Nate's Pumpkin French Toast

Ok, so GOOD NEWS- my knees are all better!!! YAY!!!! So that means the timing is PERFECT for my back to go out- right?!?
Dangit.
I was pretty much immobile on Friday and to my horror, Logan had to spend a few hours tearing around Nate's office (THANK YOU JESSICA & FRIENDS!) while I went to PT. By Sunday I could move again, but not "make-awesome-Sunday-breakfast" kind of move. I had seen this on Pinterest a while back and was hoping to try it before the "pumpkin season" of 2012 passed, but since I was useless in the kitchen this weekend, I was thrilled when Nate said he'd try it! YAY NATE!!!!

Here's what you will need...
1/4 can of pumpkin (don't worry, we used the other 3/4 of a can to make a dozen muffins and a pumpkin loaf- I'll post that recipe next so you don't have 3/4 of a can of pumpkin sitting around all day!)
3 eggs
about 2/3 - 3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/8 (scant) tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg (a pinch)

6 pieces of samich sliced bread (we used organic whole wheat)

Mix everything in a medium bowl and add a slice of bread- cover completely and let soak about 3 minutes. Meanwhile heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add soaked toast to skillet and cook about 2 minutes per side (until golden) flip once if you can help it- let the next piece up soak during the cooking....and so on, till you are out of bread!

Serve with butter and honey.
...and coffee, lots and lots of coffee, especially if you still have a small child who doesn't grasp how the time change works.

Beet & Potato Breakfast Hash (Nate rules)

One of the million, zillion awesome things about my husband is that he knows I love beets, hot wings, and sushi and indulges those obsessions whenever possible.
Recently, I took my very first mommy-vaycay away from my little man, and spent a whole day & night in grown-up land. Which in this case looked like this:

In all my excitement of being a grown-up on an airplane all by myself for the first time in a while, I stocked right up on magazines, and even had a 9:30 am bloody Mary at the airport- dreamy.
This one was necessary because I drooled on the cover, and then had to by it.

Nate actually read it on our flight home and found the Beet Hash with Eggs recipe you can find on page 64.


Here is Nate's version of that recipe:

2 bunches fresh red beets, tops removed, peeled and diced into cubes
8 Yukon Gold potatoes washed and diced into cubes
1 yellow onion diced
3 eggs* (this is what our pan would fit- we had leftover beets & potatoes, see below...
Salt, pepper, fresh parsley (chopped) and olive oil
small pat of butter

Place the beets and potatoes in a high sided skillet- cover with water, bring to a boil, add salt and cook until tender 10-15 minutes
Drain, set beets and potatoes aside
Add butter and a few T olive oil to pan, over medium heat- add beets and potatoes sautee about 10 minutes, add onion, cook stirring until tender.
Stir in a few T chopped parsley.
Make "wells" in the beet/potato mix and crack an egg into each well.
Cook until egg whites are fully set but yolks still runny.


We had about 2 cups of the beet and potato mix leftover- so we put that on a foil lined cookie sheet, chopped half a bulb of fennel- drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt- cook at 425 for 35 minutes for an awesome Fall side dish!

Bacon Brunch Quiche

You may not automatically equate quiche with tailgating, but it's actually a match made in heaven.
It's a perfect tailgate item for an early game, OR for when you have overnight guests (we tend to have more friends visit in the fall for some reason...) because you can make this the night before and just give it a little re-heat before chowing down!

Our first home game of the season was a 12:30 kick off, and we made plans to meet friends downtown on campus at 9:30am so I had to think of a tailgate menu that would be delicious and brunchy. I made Dorie Greenspan's basic biscuits using whole wheat flour and brought fresh berry jam, we grilled a bunch of chicken apple sausage, and since I've been on a banana bread kick this month (that post is on it's way) I made banana blueberry muffins. This quiche was the savory centerpiece to this picnic tailgate brunch, it was super easy and incredibly delicious.



