Tag Archives: breakfast

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Frittata and Cinnamon Rolls

I have to say I nailed the spinach and zucchini fritatta that I made for Fancy Breakfast Friday. These are from the book Feed Zone Portables: A Cookbook of on the Go Food for Athletes.  The recipe warns that they may be hard to get out of the muffin tins, which was a massive understatement.  These were good, according to everyone but Jack, but if I need an on the go fritatta, next time I would make one in the cast iron skillet and then cut them into smaller slices.  Because that muffin tin wasn’t going to clean itself.

But look how yummy they looked – hot out of the oven.


I forgot that Jack hates fritatta, but fortunately I also made pumpkin rolls.  Luke brought the recipe home from school because someone made them for their how-to speech.  The recipe calls for half a cup of pumpkin which I happened to have.  These were delish.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: French Toast Casserole

My food photography isn’t quite there, but I can’t go wrong with nature photography in my neighborhood.  Enjoy this mountain view and use your other senses to imagine french toast casserole.   This was a multi-day multi-recipe effort that turned out “OK”.   I had read a recipe for Granola Bread in The Breakfast Book that sounded amazing.  Day one was to make the unsweetened granola for the bread.  This recipe made the world’s saltiest granola.  It was unbelievable.  Dave said if we added worsteshire it would taste like chex mix “in a good way”.  I put the granola away because even though it was salty and weird, “people” were eating it out of the pan.  Step two was to make the granola bread.  It turned out OK.  Nothing to write a cookbook about.  It never browned, so I may have over cooked it.  It was sort of a beigey gray.  The first loaf was eaten quicly, with butter, as toast, and as grilled cheese.  But there was the problem of the second loaf.  I had planned to make it into french toast casserole from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, but it seemed a little risky to use so-so bread in fancy recipe.  But then what to do with the bread?  Well, I think french toast was invented to use up old bread so I went with it.

This recipe was one that I should have read and started the night before, but I didn’t.  First you toast the bread in the oven with butter and cinnamon and sugar.  That was amazing.  Then you arrange the bread beautifully in the pan and pour the custard over it and let it sit for some long period of time.  I skipped that because I didn’t have time.  I did try to arrange it beautifully, but the bread refused.  And, I have to say, I halved the custard.  I wasn’t emotionally and intellectually committed to this recipe enough to use 6 eggs in it.  Long story short, reviews ranged from “yum” to “it was OK.”    But it was a big step forward for me because I found myself starting to make another loaf of bread for the French toast so it would be perfect and then I thought, “No, that’s crazy.”    I’m sane now, people.

Ok, here is a picture.

Fancy Breakfast Friday:  Thanksgiving Cranberry Scones

I don’t know if all grocery stores do this, but at our grocery store the cranberries are “buy one get one free” during the holidays.  And I don’t think it’s one of those situations where you can say, can I have one for half off?  King Soopers would say, “No, we sell these once a year and we are getting rid of them all, now take them and go.”  Side note – I could start a weekly column about what terrible or annoying thing happened to me at the grocery store last week.  I could have guest columnist talk about how they had 4 employees searching for the wasabi powder and when it was finally found she got it for free due to the hassle.  Or how the deli guy didn’t seal my bag of pepperoni, so when I grabbed it, pepperoni was flung to all regions of the deli and cheese section, and even a little into produce.  Actually, something happened last week that was so funny/horrifying that I was thinking of starting a regular Monday blog post about the embarrassing thing that I did last week.  I can think of three things off the top of my head.  And they didn’t all happen at the grocery store.  One was at Target.

But I digress.  For the second year in a row, I thought, “I’ll just make some pastry with the other bag of cranberries.” And for the second year in a row I found that the recipe calls for craisins.  This year I was like, “NBD, I don’t have a job.  I can make my own craisins!?”   I found a recipe that seemed pretty simple, but when I got to the part where you leave the cranberries in the oven for 8 hours at 135 I thought, “Nah.  This sounds like one of those stupid things I would do and then blog about later.”

So why did I buy cranberries anyway? We have been making Cranberry Orange Relish on Thanksgiving ever since Grandmom introduced us to in in 2007 or so. (Click here for the recipe)  It’s very good, and bright, and delicious.  A tablespoon on your plate with the rest of Thanksgiving is completes the meal. But even with 18 people eating a tablespoon each, you have some leftover, not to mention that entire second bag.  (Guess who’s having cranberry relish for Christmas dinner!)  Long story short, I decided to invent a recipe to use up the leftovers.  I combined a bunch of scone recipes and I need to revisit and refine, but basically I made the dough, split it in two and put a layer of crabberry relish in the middle.  I was a little stingy because I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but next time I would  use more.  The scones were very pretty and delish.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Swedish Pancakes aka Crepes


I was thinking about going to Ikea to get lamps for our living room, and I thought, “I should get some lingonberry jam while I am there for my Swedish friend who serves it with Swedish pancakes…” Then I decided it was too far to drive and I had lingonberry jam from the last time I went to Ikea.  And thus the #fancybreakfastfriday idea was born.  I combined a bunch of online recipes and served the crepes with jam, blueberries, bananas, and chocolate sauce.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Coffee Cake Redemption

 

I made “Aunt Patty’s Coffee Cake” from my cookbook Mad Hungry – Feeding Men and Boys.  I bought that cookook or maybe asked for it for Christmas because the author writes recipes for Martha Stewart, and Martha Stewart recipes always turn out.  (Except for that one time.)  However, I do think the title is weird and sexist, and an obvious marketing ploy, but whatever, it worked on me.  I like thinking of myself as this “mom” who cooks for her “boys”.  But there is a chapter titlled Boy Salad.  Come on.  i have made a lot of recipes out of this book and they are all pretty good though.

