I had been craving french toast for about a month and finally got around to making it for breakfast on Valentine’s Day. I think the key to awesome french toast is good bread! I used challah bread, and would also recommend brioche – both are buttery and chewy. If you can’t find those breads, french bread or cinnamon bread work fine too. I think thick slices of bread work best because thin slices get too soggy and mushy. Adding vanilla and cinnamon makes my version of french toast…
French Toast Serves 2
5-6 slices challah bread, cut into 1-inch thick slices
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt
Maple syrup, for serving
Powdered sugar, for serving
Butter, for skillet
Beat together the eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt in a shallow dish or pie plate. Heat a skillet over medium to medium-high heat, melt 1/2 to 1 tablespoon butter (depending on how big your skillet is). Coat the bread slices on both sides in the egg mixture. Add to the skillet and cook for a few minutes on each side until golden brown. Transfer to a plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar for a little extra sweetness. Serve with maple syrup.
Aren’t we all looking for ways to use up those bananas that didn’t get eaten in time and now they’re overripe? This recipe comes from my sister, Ashley, who is quite the baker too! I put my own spin on the recipe by making them into mini-muffins. I also added a little dash of cinnamon to spice it up a little bit (mainly because I’m obsessed with this Vietnamese Cinnamon I got at Penzeys Spices).
Iced Banana Muffins Makes 10-12 muffins, or 24 mini-muffins
3 ripe bananas
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of sea salt
1 1/2 cups flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mash bananas by hand and mix with the melted butter. In a separate bowl, beat the egg, then mix in sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg. Add in banana mixture. Add flour, salt, and baking soda and fold in. Grease a muffin or mini-muffin pan and fill the cups with batter. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes (about 15 minutes for mini-muffins) until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Make icing:
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 to 3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon milk
Mix ingredients together (either add more milk or more powdered sugar if icing is too thick or thin). Place icing into a piping bag or plastic baggie with corner cut off, and drizzle over cooled muffins.
When making this ginger pumpkin bread the other week, I accidentally bought a 28 ounce can of pumpkin puree, instead of the 14 ounce can I needed. So this is how I used up that extra pumpkin! Scones are a nice treat for breakfast (or anytime of the day). You can find the recipe for these scones on Vanilla Sugar. She has some awesome photos on her site.
My friend Rachel and I spent an afternoon at the apple orchard and baking apple goodies. Rachel is an amazing cook and an awesome friend. We stopped over to her parents’ house (her mom Lois is also a great cook) to pick up an apple peeler-corer-slicer that came in handy for all those apples we had to prep! (Oh, and we got some free lunch out of the visit.) We made quite a mess of my tidy kitchen, but no worries, it’s all tidy again!
Here’s some pictures to document our accomplishments…
Applesauce – super easy to make from scratch
Apple Pie - look at that PERFECT crust Rachel made – amazing!
And Apple Muffins – these got taken to work for my co-workers
I’d love to hear what are you doing to enjoy all the awesome flavors of Fall!
I’m one of those people that leaves myself the exact amount of time in the morning that I need to get ready and refuse to wake up any earlier, even if it’s for breakfast at home. I’m out of bed at 6:50am and out the door at 7:30am which leaves me just enough time to let the dog out and get ready, but nothing else. So I bring my breakfast to work to eat at my desk. Usually it’s yogurt and fruit, or sometimes a granola bar. I really try to limit the amount of processed foods I eat and I do enjoy making things from scratch (which I hope you already know from reading my blog!). I was watching Barefoot Contessa this weekend on the Food Network and she made granola bars. I think these will be perfect to take with me to work! These bars are super moist and chewy. I hope you find time to make your own!
Granola Bars Adapted from Barefoot Contessa (note: I cut the recipe in half because I can’t eat 12 granola bars on my own)
Makes 6 bars
1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup wheat bran
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup honey
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 cup mini chocolate chips (or whatever you like: the original recipe calls for dried apricots, dates, and cranberries)
Put oats, almonds, and coconut on baking sheet and toast in the oven at 350 degrees until lightly browned, about 10 minutes (stirring occasionally). Meanwhile, melt butter, honey, sugar, and vanilla in small saucepan over low heat. Let cool slightly. Place oat mixture and wheat bran in large bowl, then stir in the honey mixture and chocolate chips.