Serves 8-10

1 9 inch prepared pie crust
1 cup milk
3-4 eggs
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
6 pieces bacon, fully cooked, cooled and chopped into little bits
3 dashes hot sauce
1 cup shredded cheese
Salt
Pepper

Lightly grease a removable-bottom-non-stick tart pan and pre-heat the oven to 450. Lay the pie crust as centered as possible into the pan and lightly press a piece of foil on top of the crust. Bake for 10 minutes, remove foil, reduce heat to 350 and bake another 5-7 minutes, pull out of oven and sprinkle hot crust with 1/2 of the shredded cheese, set aside and let cool.
In a medium pan saute a the onions and bell peppers with a little butter, about 3 minutes until they get a little soft...
In a medium bowl beat the eggs, add milk, a few dashes of hot sauce, salt, pepper and stir to incorporate all ingredients. Sprinkle the chopped, cooked bacon and the onion/pepper mix as evenly as possible in the pie crust on top of the cheese layer. Pour the egg mix in and top with the rest of the shredded cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Let cool, slice up and ENJOY!

Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ok, there has been many a dinner recipe here lately, so I thought I'd mix it up, and sweeten it up a bit! This is a light and almost cake-y muffin that has a very mild flavor so it is really all about the blueberries! I added just a small handful of the chocolate chips for fun, but not too many so they took over the blueberry-yumminess. I think these would also be excellent with the addition of a bit of lemon or orange zest~



Makes 12 giant, 18 medium muffins

1 C. Milk
1 egg
1/3 c veg oil
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 c sugar
1 T. brown sugar
small pinch of salt
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup/ one good sized handful mini chocolate chips
slivered almonds to sprinkle on top

Pre-heat oven to 400 and line a muffin tin with paper liners.
In a medium bowl sift the flour, baking powder and salt-set aside.
In a large bowl, blend the egg, oil and milk until mixed.
Add the sugars and mix for 10 seconds
Using a spoon or spatula slowly stir in the dry ingredients, but don't over-mix, just get all dry ingredients incorporated into milk/egg/oil/sugar mix.
Fill muffin cups about half full and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Let cool 5 minutes in the tin and sprinkle with raw almonds then move muffins to a cooling rack.

I love blueberries with honey, and these are very mildly flavored muffins, so you get a lot of blueberry goodness- I put some butter and honey on these and LOOOOVED it~

Tuesdays With Dorie ~ Dimply Plum Cake

The past two weeks have been chock full of chocolate cookies! Which has been fun and fabulous, but it was nice to switch it up and bake a delicious breakfasty cake for this week's TUESDAYS WITH DORIE. This week's TWD selection comes to us from Michelle of BAKE-EN.




I did omit the cardamom from this recipe because I did not have any and it was really expensive at my grocery store!
Also, I figured since I took so much liberty with last weeks Chunksters, I pretty much stuck to the recipe with this one. You can find this recipe on Michelle's beautiful blog~
I will say I baked this bad-boy ten minutes longer than the recommended 40 minutes and it was still a wee bit under done in the center, but Nate was demanding PLUM CAKE!! PLUM CAKE!!! So be it. It still tasted very good!




Be sure to visit all the TUESDAYS WITH DORIE blogs that made this cake, many got into theplaying around section in the margin and made some awesome fruit and herb combos!

ALOHA and GOOD MORNING- Hawaiian Breakfast

What a weekend!! So this past Saturday was the Los Angeles Underwear Affair, and we took a big walk with our weenie(dog)s in our undies! Nate was big hit in his "Statue of David" spandex shorts and the doggies got lots of love! This was an awesome event that we would love to participate in again next year!


Now, time for breakfast! I wish this was our post-5K breakfast on Sunday, but no such luck...this was our post-4th of July breakfast (you knew I was behind in my blogging!) that was not only incredibly delicious but just the trick after a night of way too much fun :O)



Thanks to LIA for not only making this AWESOME breakfast for us, but for sharing the recipe with me to blog about!

Hawaiian Bread French Toast, satueed Portuguese sausage, white sticky rice & soy sauce scrambled eggs...
With guava juice, of course!!

This is TRUE home cookin' so there are not exact measurements- just play around with the recipe and due to the fabulous ingredients, I think you'll be just fine...