I can’t complain about the coffee cake, it was amazing.  The filling was cocoa/sugar/instant coffee – I used instant esspresso.  I thought it might be too bitter for the boys but they loved it.  The only weird thing about it was that it said to pour 1/3 of the batter into the pan then do the filling, repeat etc.  I didn’t find the batter to be pourable.  I had to glop the batter into the pan.  And by the time I had the bottom of the bundt pan covered, I had used more than half the batter.  I didn’t get perfect swirls of filling for that reason.

Click here for the recipe.

In addition to the coffee cake, last week I baked cookies, a birthday cake, and made another round of the chocolate chip brioche pretzels.  I had just said, “Maybe we should take a break from baked goods for bit, at least until Thanksgiving.  But then my neighbor called and said. “I have a lot of eggs, can I bring you 30?”  I said, “SURE”.  So the break is over before it started.

Fancy BreakfastFriday: Fluffy Caramel Coffee Cake

I think what sold me on this recipe was the name.  It sounds so good.  Fluffy. Caramel.  But the theme of my life last week was “cooking things in the wrong size pan” and consequently I made some delcious things that were not pretty enough for a photograph.

Fluffy Caramel Coffee Cake was from the book The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham, which was a gift from my friend Laura, and I love it.  It’s one of the only cook books that I like to read just for kicks.  In fact the very first FBF recipe for waffles 11 weeks ago was from the book.  I like that Marion says what to do the night before and how to handle the rest of the steps in the morning.  Exactly what I was wondering about two weeks ago.  I also like that this is a yeast bread which gives it a cool flavor and creates the fluffiness.

Alas – the recipe called for a 10 inch pan, and I made it in an 8 inch pan.  This caused some spill over and also too high of a topping to cake ratio that made it way too sweet.  This is partially my fault and also the fault of the universe cursing me for making fun of my midwest upbringing.  See, I went to a “hot dish party” on Halloween and I made cheesy pototoes, which I thought was gross as a child and now see as “midwest”.  I’d link to a recipe, but I didn’t follow one, and when I went to the source (Mom) for info it was too late and my casserole was gross.  (Undercooked with no buttery corn flake topping.)  I will say that during the party the hostess tried to unmold the jello and was heard to moan, “Oh noooooooooo” from the kitchen.  That made me homesick and was straight out of an family holiday party.  Ironically, I just read the book Kitchens of the Great Midwest, and there is an amazing chapter making fun of today’s locally sourced, dairy free, wheat free, blahbity blah foodies, and honoring the midwest bakers of peanut butter bars. (I will be making those.)

The problem is, I brought a 9×9 dish to the party and I left with an 8×8.  So I thought my pan was a little too small but it was a lot too small.  I woke in a cold sweat, worried about the size of my pan and the bread overflowing.  I told myself, “Self.  Measure the pan.  If its 9×9, just go with it.  If it’s 8×8, move the whole thing to a 10 inch spring form pan.”  Well, it was 8×8 but I could clearly see that trying to move the dough would cause a massive deflation and would not be worth the effort.

Long story short, it was good, but too sweet.  Jack said it was the perfect amount of sweetness and that the cake had a sourness to balance it.  He was sort of right because of the yeast flavor, and the sour cream in the topping. But I had to eat mine with bacon and black coffee to balance the sweetness.  I made a note “too sweet” and I probably won’t make it again.

I’ve already staged my comeback with another coffee cake for next week.  I had planned croissants at Laura’s request, but all the birthday baking I have going on got in the way.  What else do I need to make?  Scones? French toast?  Frittata?

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Halloween Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

When pinterest was invented, I pinned these muffins and then never made them or looked at pinterest ever again.  But I did eventually make them 3 years later and they are delicious!  The recipe says it makes 12, but for me it made 15.  I was in sort of a rush and I didnt want them to cook too long.  Did you read about all those people who did the apple update on their phone during the night and it turned off their alarms and they were all late for work or missed class?  Well that didn’t happen to me because I never update my phone, but coincidentally, my alarm didn’t go off.  So after all my blustering about only spending an hour on Fancy Breakfast Friday, I only ended up with half an hour the next week.  I made an egg for Luke and muesli for Jack to eat while they waited for their muffins.  Jack said it was the best Fancy Breakfast Friday ever, for the third week in a row.

The rest of the muffins were eaten during our hundred activites over the weekend.  They even got left in the car over night in a tupperware and were still delcious and moist on Sunday.

