Author Archives: metamegan

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Lazy Scones

Last Friday I officially made a Fancy Breakfast Friday without a plan. I just got up in the morning and made something fancy. The menu was Bacon, Scones with Jam, and a Watermelon Smoothie.

The scones were easy because they called for melted butter instead of using a pastry tool to cut in cold bits of butter. When I was reading the recipe I was thinking it was heavier on the fat and lighter on the sugar that then my usual scone recipe from cooking light. And I was thinking about how extra sugar can be a way to improve flavor in “low fat” recipes, blah blah etc. I was proud of myself for embracing butter. But in the end… it wasn’t sweet enough for me. The boys loved these scones though. And they were very easy to make… So I will probably keep them in the repertoire. These are from Mad Hungry, as is the recipe for cooking bacon in the oven, which I love to do. Of course the recipe is also available online, but if you are a cookbook person, I think this is a good one. The Mad Hungry Coffee Cake recipe has also made a debut here on FBF.

The Watermelon Smoothie was just a burst of genius I had about how to make the breakfast more filling, colorful, full of lycopene, and also… to make room in the fridge by using up the watermelon. I have mixed feelings about smoothies. On the one hand, they seem to be a way to incorporate more fruits and veggies into breakfast. On the other hand, why not just chew your food? Regardless, these were very delicious and refreshing. I made them to order as the boys woke up. Dave declined a smoothie.

Watermelon Smoothie

1 cup of chopped watermelon
2 frozen strawberries
2 mint leaves.
Add everything to the blender and mix until smooth.

Do you see the big fat novel in the background? There should be a book club post coming Monday.

*Links to books are affiliate links.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: The Perfect Muffin

DSC07123 (1) I think I have created the perfect muffin for my family. Texture-wise it was amazing. It was also yummy, and on the healthy side. (Sort of.)

I stayed up until incredibly late last Thursday so that the muffins would be ready in the morning because Dave and Jack were going to a baseball tournament in Englewood and Luke and I had to be in Commerce City for his tournament at 7:00 am. The muffins, as I said, were delicious. But I somehow managed to forget my coffee, my wallet, my chair, and my camera. And guess what else? I had the times wrong. I thought the games were at 8 and 10 but they were at 8 and noon. I really could have used coffee, a wallet, a chair and a camera. I finished my book about 5 minutes into the 2.5 hours between games. It’s weird that I forgot everything since this was about the 7,103,503 baseball game I had attended this season. No photos of the perfect muffin, because… I was a spaz last week. But I did bring my camera the second day of the tournament and Jack took this great photo. (above)

At least I packed a bunch of muffins for the games. (And other food as well for our 9 or so hour day.) This is based on the banana bread recipe from Cooking Light, which I highly recommend.

Perfect Banana Muffins
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
3 overripe bananas
1/2 cup cream top vanilla yogurt ** not low fat
2 Tbs chia seeds (optional)
1/2 cup granola (optional, but so good)

Preheat oven to 350°. Coat muffin pans with nonstick spray or use liners.
This makes 12 large muffins, or 12 smaller muffins and 12 mini muffins.

Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, chia seeds, stir with a whisk.
Cream together butter and sugar, add the eggs, 1 at a time. Scraping down the sides after each addition.

In a separate bowl mash bananas to desired consistency. Add the bananas, yogurt, and vanilla to the sugar/butter/eggs and blend until completely mixed together. Slowly add the flour and mix on low until just blended, don’t over mix. Last, mix in the granola.

Bake at 350° for 25 minutes (i started checking at 25 minutes but I recall it took significantly longer.) Or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Portable Baked Eggs

Last Friday we were lounging in our hotel room, easing into a day of baseball games. By “we” I mean Jack and I. Luke and Dave had to get up around 5:30 am. Jack and I took the leisurely route and showed up for the second inning, or sometimes the second game. I knew our hotel didn’t have a free continental breakfast, but did have a restaurant. I was feeling thrifty and organized, so I pre-made some FBF before we left. Then I beautifully arranged them on a plate for a photo before I put them in a tupperware and then into a cooler for our trip to Steamboat Springs.

I have to admit that I was feeling a little cheap by pre-baking breakfast, but it worked out really well. Hotel restaurants aren’t super highly efficient at 5:30 am, and even if they are, who has time for a sit down meal before an 8:00 am game, with a 7:00 am warm up that’s a 45 minute drive away? Long story short, Fancy Breakfast Friday saved the day.