Line a loaf pan or small baking dish with parchment paper (to help you remove the bars easily). Spread granola into pan and bake at 300 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Let sit at room temperature for a few hours to harden before cutting into bars. Wrap each bar in parchment paper and store at room temperature.
I really want to go strawberry picking this year but I haven’t gotten a chance yet. Luckily, Pine Tree Apple Orchard has picked fresh strawberries that you can buy, so I picked up a box today. Now I have over three pounds of strawberries. So I guess I will have to document in the next few posts what I do with all these strawberries. Aren’t they the best-looking strawberries you’ve ever seen?
My friend Rachel is one of the best cooks I know. I think she gets it from her mom, Lois, who is also a great cook. Rachel was co-maid-of-honor in my wedding, and at the wedding shower she threw me (which was kitchen-themed!) she had everyone bring me a recipe to share. She gave me the recipe to her scones, which I think are officially called “Rachel’s Scones” since that’s what she called them at the top of the recipe card. I’ve made them a few times and they always turn out great. I thought they would be perfect to take to work for breakfast this week. One of her suggested mix-ins is fruit, so I thought I’d try strawberries and lemon zest. In the past, I’ve done chocolate chips and also dried cranberries and white chocolate chips – both good combinations.
One great thing about scones is that they are easy to make, and call for basic ingredients that most people have around the house. This is all you need:
Rachel’s Scones Makes approximately 12 scones
3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1 cup buttermilk (If you don’t have buttermilk, you can substitute 1 cup milk plus 1 tablespoon vinegar)
Your choice of mix-ins (chocolate chips, fruit, nuts, etc)
2 Tbsp melted butter
Sugar for sprinkling (I recommend sanding sugar or sugar in the raw)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Then, using a pastry blender (or forks or your hands if you don’t have a pastry blender) cut in the 1/2 cup butter. Mix in the buttermilk and then your choice of mix-ins.
For my mix-ins, I added lemon zest (from one lemon) and about 1/2 cup of diced strawberries. The berries turned the dough sort of pink, but that’s ok! Also, since the berries were moist, the dough got a little too sticky so I just added a few more tablespoons of flour.
Assemble the scones by one of the following methods, then top with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 10-20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown on the edges. The baking time will vary by how you chose to shape them.
Shaping Methods:
There are a few methods to shaping your scones. Rachel suggests forming the dough into a round (about an inch or so thick) on your baking sheet. Then you just slice the dough like a pizza.
You can also spread the dough out on your counter top then cut out the scones using a round cookie or biscuit cutter (like making cut-out cookies). This yields perfect little round scones that I think are pretty cute.
Or, if you are like me, you got a scone pan at one of your wedding showers. I’m not sure how I ended up with this gift or who/where it came from… I didn’t even know they made these and it wasn’t on my registry. I think it might be from Williams Sonoma since I recently saw one there when browsing the store. You can find one here too. Mine looks like this. I highly recommend this pan: it’s non-stick so the scones just pop right out. Convenient!
Here’s what the dough looks like in the pan:
And here’s what they look like finished:
And then I just had to make sure they taste ok. They do. Actually they’re more than ok. John says they’re the moistest scones he’s had. It’s all thanks to the melted butter!
I’m not sure what the deal was Saturday morning when I really wanted waffles, but my waffle iron did not want to cooperate! I’ve never had issues before, but this time they either kept cooking too quickly, even when I turned the heat down, or they kept getting stuck to the iron. After getting seriously cranky, I finally got a few good ones out of the batch. Since there’s only two of us at home, usually there are extra waffles since we each eat only one or two. I’ve found that if you cool the leftover waffles completely in a single layer, then stack and put in a freezer bag, they keep well in the freezer. Don’t stack them while cooling or they’ll get mushy. Then you can pop them in the toaster to warm them whenever you feel like having a waffle! In my opinion, it’s a healthier version of an Eggo. And waffles are so easy to make from scratch. Don’t bother with the boxed mixes!
As promised, my next few posts will probably be about strawberries. I went to the Minneapolis Farmers Market on Friday and picked up some strawberries. I knew they’d make a great topping for my waffles. Here’s an Emily-original recipe for strawberry sauce, which has been deemed “Zesty Strawberry Sauce” by John. The “zesty” part comes from the added lemon zest.