Get a large loaf of King's Hawaiian Bread and slice it into "toast" slices.
Crack eggs into a bowl and whisk together with a little milk, a pinch or two of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg and about 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract.
Dredge the bread in the egg mix and place on a large heated non-stick (or sprayed with non-stick) frying pan or griddle and cook on medium high heat until toasty (about 3-5 minutes) flipping at least once, twice if necessary...

If you're feeding a crowd like Lia was, keep the toast warm while you make the eggs by putting it on a foil lined cookie sheet in the oven.

For the eggs, whisk the eggs in a bowl, pour into heated non-stick pan and stir in a genourous (probably around a tablespoon for 6 eggs) pour of SOY SAUCE, scramble until they are "done" to your liking~

Lia served the toast and eggs along side some good ole white sticky rice ala rice cooker and some sliced and sauteed Portuguese sausage (or I think you can have it with SPAM which I'll have to try next time for SURE!), with a glass of guava juice!!

Breakfast to go! Lil'omlette cups~

I get pretty bored with weekday breakfast pretty quickly. I mean, how much SpecialK and plain oatmeal can one gal eat?!? So I love making these from time to time to mix it up a bit and have a yummy portable egg breakfast that is also low in calories and easy to heat & enjoy!

My favorite way to do this is make a batch on Sunday evening, then have 2 of these little pups for breakfast 3 days the following week...



Makes 6 lil'egg-muffins
5 eggs
1/4 cup non-fat milk
1 piece non-fat cheese
1/2 c frozen chopped spinach
1/3 c frozen diced onion
3 frozen veggie sausage patties- thawed and chopped into bits
Dash of hot sauce
Pinch of salt & pepper to taste

Spray a 6-muffin-tin with non-stick cooking spray.
Whisk the eggs, milk and hot sauce. Then add the onions and spinach, and stir in the chopped up veggie patties until all mixed up. Use a ladle to fill each muffin cup almost to the top (they do rise just a bit). Tear the cheese into 6 equal pieces and float a piece on top of each egg-cup.

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes (the egg will appear totally cooked and look a bit golden when finished).




Serve with MORE hot sauce!! (the above mix ins are just one of a zillion ways to make these,use veggie bacon, a little dollop of goat cheese, fresh herbs- anything you can think of!

Pancakes for Nate

We're big fans of a big breakfast. We like waffles, pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs cooked a million ways, French toast, you name it, we love it. After a big, beautiful wedding we attended on a Saturday night recently, we decided that some homemade pancakes would help bring us back to life on Sunday morning. I try to bake from scratch as much as possible, but I do still use mixes from time to time and depending on the circumstances. This time, per Nate's request, we made a batch of flap-jacks from scratch and they were DELICIOUS!! I had just enough buttermilk leftover from something else, and got to use it before it went bad, which was awesome :)



Seeing as I do not have a generations-old top-secret family buttermilk pancake recipe that I make all the time, I went digging around the Internet and found THIS RECIPE on All Recipes.
It's titled "Truck-Stop Buttermilk Pancakes" and with a name like that, you know they'd better be good!!

This has been scaled to 4 servings

"Truck Stop Buttermilk Pancakes"
Source: All Recipes

2 eggs
1/2 c milk
2 Tbsp butter, melted
1 2/3 c buttermilk
1 2/3 c all-purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 tsp baking soda
1 pinch of salt
1 Tbsp and 2 tsp sugar

In a large bowl whisk eggs, butter and milks. In another bowl combine all dry ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until well combined. Adjust the batter thickness if needed by suing more flour (to make them thicker) or more buttermilk (if they seem too thick). (I didn't need to add a thing- they looked pretty good!)

Heat a large skillet or non-stick griddle to medium/medium-high heat. I use a ladle to pour out the flapjacks onto the griddle. When bubbles start appearing all over the "raw" side of the pancake (facing you) check the "doneness" of the cooked side with a spatula and flip when they are browned to your liking (some peeps like them super golden brown, while others may prefer a lighter pancake).

