You know what the best meal ever is?  Dessert.  But you know what the best meal ever after dessert is?  Brunch.  And do you know why?  Consider the Venn diagram below.  Study it closely.  Learn its truths.

Today was a grand and glorious celebration in the holy and delicious name of a meal time that occurs between 10am and 2pm.  We called it, Brunchapalooza! 

It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while–basically a giant potluck of everyone’s favorite brunch-time foods and drinks.  We had baked french toast casserole, corned beef hash, three kinds of quiche, polenta cake with glaze and whipped cream, sticky buns, scones, clotted cream, fruit, spicy Bloody Marys, you name it, we had it.  I captured a bit of it with Evernote Food.

More pics here

In addition to the traditional Bloody Mary, we also had (my favorite brunch drink) mimosas, with a variety of fruit juices available.  That’s what brings us to this post today.  Because these mimosas were no ordinary mimosas.  No, we raised the bar a little bit (no alcohol pun intended—or is it?) on these.

Remember that mango ice cream I wrote about last week?  Well you won’t forget it after this.

I made another batch of mango ice cream this morning, just before brunch.  Then, when everyone arrived, I put scoops of the ice cream into each wine glass.  Then everyone could customize their mimosa the way they liked—traditional orange juice, orange-pineapple juice or passionfruit juice, champagne, and even strawberries or other fruit dropped in.  So we ended up with mango mimosa floats.

I’ll say that again, a bit slower.  Mango.  Mimosa.  Ice cream.  Floats.  Or mangomosa floats, as I’m now calling them.

And it was freaking delicious.

So this is my gift to you, this simple suggestion to liven up your next brunch: add ice cream.  Oh and champagne.    Trust me on this one.

Related posts:

1. The Mango Tango, Pt 2
2. The Mango Tango, pt 1
3. What this new year needs is biscuits and pie

But if I can’t have a personal automotive levitation device, I might as well have the next best thing this new year: brunch. I love brunch. First of all, it’s a delightfully crunchy-sounding word. Brrrrruncccchhh. It’s like weekend-in-a-bowl. It’s also flexible, relaxing, laid back, amenable to last minute plans, sociable and full of delicious flavors and my friends and I are indeed fans of delicious flavors (and also of the TV show Psych). Thus, we are big believers in the awesome healing powers of a good brunch.

Our last brunch was a bit last-minute. It was a couple weeks ago and the planning started on Friday, I think, with Paul messaging me as to whether we were interested in brunching at his place on Sunday. On Saturday, he laid out his menu ideas and we assigned tasks during a quick phone call and then we went grocery shopping for whatever items we didn’t already have in stock. On Sunday, Josh, myself, Brian and Rita trooped over to Paul’s house to get the party started, so to speak, with him and his roommates.

There were seven of us total, and Paul and I did the cooking. We had two versions of a chorizo-potato scramble (one with regular Mexican chorizo, one with vegetarian chorizo), red and green bell peppers stuffed with eggs, milk, veggies, herbs and cheese, refried beans, tortillas, various accompaniments, fruit, mimosas and cinnamon martinis. There was also pie. The godmother of all pies, in my opinion.

The night before, Paul had made two cinnamon pies (yes, Psych fans, inspired by the Twin Peaks episode) and we ate one with dollops of homemade whipped cream. None of us had ever had such a thing before and it was pretty fantastic. Sweet, delicate, light—sort of textured like tres leche cake–and the cinnamon level was perfect. It was the kind of pie you just want to eat and eat and eat, with a cup of steaming hot cocoa on the side, on a cold snowy day (or as we in Michigan call it, “November to April”). The recipe for that is at the bottom of the page.

