Snack Break

Pretty much my favorite breakfast/snack, period.

English muffin--extra toasty, Super crunchy Skippy peanut butter, sliced banana and either Tupelo Honey or Orange Blossom Honey.

Broken Dreams

There was a kitchen FAIL on Sunday. Hollandaise Sauce and Eggs Benedict. Sad...

First the sauce. It's awesome. Three eggs yolks, dribble of lemon juice, water, salt, pepper and TWO STICKS OF BUTTER! Ha ha!!! It's a super easy sauce to make. These eggs came directly from the farm. What a glorious color!


We also got our asparagus directly from the farm as well. Set in the steamer and ready to go.


I tried something different with poaching the eggs. I lined small dishes with plastic wrap, gave it a light spritz of non-stick cooking spray, gathered the sides together and tied them off. Egg pouches. No more floaty poached eggs.


The final sauce, all perfect and smooth, buttery and tangy.


Eggs Benedict with steamed asparagus.

Where's the FAIL?

In a matter of seconds from when I put together the above plate and when I moved to the next one...

1) The asparagus was over-cooked and mushy. There was no saving it. It was vibrant green and tender to dull, brownish-green and mushy. No texture at all. So what went wrong. Too long on the steamer. I was juggling too many things at once and should have pulled the asparagus a minute sooner, but I thought I could move faster.

2) The eggs. This technique worked well. Really it did. The problem was timing again. I cooked them low and slow. Too slow. Then at the end, in order to speed things up, I brought the temperature up. Which finished the eggs and again, in a matter of seconds, they went from tender whites and runny yolks to almost a chewy white and grainy, hard-cooked yolk. Blah.

3) The sauce. My mistake here was leaving the finished sauce over the lowest heat I could get on my stove. Once the sauce was done, that was still too much heat and the sauce broke. It went from velvety smooth to curdled and nasty. I tried for several minutes to fix the sauce. Add a little more butter, a dribble of water, etc. heat, no heat.

After I finally gave up and cried on my over-poached eggs, I dug into my Julia Child library to see what I should have done.

1) I can't fix the over-cooked asparagus or over-poached eggs. If you are concerned, start over.

2) For the sauce, it can be salvaged. Remove a small bit of the sauce and pour into a bowl. Add a dribble of lemon juice and whisk. Add a dribble of melted butter, bit by bit, while whisking until the sauce starts to come together. Start spooning the broken sauce, bit by bit, whisking the whole time. Eventually, the sauce will come back together. You want the sauce to be warm, about body temperature warm. Not hot. That's what broke the sauce in the first place. So a little patience and extra butter and lemon juice will get you back to where you need to be...

Scones

Valentine's Day morning. I mixed up a batch of delicious Ginger Scones. Very flavorful and amazingly light and tender.

Perfect breakfast

Strawberries, Yogurt and Granola.
Makes me very happy.

Using up some Easter Ham

I wanted something easy to use up some of the extra Easter ham. So I made a "hash."

This is three small potatoes, cut into cubes and fried in a tablespoon of olive oil until tender and crispy. Season with salt/pepper, and any other spice or seasoning you like.

Add about 2 cups cubed ham, 1/2 of a diced green pepper and 1/2 of a small, diced onion. Saute until the ham is warmed thru and starting to caramelize and the veggies are just approaching soft.

Top with fried eggs.

Gooey and yummy. Breakfast for dinner!

Jealous?

Vanilla yogurt, fresh picked blueberries and granola.

Cinnamony Goodness

I'll get you a recipe later, but this was nice. Crispy Crusted French Toast. The standard French toast we grew up with, enhanced with some smashed up Anna cookies. I used the Almond Cinnamon variety. Very tasty. With the syrup and butter I felt I was eating a big, sticky, gooey Cinnabun! Awesome.

UPDATE WITH RECIPE
Get your custard ready, 3 eggs and 2/3 cup of heavy cream, 2 tsp vanilla extract and 1 TB sugar; whisk together.

Crunch your cookies. I used 1/2 a pack of Almond Cinnamon Anna Cookies from Ikea. Smash the cookies up into tiny little bits. I put the cookies in a baggie and used a meat tenderizer until they were pulverized. Pour out onto a plate.

Pre-heat your skillet over medium-high heat. Melt 2 TB butter until it's sizzling.

Dip a piece of bread in the egg mixture until coated. Place on the cookie crumbs, flip to coat both sides. Place in the hot pan and cook until golden brown on one side, flip and cook the other side. If they toasts are browning too much, too fast, turn the heat down.

Serve HOT with butter and your favorite syrup.

Brown Sugar, Butter, Syrup!

Had some pancakes this morning. I love pancakes...as long as I don't eat too many...then my belly gets made at me.

I used the recipe I've shared here before, with one change...I used brown sugar instead of white sugar. I noticed a very subtle difference and I liked it! There was one other change, but that was out of necessity. I didn't have milk, so I used some cream and water. About 1/2 cream, 1/2 water to equal the total amount of milk needed. I works.

The first batch...the cream was a little thicker than milk, so the batter stayed thicker, creating a fluffy and very tender pancake.

Add a touch of butter and some syrup of your choice.