We served these with good ole butter and syrup, but they would be awesome with some fruit! This was a great, easy recipe that I will be using again. The pancakes were fluffy and delicious and they definitely helped our hangovers!!

Tuesdays With Dorie~Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

WHEW!!! I almost didn't make it this week, but the recipe really sounded way too good to miss out on. I came runnin' home from work Monday night and in the wink of an eye I had some fabulously delicious biscuits on my kitchen table, posing for their close up!! I'd like to shout-out a SUPER HUGE THANKS to ASHLEY over at eat me, delicious for choosing an EXCELLENT recipe for this weeks edition of TUESDAYS WITH DORIE*. I hosted a shower with my mom this weekend so my cookin' time was pretty spent and I nearly missed out on participating this week. Thankfully Erin picked a spectacular recipe that did not take too much prep time, and I was able to come home and make biscuits before Nate arrived home from work! I have been dying to make some biscuits for quite a while. My friend Lisa got me a fabulous gift this Christmas, a subscription to both Gourmet and Bon Appetite magazines!! The first issue I received was all about delicious Southern goodness. I thought about making biscuits, because they had some great recipes and Nate and I are both big biscuit fans. As of this week I had still not come around to making any of those recipes- so I gave this one a whirl, and it ROCKS!!




Another grand thing about this recipe is that you can make the dough, cut the biscuits, then they can be stored in the freezer for up to 2 months! Awesome!!!
I didn't have a biscuit cutter so I used a wine glass, then I thought I'd make some mini biscuits too! They were spectacular, I am a HUGE fan of this recipe!!



Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits
(Makes about 12 biscuits)
Dorie Greenspan's Baking; From My Home to Yours

2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup cake flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces
1/2 cup cold sour cream
1/4 cold whole milk I used non-fat
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans, preferably toasted

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Get out a sharp 2-inch-diameter biscuit cutter and line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Whisk the flour(s), baking powder, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl. Stir in the brown sugar, making certain there are no lumps. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips (my favorite method) or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You'll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between-- and that's just right.

Stir the sour cream and milk together and pour over the dry ingredients. Grab a fork and gently toss and turn the ingredients together until you've got a nice soft dough. Now reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick gentle kneading-- 3 or 4 turns should be just enough to bring everything together. Toss in the pecans and knead 2 to 3 times to incorporate them.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour, pat the dough out with your hands or toll it with a pin until it is about 1/2 inch high. Don't worry if the dough isn't completely even-- a quick, light touch is more important than accuracy.
Use the biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can. Try to cut the biscuits close to one another so you get the most you can out of the first round. By hand or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet.

Gather together the scraps, working with them as little as possible, pat out to a 1/2-inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer these to the sheet. (The biscuits ca be made to this point and frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight and kept for up to 2 months. Bake without defrosting-- just add a couple more minutes to the oven time.)

Bake the biscuits for 14-18 minutes, or until they are tall, puffed and golden brown. Transfer them to a serving basket.

French Toast

Nate has been super sweet to me this weekend (he always is!), so since the time has changed and we got a whole extra hour to sleep I used that extra time to make French toast for our Sunday morning breakfast. I have not made this in AGES, and forgot how much I love it!
Nate had some fried eggs with his and I usually make this with bacon or breakfast sausage, but we didn't have any...



Beth's French Toast

4 Slices wheat bread
2 eggs
softened butter
sugar
cinnamon

Butter both sides of each slice of bread. Lightly coat each buttered side with sugar and cinnamon. In a bowl big enough for a piece of bread, mix the 2 eggs well with a fork. Heat a medium skillet on the stove, on medium head- spray it with non-stick spray. Using the fork dunk the prepared bread slice in the eggs, flip the bread over to make sure it is coated in egg. Place egg'd bread in heated skillet and cook on medium for about 2-3 minutes or until golden brown, flip and do the same on the other side. Repeat for other pieces!
Serve with syrup and powdered sugar.

Pulled Pork Omlette

I was still recovering from a week of being super-sick this morning, and while I relaxed on the couch, Nate made this amazing omelet. We made Pulled Pork on Thursday for dinner, and I had leftover mozzarella cheese from the Baked Penne and he brought those two yummy leftovers together into this brilliant breakfast.