None of the dishes we made were particularly difficult. For the scrambles, Paul parcooked chopped potatoes the night before. Then that morning, we cooked the chorizo, removed it from the pan, then sautéed onions, garlic and potatoes in the juices before adding the chorizo back in, topping it all with eggs and letting it bake in the oven until the eggs were set. The peppers were stuffed with about two eggs each mixed with some milk, herbs, veggies and topped with cheese and baked until set. We made mimosas and then martinis with vodka that Paul had infused with cinnamon and apples. It’s the way meals with your friends should be—low pressure, multiple people can do a little bit to help out (chopping, sautéeing, making drinks), there’s a good variety of easy to make dishes and plenty of opportunity to just hang out, relax, eat, drink and be merry. Simple. The way brunch was always intended.

Speaking of simple, let’s move on to biscuits. I think biscuits are, for people who don’t generally make them often–given a bad rap for being difficult. The taste isn’t there, or they don’t rise, or they fall apart or something. Or we think they’ll take forever to make…I mean, bread from scratch on a Sunday morning? Uh, no thanks. Goodbye rolling pin, hello Pillsbury. Right?

No. Do not be afraid. Biscuits are perfect for brunch.

Let’s count the reasons why:

1. Both words start with B. Clearly this means something important; alliteration is only ever used for good, and not evil.

2. Biscuits are deliciousness embodied in a delicate, flaky, buttery form. Food is art…and biscuits are like Botticelli’s Venus. They call to you. Look, over there. It’s a biscuit…in a seashell. Of awesomeness.

3. Biscuits are extremely flexible in terms of companions. I don’t want to say that biscuits have loose morals or anything, but they really get around the table, if you know what I mean. Butter, jam, gravy, cheese, grits, meats of varying stripes of fat. Even hollandaise. I know. I know. Even hollandaise.

4. Biscuits are easy to make and they can be made in 20 minutes or less. Yes. 20 minutes?! you say. But Lauren,  how can that be?

Never fear, dear anonymous internet person.  Let me take you on a fantastic voyage.  Picture yourself in the passenger seat of my nuclear powered flying car while we soar through the sky, flanked by pegasuses (pegasi?) towing lovely biscuits seated on giant seashells of butter. Or…just read the recipe below.
Buttermilk Biscuits
Adapted from What We’re Eating

2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp cold butter, chopped, plus 2 tbsp melted (set aside)
3/4 c. buttermilk
1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 500F.

Put flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. With your hands or a fork, add in the cold butter a bit at a time, mashing it into the flour mixture until it all resembles a course meal with tiny lumps of flour and butter.

Add in the buttermilk. Mix everything together thoroughly but try not to mix too much–you don’t want to overwork the dough.

Gather the dough (it’ll be a bit sticky at first) into a ball and then dump it out onto a flour-coated surface. Roll into a 1″ thick circle.

Using a cookie or biscuit cutter, or the edge of a round glass, cut out the biscuits. Grab up the remaining edges of the dough, pat back into shape and cut out any more biscuits you can. You should get about 8 or so from one batch of dough.

Place biscuits on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with baking spray, or laid with parchment paper. Mix honey with melted butter and brush onto the tops of the biscuits.  Bake for 10 minutes or until risen and golden brown.  Mmm. biscuits.

Paul’s Cinnamon Pie

1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch salt
2 egg, beaten
2 tbsp butter, melted, plus a tablespoon solid to coat the crust with
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups half and half or milk
1 (10 inch) unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt. Add the beaten egg, butter, and vanilla. Mix well and add the milk.

Coat the pie crust with butter.   Pour the cinnamon mixture into an unbaked 10 inch pie crust (a glass pie plate is best).

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350F and bake for an additional 45 minutes. Let cool and serve. (It may seem overly liquid-y, but it will set as it cools.)  Refrigerate any leftovers.

Related posts:

1. Tart it up
2. Granola Bar Cookies
3. “It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”

Chickens are jerks.

But they do produce tasty, tasty eggs.  And I’ll admit that deep down I always hope that I’ll someday get to raise some chickens in my backyard that will be as awesome as Billina, the talking chicken from Return to Oz or even Chicken Boo from the Animaniacs.  That silly Chicken Boo.  He thinks he’s people.  But mostly, I really just like eggs.