I didn’t want to do a pastry because I was looking for something a little more substantial. Baseball games can be exhausting so protein is important. I turned once again to Feed Zone Portables. Last time used this cookbook, I made frittata, but I wanted to go for something with more kid appeal. (no veggies) This recipe is basically just 6 eggs baked in a muffin tin. I did three scrambled and three unscrambled. A little salt and pepper. When they came out, I topped them with bacon and parmesan cheese. In the hotel we reheated them one at a time for about 30 seconds in the microwave. I had to eat them between a bagel, but Luke ate his “as is”. These were not eaten off china but rather with a paper towel as a plate, over a snack strewn hotel table, surrounded by exploded suitcases. It wasn’t pretty. But guess what? SO GOOD! And I wasn’t eating my lunch before the second game started. Hearty. Total win. For the breakfast – the team went 1 and 3.

I recommend Feed Zone Portables.. It’s a great book for healthy snacks. (If you like homemade rice cake. It’s heavy on the rice cake recipes. Last time Jack took one of the rice cakes to school for snack, his teacher was so impressed that she said, “Your dad must be an amazing cook!” But what about meeeeee? I’m the amazing cook! But Dave does make the rice cakes. I need to make more rice cakes I guess.) The cookbook does mention that the eggs will be hard to remove from your non-stick muffin tin. That is a true fact. I greased the tin with butter and bacon grease and still had to work so hard to clean the pan that I thought I burned more calories than the baked eggs could possibly supply. But I still think I will make these again. It always seems like a great idea to bring hard boiled eggs on camping trips or road trips, but then no one feels like eating them when the time comes. These were good.

I also brought homemade granola, yogurt, and garden strawberries. Jack got a yogurt parfait for breakfast because he lives on oats and yogurt.

*Links are affiliate links

Whiffle Ball Team Name Generator

The boys didn’t have a baseball game or practice today. What to do, what to do? Play whiffle ball and invent a whiffle ball team name generator! If you are looking for something fun to do – figure out your team name and then get outside and play ball!

metameganwhiffleballteamname_generator

MetaMeganWhiffleBallTeamNameGenerator

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Ch-ch-ch-CHIA

Some of you may know about chia seeds from Gwyneth Paltrow and her ubiquitous site Goop. You can get great advice there about managing your time – find a place that does your mani at the same time as your pedi! Time saver! I think she also invented avocado toast because her cookbook was the first place I read about it. Now it’s sweeping the nation! Chia has also moved more mainstream in the time since I first read about chia pudding in Gwyneth’s cookbook. . When you can get organic chia at Costco, it’s gone mainstream.

My knowledge of chia though, goes back much farther. I’m a fan of kitsch and also a botanist, so the chia pet was basically a match made in heaven for me. I got one for Christmas one year, maybe when I was in college? The chia ram. I loved it for about one chia life cycle and then I kind of lost interest. At the time, I lived in a very run down house in Athens Ohio, and I had last pick out of 6 bedrooms. This meant I had the smallest bedroom, but also the only one without carpeting, which made it the least gross. The bathroom had some seriously thick and absorbant blue carpeting, that later took on a green sheen when I took off a shirt that had chia seeds in the pocket and they spilled everywhere. The humidity in Athens is pretty high, but in an un-airconditioned bathroom… let’s just say the chia seeds prospered in that carpeting.

Later in life I was given a Jerry Gar-chia head, and it was very cool, but the clay was actually pretty subpar compared to my chia ram. Jerry’s hair was pretty spotty. At the time I had easy access to chia seeds because I worked for a seed company that packaged chia seeds for the chia pet company. I had many responsibilities there, but one of them was to be screamed at and belittled by the chia seed company guy. I always imagined him with a bright red face, screaming at the top of his lungs, veins bulging out, shirt straining at the buttons across his beer belly, on the verge of a heart attack. I wanted to suggest that he switch to a job where lives were at stake and his fury would be justified. That guy turned me off chia pets for a while. I did manage to get a giant package of seeds for a friend who was planning to grow a chia coat and be a chia pet for Halloween. (Idea copywrited.)

This summer, Jack and I found the chia ram in the storage bin, and he asked if I would get some chia seeds. I said sure, since it’s a golden age of chia and I could probably avoid going through the chia pet company to get them, although I don’t know if the Costco seeds will actually sprout. (TBD – see future post.) So now I have a big bag of chia seeds and I am working on ways to use them. I put some in Jack’s oatmeal and he loved it. And then I came to today’s recipe! Blueberry chia seed muffins.

I have been looking for a generic muffin recipe that I could use as a base and I found one at the King Arthur Flour page. To this recipe, I added 2 tablespoons of chia seeds. On top of the muffins, I put 4-5 blueberries. Then I topped it with a cinnamon/vanilla crumb that I had in the freezer form a prior blueberry muffin.

Dave said, “These lemon blueberry poppy seed muffins are delicious.” I said, “Well there is no lemon, but they are very yellow because I used eggs from the neighbor’s chickens. And it’s actually chia seeds not poppy seeds.” He said, “In that case, yuck. Never mind.”