Waffles From Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, makes about 8 waffles
2 eggs
2 cups flour (all-purpose or whole wheat, I used all-purpose)
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Heat waffle iron. Beat the eggs in a large bowl until fluffy, then add in the remaining ingredients and beat just until smooth. Pour about 1/2 cup batter onto your waffle iron (you may need to adjust, depending on the size of your waffle iron). Close lid and bake until light golden brown. Repeat until you’ve made all your waffles.
Zesty Strawberry Sauce
1 pint strawberries, hulled and sliced into quarters
3 tablespoons of sugar (you may need more or less, depending on how sweet your strawberries are)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons water
Juice of one lemon
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Put all ingredients into a medium saucepan and stir. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until thickened. Top the waffles with the strawberry sauce and then with whipped cream (if desired). Enjoy!
I’m not sure what all the hatred about Earth Day is all about. I feel like all I read about today was people joking that they would engage in earth-unfriendly activities out of spite that Earth Day is not a “real holiday.” I’m not sure why that’s necessary. What did the earth ever do to you? If you don’t think it’s a real holiday, then don’t celebrate it. That’s just my opinion.
I decided to “celebrate” Earth Day by vegging out. No, not veg out as in sitting around (I actually did a lot today), but by being a temporary vegetarian today. Not that I’m a big meat-eater by any means, but I’ve lately been thinking more about the meat I eat. I’ve read a lot about the benefits (both for you and the environment) of vegetarianism, grass-fed beef, and other organic and free range meats. I’m just finishing up Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma which is a great narrative of where our food comes from. It’s a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about food and where it comes from. I don’t desire to become a total vegetarian but I am trying to cut out some meat from my diet, and reserving meat consumption for when I actually will enjoy it (like cooking it myself for my husband and me).
Since I don’t work Wednesdays, I had lots of free time to cook since grad school is slowing down a little bit (less than a month until graduation). For brunch I made lemon-blueberry pancakes, and for dinner, quinoa-stuffed peppers. Quinoa is a grain that is gluten-free and high in protein and other nutrients, which makes it a great substitute for meat. (Note: I had trouble finding quinoa – turns out, it’s next to the couscous at my grocery store).
I really enjoyed the pancakes – the lemon zest added an fresh flavor and they were so light and fluffy, due to the beaten egg whites. The warm blueberries exploded in your mouth – they were like nature’s syrup! The stuffed peppers were pretty good, although slightly disappointing because they weren’t as good as the first time I had them prepared by my good friend Sara Beth. See below for the recipes.
Lemon-Blueberry Pancakes Adapted from Bobby Flay, but I was too lazy to do the blueberry syrup and compote. Click here for original recipe. Serves 4.
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch cream of tartar
2 cups fresh blueberries
Butter
Maple syrup
Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, oil, buttermilk, lemon zest and vanilla extract.
Fold the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix together until flour is just incorporated.
In a small bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter just until incorporated. Let set for 15 minutes and gently fold in the blueberries.
Heat a nonstick pan or cast iron griddle over medium heat. Brush with the butter and heat until the butter just begins to sizzle. Scoop scant 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan or onto the griddle and cook until bubbles appear on the top surface and the bottom is golden brown, about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Flip over and cook until the bottom is lightly golden brown, about 45 seconds. Remove to a baking sheet and keep warm in a low oven. Serve with maple syrup.
Sorry for the poor quality - this was taken with the iPhone.
Quinoa Stuffed Peppers
1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
1/2 tablespoon olive oil, plus a few drops for baking pan
1/2 shallot, diced
1/4 pound small mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
1/4 pound baby spinach
1 clove garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
4 bell peppers (any color), tops removed and reserved, seeds and cores discarded
Cook the quinoa according to package directions. Set aside.
Meanwhile, heat 1/2 tablespoon of the oil in large skillet over medium heat. Cook the shallot, mushrooms, carrots, and chopped red pepper until softened. Add the spinach and garlic and cook until spinach is wilted. Add cooked quinoa and toss gently to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Divide quinoa mixture evenly between bell peppers, gently packing it down and making sure to fully fill each pepper. Top each with its reserved top and arrange peppers, so that they’re sitting upright, in a greased deep baking pan. Cover the pan, bake for 45 to 50 minutes, then check for tenderness. Peppers are done when there is just a slight give to the flesh. Transfer to plates and serve. Serves 4.