Unlike other breakfast foods, which are often greasy or absolutely bursting with sugar which is not a good way for me to start off the morning, eggs are just complete little packages of deliciousness.  I like them scrambled, fried for sandwiches, hardboiled, deviled, baked with herbs and olive oil, and occasionally I like to go all out on the weekend and I very slowly scramble them over low heat for about 10-15 minutes with olive oil, butter, a touch of cream and shavings of my favorite flavored Monterey Jack cheese.  That last one, by the way, is deadly but delicious.  Eat lovingly but sparingly.

But I also like to make Eggs in Purgatory, which is basically eggs cooked in spicy tomato sauce.  One of my favorite egg breakfasts.  And you know what breakfast is really good for?  Dinner. 

I was on my own last night, as Josh was out buying me a baby elephant doing freelance somewhere.  It was cold, so I wasn’t going to walk anywhere, and I had no car.  I also had been too lazy to defrost any meat during the day and we have no microwave so something vegetarian was the order of the day.  Inspired by something I’d read earlier in the day about incorporating more veggies into your breakfast, I decided to do just that and make a souped-up version of eggs in purgatory–eggs reprieved, if you will.  I had a lot of canned tomato sauce, since Josh had, over the past two weeks, just canned about 75-80 pounds of tomatoes.  And I had onions, garlic, potatoes and bell peppers from our very last Needle Lane farm share box of the week (sob!). And I had olive oil and butter on hand because…well, I always have olive oil and butter on hand.

So it went like this, and again–this is really more of a guideline.  A method, per se.  You can mix and match just about whatever you like in this dish; it’s very versatile.  It’s one of those clean-out-the-veggie drawer sort of things and if there happens to be more than one person at your dinner table, it’s very easy to scale.

First I heated a couple drizzles of olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat while I sliced a couple small Yukon gold potatoes and one small onion into half inch rounds.  Then I added a bit of butter to the skillet and placed the potato and onion slices in.  I let them fry there for about the length of two classic Motown hits, or about 7 minutes, until golden on the bottom side.  While they fried, I diced a clove of garlicand one small bell pepper and added them to the pan as well.  After the end of the second Motown song (Bring It On Home to Me by Sam Cooke if you must know), I flipped the potatoes over.  Then I added in two cups of tomato sauce (just cooked, pureed tomatoes—diced tomatoes, salsa, anything similar would also work) and a couple tablespoons of Sriracha sauce (to your taste, of course), and a pinch of salt and pepper.  This I covered and let simmer for 8 minutes or so, until the potatoes were almost tender.  Then I cracked two eggs on top of the tomatoes, sprinkled with olive oil, salt and pepper, re-covered and let cook for 5-7 more minutes, or until the yolks were set.  I grated a bit of my favorite jack cheese over the top, sprinkled on some chopped green onions and served to myself with a side of cornbread (ain’t nothing wrong with that).

Dinner for one and delicious.

Related posts:

1. Green Eggs…and some ham
2. I don’t really eat breakfast foods, but this one is an exception
3. Meal For One: Black and Green Pasta

All right, well maybe not.  But it did give birth to these pancakes.  But don’t worry; it was a lot cleaner than you think, and with less screaming.

I’ve struggled to make good pancakes for a while.  I could do it when I was a kid but that was when we bought like, Aunt Jemima boxed mix and it was chemically engineered to be so easy that even a 9 year old could do it.  But when I try to make that kind of magic out of raw ingredients on my own, sometimes it doesn’t work out.  They turn out rubbery or chewy or whatever.  This is, of course, a travesty because Josh likes pancakes.  So Lauren practices her pancakes.  I have a go-to recipe that I trot out and it’s usually pretty good but a few weeks ago, I found a way to make it even better.  And then earlier this week, I tried it again for dinner.  And let me tell you, it works.  What’s the secret, you ask?