Jack gets the photo credit today.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Granola Chocolate Chip Waffles

These waffles are an homage to the Grananola Chocolate Chip Waffles at the Southside Walnut Cafe. I can’t recommend my waffle recipe though because they were a little tough. I subbed in some whole wheat flour, but I don’t blame that. I think I just need to continue my quest for the perfect waffle recipe.

What I do recommend is adding granola and chocolate chips to your fave waffle recipe and then serving it up with some more granola, chocolate chips and sliced bananas on top. (I poured some batter into the waffle maker, added a handful of granola and then put some more batter on top. I didn’t want to mix it into the batter because I didn’t want the granola to get too soft.) I did not put any banana in the waffles like they do at the Southside because, yuck.

My homemade granola is a work in progress, first it was too sweet, then not sweet enough. I may now have the perfect recipe. At first I thought it might still be not sweet enough, but I’ve been finding it to be a nice cereal topping, delicious with yogurt and berries from my garden. Maybe you should make it and let me know?

The original recipe that started all this is from cooking light. I just found that it had so much orange juice that it took forever to cook. Like – double or triple the time on the recipe. So I started messing around with it and this is what I have. This makes two cookie sheets worth, because why bother making less?

Granola:

6 cups old fashioned oats
3/4 cup sliced almonds
6 teaspoons cinnamon – yeah that’s a weird amount.
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1/2 cup orange juice
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 F

Line two cookie sheets with parchment or spray with nonstick spray. Mix the dry ingredients in a huge bowl. In a small sauce pan, heat the orange juice, honey, brown sugar. Stir until the honey and brown sugar is dissolved. Add the vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir. Spread the mixture in an even layer over the two cookie sheets. Bake at 300 for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes. You may need to add time to get the granola to your level of doneness. I like it to be brown and pretty crunchy.

Let it cool on the cookie sheets and then store in a tightly sealed container.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Bagel Supremes

The Bagel Supreme is my dad’s specialty, so I stole his idea for last week’s FBF. I agonized over this First-Day-of-Summer-Fancy-Breakfast-Friday because on the one hand, I had all the time in the world to make breakfast. On the other hand, I wanted to sleep in and be lazy. I bought a random assortment of ingredients thinking I could go with breakfast tacos or bagel supremes. In the end I went the Bagel Supreme route – breakfast tacos had already been done.

My dad’s recipe is a toasted bagel with scrambled egg, bacon and cheese. You can’t go wrong with that, but what if you don’t want to deal with making bacon? My answer to that problem was to buy pre-c00ked breakfast sausage and serve it both on the side and in the sandwich. (I didn’t have any because, yuck.)

The best part though was the grilled bagels. If you have ever camped or stayed in a ski condo with our friend Tony, you have probably had his fried bagels. When you are without a toaster, or unable to find the toaster in your ski chalet, his solution is to fry bagels in butter. The first time I had one, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever. The best part is, after he fries the bagels, he offers you cream cheese to have with your bagel. So decadent. Of course, I think the last time I had a ski vacation with Tony, it was 1999/200o and I had the metabolism of a someone in my “mid” 20s. Once I tried to get Dave to make them on a camping trip and he didn’t understand how much butter you really need. I was sad. Fried bagels have been in the back of my mind for a while. I don’t think I used a Tony amount of butter, but they were still good. Technically, I made grilled bagels.

For the bagel supreme, I brushed some melted butter on the bagels and then cooked them on our cast iron griddle. After I flipped them over, I smashed them a little with a pan.

Once the bagels were ready, I scrambled the eggs, and melted cheddar on top. Added some sausage and served with a little fruit salad. Delicious.

Rock Star Happy Hour: Zucchini Rollups

I recently had the honor of hosting a Rock Star Happy Hour in our back yard for the touring band – Kat Myers and The Buzzards. They played at Beryls’s in Denver and we got to see their show and it was fun, and energetic, and amazing. If you are looking for new music, I highly recommend getting their EP. (See their website for info.) We had a cousin party and it was lovely and fun. But I only took pictures of food (and bee keepers), because I am a terrible person who only likes to brag my cooking skillz instead of commemorating special moments with Rock Stars who visit my abode.

I made zucchini rollups (see recipe below), served beet hummus (from Trader Joes), and a lentil/tomato/garlic/basil mix, crackers, cut veggies, and cherries (with the Cherry Chomper) for appetizers. For dinner I made 4 pizzas: Pepperoni x 2, pesto/cheese, and pesto/cheese/veggie. Cookies for dessert.

And what did we have for entertainment? A bee swarm. You can’t beat a bee swarm for exciting entertainment. But that’s a story for another day.

Since posting the zucchini rollups on instagram, I have gotten a lot of requests for the recipe, so I am going to share.

This recipe is from The Thug Kitchen: Party Grub For Social Motherf*ckers ** cookbook. I have adapted it a bit, but I highly recommend this cookbook. I have a bunch of pages bookmarked for breakfast, parties, and picnics this summer. Just know if you have a sensitive ear, the language is colorful. But there is nothing in there that your kids haven’t heard from that one kid in their second grade class.

