarines and peaches are my favourites for this dip.