Uh well duh, did you not read the previous few paragraphs?  Cream, silly.  Fresh heavy cream makes delightfully light, tasty pancakes. I found this out by accident.  I wanted to make these, like I said, a few weeks ago, but had no butter left whatsoever (shock! awe!).  I figured I could just skip it–it’s only a few tablespoons–and make up for the loss of fat by substituting some of the milk in the recipe for cream–of which I had a copious amount, thanks to our weekly dairy delivery from Calder’s.  It made the batter very thick.  So thick that I said to myself, “I may not have though this cunning plan all the way through.”  But I forged ahead anyway, scooping the dough batter out with an ice cream scooping and plopping it down on my griddle that was preheated to 350F.  I thought for sure they were just going to stick and burn.  But they did not.  They turned out fluffy, with great texture and lightly sweet, fabulous flavor.

So this week, when I wanted to make breakfast for dinner again (I love doing that), I decided to make another batch of the pancakes, with a few fried eggs (drizzled with olive oil and thyme, as fried eggs should always be) on the side.  I also decided, inspired perhaps by the delicious blueberry-lime mojito slushies my friend Paul made at our bbq fest the weekend before, to make a fruity sauce for my fluffy pancake pillows of delight.  (You like that don’t you?)  Luckily, I had several pounds of blueberries in the freezer thanks to Josh’s berry-hoarding habit.  I also had leftover limes from the aforementioned mojito slushies.  I also had….wait for it…lots of cream.

Now, those of you watching your waistlines (whether they are expanding or contracting) should not recoil in fear here.  There is cream in both parts of this recipe, yes but not a lot and this is a batch of pancakes meant to be shared.  Moderation, people.

So I put a pound of frozen blueberries in a pot, with the juice and zest of one lime and set them to cooking over medium heat until the juices started flowing and it cooked down a third or so.  Then I turned the heat down and added a splash of cream and let it simmer on the stove while I made the pancakes.

There.  That’s it.  That’s all.  It’s brilliantly easy.  It’s sweet.  It’s tasty.  It’s full of antioxidants.  Oh and cream.  Sweet primordial cream.

Cream Pancakes with Blueberry-Lime Sauce

Pancakes
1 cup all-purpose  flour
2  teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar in the raw (or regular sugar if that’s what you got)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. heavy cream
baking spray

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, egg, milk and cream and mix until just combined. Make sure you do not over mix the batter or the pancakes will be tough.

Heat a frying pan or griddle over medium high heat until a few sprinkles of water dropped on the pan or griddle splatter. Spray griddle with baking spray.Using a small ladle or scoop, pour about 1/4 cup of pancake batter onto the pan, spacing the pancakes a few inches from each other. When the bottoms of the pancakes are brown and bubbles start to appear on the top surfaces of the pancakes (2-3 minutes), turn over.

Cook until lightly browned (about 1-2 minutes)

Blueberry Lime Sauce
1 lb frozen (or fresh) blueberries
the juice and zest of 1 lime
2 tbsp heavy cream

Put blueberries, juice and zest into a saucepan over medium heat.  Bring to a simmer and cook down by about a third.  Reduce heat to low, add cream.  Cook for 4-5 more minutes.  Ladle over pancakes.

Related posts:

1. Step One: Learn How to Make a Basic Pancake
2. Hearts of Pom: French Toast Style
3. Banaberry Streusel Muffins

Ok, maybe not.  Maybe it won’t instantly unclog your arteries but it is full of antioxidants and hey, every little bit helps.

Oh, also it’s really tasty.  And let’s be honest here.  That’s the most important thing.  What did Lennon used to say?  “All you need is love deliciousness.”  I’m pretty sure that’s what he said. It sounds right.

So anyway…I came up with this on kind of a whim this past Sunday.  I come up with most things on a whim.  And a prayer….Who could it be?  Believe it or not, it’s just meeeeeee…..

Sorry.  Had a “Greatest American Hero” moment there for a second.  Where was I?

Oh, right, right, french toast.  With pomegranate.