Zucchini Rollups – Adapted from The Thug Kitchen: Party Grub For Social Motherf*ckers **

3 medium zucchini
Creamy Pesto Dip – see below
2 carrots cut into 2 inch matchsticks
1 Cucumber cut into 2 inch matchsticks
1 red bell pepper cut into 2 inch matchsticks
2 green onions cut into thin strips, 2 inches long

When you cut your matchsticks, keep in mind the height of the zucchini strips. You want the veggies to stick out a little but not be awkward to eat.

Use a vegetable peeler to cut the zucchini into long planks. I used my carrot peeler, and found that the thinner they were, the easier they were to roll.

Spread the pesto dip down the length of the zucchini, this will hold it together when you roll it up. At one end, add some of each veggie, with one end lined up with the zucchini and the rest sticking out the top. Roll it up. Use a toothpick to secure if you don’t trust your roll. Repeat until you run out of zucchini strips.

These are best within 2 hours, but you can pre-make the dip, and cut up everything but the zucchini ahead of time.

Creamy Pesto Dip

1 can white beans, or great northern beans
Homemade Pesto or store-bought pesto. * I assume you already have an amazing pesto recipe, or else you need to buy it. Or maybe you need mine?
1/2 a lemon

This is where I veered the most from the recipe in the book. I drained and rinsed the beans and then put them in the food processor with about 1/4 cup of pesto and a squeeze from half a lemon. (If you are my mom and you don’t have a food processor, you can mash it together with a fork or mix it in the blender.) Blend until you get a spreadable consistency that you like.

Caveat to this recipe – It was so pretty and fancy and delish. I served the leftover dip, and veggies on a platter. All the dip and veggies were eaten, but I had zucchini rollups leftover. Maybe they were too pretty to eat? So feel free to make the dip and just serve with cut veggies if you aren’t having special guests. Don’t deprive yourself. But your zucchini rollups will be the hit of your next party.

Play a little Kat Myers and the Buzzards in the background to get the full effect.

DSC06899 (1)

**Links to books are affiliate links.

Summer Reading!

Summer officially started for me as a kid when I got my pool pass and signed up for the summer reading program at the library. I never had space to write in all the books I read, and I was always secretly sad that it was “for fun” and not something I could win. What else is there to do in the summer besides reading books and swimming? My kids start mountain bike practice today, so I guess new summer things have been invented since the 80s.

It’s easy to find a list of books to read over the summer, but what has been missing from my life is the library brochure, where I can check things off, or color things in, and basically feel like I am really getting the most of of my summer and my reading. I hinted last summer at the library that they needed an Adult Summer Reading program, and I found a sympathetic librarian, but nothing has materialized yet so I had to take matters into my own hands.

I present to you, the MetaMegan summer reading program!

Click here for the PDF: MetaMeganSummerReading2016

This is a list of fun things to do in the summer, paired with book recommendations.

Today is the day after Memorial Day, so put on your white pants, print this out, take it to the library and start reading. Feel free to color in the bubbles once you have crossed a book or an activity off your list. Join the occasional MetaMegan book club discussions to share thoughts and recommendations.

Happy Summer Reading!

MetaMeganSummerReading2016-page-001-2

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Cinnamon Rolls

This later-in-the-morning blog post is brought to you courtesy of the first day of summer vacation! But this post is about what we had for breakfast last Friday, and it was a delicious pan of cinnamon rolls.

I had to lead with the baseball picture, because the cinnamon rolls were devoured before I had a chance to take a lovely picture under better light. And because last weekend included 9 baseball games. I’m almost recovered, a week later.

For this recipe, I used this smitten kitchen recipe. I did the first rise on the counter and the second rise in the fridge. I also used the same glaze I used for the donut holes a few weeks ago. (1/4 cup melted butter, 1.5 cups powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon milk, in teaspoon vanilla.) After it was sort of too late, I read in the recipe a link to a more tender recipe that could be adopted for cinnamon rolls. I decided there was no harm in making the un-tender one and then, later making the newer recipe. I also wondered, “Do my children have a sophisticated enough palate to notice when a pastry could be more tender?” The answer to that is yes. Luke said, “The center is really good, but the outside seems a little hard. Poor boy. I’ve created a pastry aficionado. Of course, this recipe made two pans, and the second pan was very hard the next day. I left them un-iced and I warmed and iced them the second day. Still delish. They basically tasted like a pastry you’d get in a coffee shop in Boulder. I bet I could have kept them uncooked in the fridge an extra day, but we’ll never know.

And now, on to summer. I wonder what breakfasts I’ll make. I am feeling a conflict between having the time to make something fancier and feeling pretty lazy about the whole thing.