I feel the need to step up my game for next week because I am not sure these are really “fancy” so we’ll see what I come up with next.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Chocolate Chip Brioche Pretzels

 

 This week I made a cake and I didn’t even take a picture of it.  Unheard of, and so unsatisfying.  The cake was for the teachers for their parent-provided dinner during conferences.  So I didn’t get to eat it, and I wasn’t even there when people were eating it, and, I assume, raving about how good it was.  If only I had a picture, I could have at least gotten a like on instagram.  I’m sure there is a Zen Koan in there somewhere.  If a cake is eaten in a teachers lounge, am I a martyr for suffering through the lack of praise?   That reminds me of when I used to not know if the Pope was Catholic or not, because sometimes when I asked a question the answer was, “Is the Pope Catholic?”  And I would think, “Maybe?  I have no idea.”  I wasn’t one for follow up questions.

Because of the cake situation this week, I planned a coffee cake themed Fancy Breakfast Friday.  But when the Smitten Kitchen cookbook fell open to Chocolate Chip Brioche Pretzels I knew it was meant to be.  Luke has been wanting to make soft pretzels all week, but we haven’t had time to squeeze it in.  These pretzels really got me thinking about how people handle their breakfast pastries.  Do people get up at 4:00 am?  Or eat breakfast at noon?  This recipe said you could do the first half the night before and leave the dough to rise in the fridge over night.  In the morning, you just had to let the dough come to room temperature and then you could do the rest of the steps.  But how long does it take dough to come to room temperature?   I was wondering to myself if I was going to set an alarm for 5:00 am, take the dough out, sleep for an hour and then make the pretzels.  I asked Dave for his advice as I tend to over complicate things. He suggested just leaving it on the counter before I went to bed.  I basically can’t even feel my feet right now, due to the temp in our house, so I agreed that was a good idea.  I suppose I could have also taken the dough out of the cold mixing bowl and put in in the oven with the light on to warm up a bit.  But I want to know – how do people do it?  I decided to draw the line at 6:00 am starts for Fancy Breakfast Friday.  I served the pretzels with bacon and made to order eggs.

I have made some delicious things from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, and the pretzels were a hit as well.  I’m more of a sugar/chocolate person than a butter person when it comes to indulging, so I was glad for the chocolate chips.  These were a hit with everybody though.  The only problem was that the recipe called for 12 minutes at 350 degrees.  I cooked them for 12 minutes and then added three minutes at a time… again and again.  So it took about 24 minutes – double the recipe time.  I assume this is problem with my oven.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Oven Pancake Take Two


After  last week’s Famous Fancy Breakfast Friday Flop, I decided to redo the recipe at home in my own kitchen.  Last week, I blamed the cracker of a pancake on maybe too much flour, or maybe not having the right pan, or maybe not having any measuring spoons or cups. I am sure that the pan had something to do with it, because I dont see how a pancake could have risen like the one above in a 13×9 pan like the one I used last week.

HOWEVER, by redoing the exact recipe, I was able to find my fatal flaw.  When I added the milk to the pancake shown above, I realized that I had no memory of adding milk the first time.  The milk may have made a big difference in the pancake consistency.  The other difference was that I whisked at my parents house, and at home I used the blender for a couple quick seconds to combine everthing.  This ended up being a lot like my recipe for apple pie pancakes, with the only difference being that I usually saute the apples in the cast iron skillet and then pour the pancake batter over the apples and bake the pancake.  It doesn’t rise like in the picture above, but it does puff up, and it is delicious.

I served this with apples chunks that I sauteed in butter, cinnamon and a little brown sugar.  I sliced the pancake into 4 and the boys and I ate it with apples and vanilla yogurt.   I asked Dave how he ate his and he said, “I assumed you ate all the caramel sauce, so I was forced to used maple syrup.”  I said, “Caramel sauce? I guess the apples were a little carmalized, but no, we had it with yogurt.”  He said, “Yogurt. Blech.”

Jack said it was “so good” and “can I have this on my birthday?”  which is basically the highest praise to which a meal can aspire. Birthday Worthy.

Fancy Breakfast Friday

Last week I was visitng my parents and I decided to treat them to a very special FBF.  When I am at my home, I set my alarm extra early to get FBF on the table for my babies.  When I am the baby at my parents house, I sleep in so late that they have already left the house for church and the gym, so I planned to have a fancy second breakfast ready for when they got home.

I set out to make what I call “apple pie pancake” because for some reason my mom had 1,000 apples in the fridge and on the counter.  I didn’t have my recipe book with me, so I used this recipe from Betty Crocker.  Click the link and then compare the picture to mine so you can see how I #nailedit.  I call this new creation “Apples on a Cracker.”

The thing about cooking in someone else’s kitchen when they aren’t home is that sometimes you can’t find what you are looking for.  The things I couldn’t find include measuring cups, measuring spoons, a spatula, and an oven proof skillet.  Minor details.   I think my estimates were off.


But I guess if I was going to have a big Fancy Breakfast Friday Failure, I am lucky that it still tasted good, and my mom will forgive me.