Josh is a big fan of french toast.  I’m really more of pancake gal myself, but Josh, he loves him the pain perdu.  He makes a mean french toast casserole.  The only downside is that french toast casseroles take some planning and work.  And you know me–I like to do things on a whim.  And a prayer.  Who could it be?  Sorry, I’ll stop now.  Anyway, I like to do things on a whi–er, more spontaneously, and with few ingredients.  I honestly was just preparing a basic french toast batter and I thought, hmm, maybe I could just throw in some of that pomegranate juice and add a little flavor without any real work.  Turns out, yes I can.

And so can you.

This, like so many things I do, is more of a method than an exact recipe.  We use challah bread for our french toast dishes, because it’s soft and eggy and soaks up that batter like a sponge.  The pomegranate juice doesn’t dye the bread red (somewhat sadly) but it does give it a nice berry sweetness, and you don’t even have to soak it for long.  I made it again for dinner tonight alongside a couple pieces of good fried bacon and apple pork breakfast sausage.  We ate it topped with maple syrup but I think a fruit compote would be just as delightful.

Pomegranate French Toast

4 thick slices challah bread
3 eggs
1/4 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice

Mix the eggs, cream and juice in a baking dish.  Place bread into egg mixture and let sit for about two minutes.  Flip carefully and let marinate a couple minutes more.

While that’s soaking, heat up a large cast-iron frying pan or a griddle pan, or an electric griddle, over medium heat (or set electric griddle to about 300F).  Spray with baking spray.  Carefully lift challah slices out of the egg mixture, letting the excess drip off, and place on the griddle.  Fry until golden, about 4-5 minutes per side.  Dish out and serve.  Believe it or not, you’ll be walking on air…

…you never thought you could feel so freeeeeeee….

Related posts:

1. Apple French Toast Casserole
2. A little cream makes everything better
3. Step One: Learn How to Make a Basic Pancake

You see, when a banana and a blueberry love each other very much, they go out on a date.  Sometimes drinking is involved and they end up doing some things they don’t remember in the morning, which is probably for the best as it’s most likely somewhat uncomfortable and disgusting.  Banana sneaks out in the morning to avoid awkward conversation.  And shortly later the fruit of their love is born: the banaberry.

Or…

In coming up with a more succinct name for these muffins I baked yesterday, I shortened the original lengthy moniker of “Banana Blueberry Muffins with Walnut Streusel” by combining the terms “Banana” and “Blueberry” into “Banaberry.”  But that’s hardly romantic now, is it?

Anyway, so I was home all day yesterday.  It was a planned day off to wait for FedEx to drop off my new iPhone (yes, I’m one of those).  What was not planned was that FedEx dropped it off a day early on Tuesday.  But hey, I’d already taken the day off.  Might as well be productive and bake something delicious.

Three somethings, actually.  I made a couple batches of les petits pains au chocolat for Josh, some more cornbread (sans the prosciutto this time) for both of us (but mostly me, really) and a batch of these rather lovely little muffins, which I took to work.

Now, I don’t make muffins usually.  Josh does it.  He makes very tasty little blueberry muffins with a recipe from Alton Brown, I believe.  I wasn’t sure how well it would turn out when I took a basic muffin recipe off AllRecipes.com and tweaked it to fit my liking but it turned out pretty good!  I are so smrt.  S-m-r-t!  But anyway, yeah, good fruity flavor, nice crumb, excellent texture from the streusel topping.  My coworker Chase proclaimed them, “Pretty awesome.”  So there, you see?  If you ever need to make muffins for Chase, these have his approval.  Not bad day’s work for a day off from work. 

Banaberry Streusel Muffins
Makes 12

For the muffins:
1.5 c. unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp vanilla
1 egg
1/3 c. mik
2 bananas, unpeeled
1 heaping cup fresh or frozen blueberries

For the streusel:
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 c.  butter, softened
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon
1/4 c. walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 400F.  Place bananas, unpeeled, on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the peels are blackened and the flesh is soft.  Let cool.

Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, vanilla, egg and milk until just combined.  Slit bananas open and scoop flesh into the batter, mixing thoroughly.  Carefully fold in blueberries.  Let batter sit while you put together the streusel.

