Elaine's Q2 2025 report: Breakfast sandwiches, and the origin of “chaotic responsible”
Hello friends, and happy Monday! We’ve launched headfirst into summer in my neck of the woods. In Toronto, it’s time to close the screen door and turn on the AC, as the weather starts getting muggy with a dash of smog.
I realized I should explain where the “Chaotic Responsible” moniker comes from. Some years ago this “Types of Writers” chart popped up on social media, and I have never identified with an alignment more.
I draw a little (I have a fine art degree), would write music if I had the time, and I am most definitely your mom friend. (If you ever see me in person and need a granola bar or a tissue, hit me up.)
“Chaotic responsible” sums up my M.O. pretty well. I’m mostly on top of things, but there are a lot of things. My desk is a manifestation of this: it’s a cluttered mess, no matter how many times I Marie Kondo my home, but I usually know where everything is.
On that note, last month I blogged about how I meal plan as a busy single working mom. (TL;DR: I freeze everything.) One of the things I keep in the freezer are breakfast sandwiches I can take to the office.
On office mornings, there’s barely time to comb my hair after I’ve gotten dressed and packed lunches, let alone eat breakfast. In the past I’ve packed myself yogurt, overnight oats, and muffins. But only breakfast sandwiches stop my stomach from making embarrassing rumbling noises near lunchtime.
(Caveat: I go into the office twice a week, so I only have to make a half-dozen sandwiches every three weeks. I wouldn’t be doing this regularly if I had to go into the office every day. YMMV, as always.)
My jumping-off point was this Kitchn recipe for freezer breakfast sandwiches. The recipe suggests baking a tray of eggs and using cookie cutters to create patties, but that seemed too inelegant to me.
For my first attempt, I simply scrambled eggs, and found they kept falling out of the sandwich. First world problems, I know, but I became obsessed with making the perfect scrambled egg patty.
I’d made Instant Pot egg bites in silicone molds before, so I found silicone cups in the right size on Amazon. I use eight eggs scrambled with a dash of milk and some diced veggies (I buy frozen pre-chopped, because I’m not that much of a masochist), divided between six cups. Too many veggies will make the egg fall apart, so you only need a few spoonfuls. I don’t grease the cups beforehand, the egg patties tend to slide right out.
Then I follow the instructions for making Instant Pot egg bites:
Pour a cup of water in the pot, and set the silicon cups on the trivet. (I can only fit two at a time.)
Cover loosely with parchment paper or aluminum foil, as there’ll be water dripping from the steam.
Cook on Manual for 8 minutes, then quick release.
Use tongs to pull out the cups, drain as much as can you before the egg patty slides out.
When they’ve cooled down, stick on an English muffin with a slice of cheese, and freeze. I like to stuff each sandwich into a 12-oz deli container. Sometimes I add a slice of soy bologna, but of course you can add bacon, sausage, ham or whatever meat substitute you like.
I recommend defrosting the sandwich in the fridge the night before you want to eat it, as I find the cheese melts in seconds in the microwave whereas the egg stubbornly stays frozen. I also recommend reheating the sandwich on a paper towel in the microwave as the eggs may leak liquid, likely from the vegetable content.
These sandwiches aren’t quite the same as a McMuffin or Timmy’s breakfast sando. The egg can get spongy, and the English muffin may be a bit soggy - but it’s nice to start the work day with a hot sandwich that you didn’t have to pay five bucks for.
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of making egg patties, I recommend folding scrambled eggs into a breakfast burrito instead. The Kitchn has a good freezer-friendly breakfast burrito recipe, which I’ve made before.
And if you think this is very Martha Stewart of me, well, you haven’t seen the state of my kitchen. As I said, chaotic responsible.
News
I was hoping I’d be able to share some good news in this issue, but not yet. Soon, though! I’ll be sending out an extra newsletter when that happens, so keep your eyes peeled on your inbox. In the meantime, I’ve been getting my self-promo ducks in a row and have snazzy new author photos taken by Tanja-Tiziana in Toronto’s Graffiti Alley. I highly recommend Tanja if you need professional head shots or a photo shoot. She was great at putting me at ease and suggesting locations and poses.
Looking back
April to June saw me in limbo: revising a project I can’t talk about yet, waiting on feedback for another, working on a new draft of something else. I feel like my state of mind was reflected in Toronto’s climate. The weather kept promising spring, then yanking it back like Lucy’s football, and now we’re in full-blown summer. I’ve blinked and suddenly another quarter has passed and my kid has finished school.
Things I loved:
The Murderbot TV show leans more into the comedy of Martha Wells’ books, but it’s still lots of fun and Alexander Skarsgård is surprisingly dorky and endearing as everyone’s favourite SecUnit. My only complaint is that we have to wait a whole week between episodes.
Andor S2 was as excellent as S1, though the parallels to current events were a gutpunch.
Doctor Who Series 15. I loved that new companion Belinda starts out skeptical and no-nonsense, unswayed by the Doctor’s Manic Pixie Dream Boy-ness, unlike past companions who leapt eagerly into the TARDIS. I was also thrilled at the return of a past villain who’s always been one of my favourites.
Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House was already a chilling tale of a haunting told from an eight-year-old girl’s point of view, and the audiobook performance takes it even further. The young narrator nails the child’s voice, as well as all the adults in her life. A movie starring Jessica Chastain is currently in production, and let me tell you, she’s going to be terrific as the very human and conflicted mom (and presumably as Other Mommy).
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. I do enjoy the Mission Impossible films for what they are: pure entertainment. This latest installment is a master class in Things Going Wrong But In Ways You Didn’t Expect. The film is nearly three hours, but the time flies by. Also, it was a delight to see a few fave actors from hit TV shows in small roles.
Looking forward
I’ll be taking a small summer vacay with the kid. Nothing extravagant, just a local jaunt.
HWA Ontario will likely be doing a few panels at FanExpo in Toronto this August. I’m not sure if I’ll be attending this year, but I did last year and it was a blast.
Adrienne Kress’s MG graphic novel Ghost Circus (written by Kress with art by Jade Zhang) launches in August!
A couple of agent sibs have books out in August: Maria Z. Medina’s YA fantasy Mistress of Bones, and Daphne Fama’s House of Monstrous Women, a gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines. Really looking forward to these, and not just because my agent has good taste. :)
That’s it from me . . . for now. Take care of yourself and others, and talk soon!
Elaine