Variations on a pancake

This morning I made pancakes. Using the recipe from a few weeks ago; I made some slight variations with lovely results!

Cornmeal and Brown Sugar Pancakes adapted from The Joy of Cooking

Blend in a bowl:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup corn meal
3 TB brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In another bowl, whip:
1 cup cream
1/2 cup water*
3 TB melted, unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Fold together until blended. Some lumps are ok.

Lightly oil a large skillet set over medium heat. Ladle approximately 1/2 cup of batter onto the skillet or griddle. When bubbles start to appear, carefully flip the pancakes and allow to finish cooking, about one minute.

Serve with fruit, syrup, butter, whatever you like!


*I didn't have milk, so I used 1 cup of cream and 1/2 cup of water. Works great. The cream creates a very tender cake.

Breakfast

Mmmm, pancakes. I really should make them more often! I had a bit of a 'headache' this morning from the sangria last night. Pancakes help you feel better when that happens!

Pancakes from The Joy of Cooking

Blend in a bowl:
1 1/2 cups flour
3 TB sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In another bowl, whip:
1 1/2 cups milk
3 TB melted, unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla, optional

Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Fold together until blended. Some lumps are ok.

Lightly oil a large skillet set over medium heat. Ladle approximately 1/2 cup of batter onto the skillet or griddle. When bubbles start to appear, carefully flip the pancakes and allow to finish cooking, about one minute.

Serve with fruit, syrup, butter, whatever you like!

Makes approximately 12 5-inch pancakes.

If you are serving several people, you can keep the pancakes warm in a 200 degree oven.

Time to Make the Cinnabuns

Long story short...for the past week I've been craving a gooey, sticky, sweet, iced cinnamon bun. Really I wanted to head to National Airport and get a Cinnabon, with extra icing. Well, this craving got so bad, I was snacking and grazing like crazy. Probably doubled my caloric intake trying to satisfy a craving I had no hope of fixing.

On Saturday morning I woke up with a plan. I'm going to bake my own cinnamon buns. But alas, the Pastry Gods were not with me, when I found I had only about 1 TB of sugar in the house. And frankly, I'm not interested in knocking on my neighbors door to ask for some sugar. You don't know what you'd get.

So after sending J-lo out for a little shopping on Saturday, I woke up on Sunday with the plan to bake. I had a recipe on my computer, and I don't know where it came from-let me know if it's you, that I wanted to tackle.

Really, it's not that difficult. You just need some time and need to knead! I didn't use any kitchen machine to make these. Just good ol' fashioned kneading and a knife to slice! Anyone can do these... Wait. I did use an electric mixer for the icing, but if your butter is room temperature, that shouldn't be a concern, a wooden spoon will do the job nicely.

Here we go.

Cinnabuns
(about 8-12 rolls)

Rolls:
1 packet (¼ oz.) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (105 to 110°F)
½ cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup butter, melted
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 TB cinnamon
⅓ cup butter, room temperature

Icing:
1 stick butter, room temperature
1½ cups powdered sugar
2 oz. cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla extract
⅛ tsp. salt

For the rolls, dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a bowl. Mix together the sugar, butter, salt and eggs. Add flour and yeast mixture and mix until it comes together.

Pull the dough out to a lightly floured surface and knead for 4-5 minutes. Place the dough in a lightly buttered bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough flat until it is about 21" long and 16" wide. It should be about ¼" thick.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

For the filling, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Spread the softened butter evenly over the surface of the dough, and then sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar evenly over the surface. Use your rolling pin to gently press the sugar/cinnamon mix into place.

Working carefully, roll the dough down, from the top to the bottom edge. Lightly pinch the seam into place. (I didn’t and some of the buns slightly unrolled as they baked.) Cut the rolled dough into 1¾" slices and place 6 at a time evenly spaced, in a lightly greased baking pan.

Let the rolls rise again until double in size (about 30 minutes). Bake for 10-15 minutes or until light brown on top.

While the rolls bake, combine the icing ingredients. Beat well with an electric mixer until fluffy. When the rolls come out of the oven, coat each generously with icing.

Note: These can be frozen after baking—cool to room temperature and don’t ice them. Just pop one into the microwave for 20-30 seconds to reheat.

All prepared and ready to go. Got the sugar?

My dough ball before doubling.

Buttered sheets of dough.

Here's the cinnamon filling on the buttered dough and lightly rolled and pressed into the butter.

Starting the rolling process. Some of the filling started to fall out. Next time, if I can't roll the dough into square, I will cut it into one and maybe that will help me out a bit.

Starting to slices the buns.

I think I cut my buns a little bigger. It was a lot of work to finish one after they were cooked. I tried to kill my craving and have another. Sadly that nearly killed me.

They've baked and gotten all sorts of gooey. Start icing those sexy buns within a few minutes of coming out of the oven.

This naughty little bun was unrolling itself. Perhaps a little pinch at the seam will keep it from coming undone. Or placing the buns a little closer to one another on the pan.

The icing on this one got a little gritty from the filling. Some of the others came out a little 'cleaner.' But really, once it starts melting, it doesn't matter anyway.

The great sticky, sweet, sugar high (followed by crash) Cinnabun! Can't wait to make them again. But maybe more of a miniature version!