Eggs Benedict: An Alternative to Tinned Peaches

So Christmas is dead and buried for another year. Fitness dvd's from Z-list celebrities are being plugged on our television screens and those gym offers seem to be everywhere. Has everyone forgotten, it's time to overindulge, not just because it's Christmas but because it's so damn cold. It's winter and nature requires us to keep our organs warm with a snuggly layer of fat. When you consider all of your meals over a whole year, do you not think it all kind of balances out? That the summer months when you eat less and usually light, fresh and more swimsuit friendly meals, make up for the gorging that ensues over winter? January's meals reflect what money I have left over from Christmas. Perhaps it is a slimming month after all. My frugal cooking of store cupboard items and potatoes reflecting my thin, light wallet. If we didn't have Gyms would you be likely to start running everyday in the ice, frost and rain? Doubtful. If Coleen Nolan didn't have a fitness dvd would you be naturally inclined to prancing around your living room twice a day with tins of beans for weights? Is there any wonder Coleen needs to dance around her lounge with tinned food after all that crap Iceland party food she's been pimping out since mid November. Eighty-four piece oven party bites for 69p. There's a reason for that.

So I ate and drank too much, Lemuel Benedict is said to have taken a monster hangover to the Waldorf Astoria in 1892 and seeking a cure for his overindulgence ordered, "buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon and a hooker of hollandaise." The dish went down so well that it became a regular fixture on the breakfast and lunch menu with the toast being substituted for English Muffins and the crisp (streaky) bacon being substituted for back bacon. Sounds a bit more fitting for a grand dining room I suppose. A.A. Gill claims that Eggs Benedict is still the best morning-after dish ever invented and I definitely agree with him. After several days of drinking, eating and general kitchen debauchery why not make your first meal this January Eggs Benedict. Rich, runny yolks piercing through the buttery hollandaise and running down over ham or bacon and onto your plate via the side of the toasted muffins, a sprinkle of cayenne pepper to cut through the thickness and hello 2010. Some of you may be counting the calories already and thinking back to that resolution to join the Gym or Coleen Nolan with a can of tinned peaches. I'll be thinking of my slim wallet and what frugal meals await me for the rest of the January. With that in mind, how can you not approach the New Year with a hair of the dog attitude and overindulge some more.