3 Jumbo Eggs
Leftover Root beer bbq pulled pork
Shredded Mozzarella cheese

Spray a large skillet with non-stick cooking spray. Mix eggs with a fork and pour into heated, sprayed pan. Let the eggs cook until just the very top is not cooked, Add pork and cheese to half the circle of eggs and flip one side over to make the omelet. Flip once after about 1 minutes and flip again after 2 minute.
Serve with hot salsa.

Zucchini Bread

I had never had this before, and quite frankly I did not think I would like it. Nate convinced me & he shredded up all the zucchini and we made a few loaves of zucchini bread. I do like it, but it's just not my fave, it was fun to make something new and different though!




We sort of improvised the recipe but got tips from several reviews on ALL RECIPES

3 c. flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
3 large eggs
1/2 c. oil
1/2 c. no sugar added apple sauce
2 T. vanilla
1 c. loose brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
2 c. shredded zucchini
1 c. chopped walnuts

Grease 2 regular loaf pans
Preheat oven to 325

In medium bowl sift together flour, salt, baking powder,baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg. In separate bowl cream eggs, sugars, vanilla, oil, applesauce until well combined. Sift & mix in dry ingredients until well combined. Fold in zucchini using spatula or wooden spoon, stir in walnuts.
Pour into prepared pans, bake 40-50 minutes or until a knife (or shish-kabob stick) comes out clean.

Bakingblonde's Berry Cheesecake Muffins~

I hope I didn't mess this recipe up too bad! I definately pulvurized the raspberries, and used 6oz of cream cheese but the cheese mixture seemed thin,which could have been the liquid from pulvurized berries~ sometimes even with directions right in front of me- chaos is the only outcome! Nate freaking LOVED them, I was expecting something that had like a layer of cheesecake in it, and since I wasn't sure what they were supposed to look like, so I was on the fence till I had one. They might have come out a little funky looking- but the taste was gooood!
I got this recipe from Bakingblonde on the Nest's What's Cooking? Board. Thanks, it's a keeper! I'll defintely try to make them again sometime... Also, I skipped the pecans because I totally spaced buying them at the store!





Definitely Berry Cheesecake Muffins
By Bakingblonde
1/3 cup butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temp
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup milk
6 oz. cream cheese, softened (I used 3oz. regular, 3 oz. 1/3 less fat)
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg, room temp
1/2 cup fresh raspberries (I used about 3/4 cup)
1 cup fresh blueberries (I didn't have quite a full cup)
3 TBS brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1 TBS butter, chilled
Preheat oven to 375. Lightly spray a muffin tin with PAM spray.
In a small mixing bowl combine the baking powder, flour and cinnamon. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and mix well. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternating with the milk. Using an ice cream scoop, fill the prepared muffin cups 1/2 full with batter. Set aside.
In a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and mix well. Add the egg and mix to combine and mixture is smooth.
Fold in the fresh berries. Divide mixture evenly over batter in muffin tin by dropping by tablespoonfulls on top of batter in the muffin tins.
In another small bowl combine the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon and pecans. Stir to combine well. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender or two knives until crumbly.
Sprinkle crumb topping evenly over cream cheese/fruit mixture in each muffin cup.

Bake for 22-27 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes and transfer to rack.
Serve warm for breakfast or with a scoop of ice cream for dessert

Nate's Weekend Breakfasts

I'm one lucky lady! Nate made me breakfast this past Saturday AND Sunday!! Saturday was a fun experiment gone right~ Breakfast Souffle

Recipe, improvised
He followed the Biscut instructions on the bisquick box and that was the bottom layer in a corningware dish

Then he whiped together
4 eggs
dash of salt and pepper
1/4 of a sweet white onion, chopped
1/2 cup cubed sharp cheddar cheesse
~next time we will add a 1/2 cup of cubbed ham as well!~
Then bake at 325 for about 20 minutes (our oven is whack, so keep an eye)

Day 2 (Sunday)
Was good ole fried eggs and biscuts, I love a man that cooks!