Put sugar, flour, pumpkin pie spice and walnuts in a medium bowl and cut together until a crumbly mixture forms, making sure the butter is well dispersed.

Prep a 12-cup muffin tin with baking spray, or line with muffin liners.  Use an ice cream scoop to spoon out the muffin batter into each cup.  Sprinkle streusel mixture evenly over the muffins.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until done.

Eat!

Related posts:

1. Do you know the muffin man?
2. Vanilla cupcakes with roasted banana frosting
3. “It happens every time; they all become blueberries.”

Sam-I-Am would approve

So you know that I’m not a huge fan of breakfast foods (my friends tease me because my favorite workweek breakfast is a bagel with chicken salad on top), but I do occasionally like eggs.  If I’m going all out, I like to scramble them slowly over low heat with cream, olive oil, herbs and parmesan for a very unhealthy delicious and creamy dish served over asparagus and next to bacon or ham.  And sometimes I like eggs in purgatory served next to black beans and tortillas.  But sometimes I just want simple, low-fuss eggs but with high-end taste.  And Sunday was one of those days.  So I threw together this little dish.

This is more of an idea than a recipe.  A no-recipe recipe, if you will.  Guidelines.  Suggestions.  You know.

Anyway, I took two little oven-safe ceramic dishes, or ramekins, and filled each with enough pureed tomato sauce to cover the bottom.  Then I sprinkled the sauce with a bit of red pepper flake, salt and pepper and stirred it up a bit.  Then I created two small wells in the sauce in each dish and cracked one egg into each well.  Sprinkle the eggs with a bit of milk or cream and I put those ramekins on a cookie sheet and into the oven at 400F for about 20-25 minutes, or until the eggs set.

While that was cooking, I put a small pot over low heat on the stove and threw in some spices.  The idea was to create a flavor-infused olive oil to drizzle over the eggs when they were done.  I put in a bit of red pepper flake, some salt, some pepper, some dried oregano and a few sprigs of fresh thyme and then poured about a quarter cup of olive oil over it and just let it sit on the low heat until the thyme was nicely fried and crunchy and the oil was infused.  Then I turned off the heat and just let it sit there.  When the eggs were done, I spooned the sauce on top.

I roasted a bit of fresh asparagus as well (just rubbed it with olive oil, salt and pepper and threw it on the cookie sheet next to the egg ramekins), heated up some sliced ham and served it along side the eggs with a few cornbread muffins.  Ta-da.

And that is how I do fancy, no-fuss breakfasts.

Related posts:

1. Meal for One: Eggs Out of Purgatory
2. Green Goddess Potato Salad…
3. How Green is My Pasta: Penne + Avocado = Pastocado?

But Josh likes pancakes.  And I imagine I should learn to try to like breakfast foods more—at the very least, to make it less awkward when going out to eat and everyone else is ordering bacon, eggs, french toast and bagels and I’m ordering chicken caesar salad.  Yeah, I’ve done that.  At Angelos.  You can get the chicken caesar there anytime.  Also, I often get deli chicken salad and bread at Amer’s or Cafe Zola.  But anyway—we’re talking about breakfasty foods here.  So in an effort to be a more “breakfasty” person, I decide that what I need to do is just jump feet first into the syrupy pool of carbs and starches that everyone else seems to know and love.

First, however, I need to master the basic pancake.  You know, sweet, fluffy, light, nicely browned.  Not too doughy, not too flat.  Pancakes.  You know, pancakes.

So I went online and found a pretty basic recipe from the Joy of Baking, which is a good source for information and tips.  I got out my electric griddle–you can use a stovetop one, or a big skillet, whatever.  And then I just followed directions, more or less.  I will say that I sifted all the dry ingredients first, and that after mixing everything together, my batter seemed a bit…thick…so I added a bit more milk until it reached a consistency that seemed more normal to me.  And I did not overstir.

How did it come out?  Really pretty good, actually.  Simple, easy, fast.  I stored finished cakes in the oven, set at 200F, until the next batch was done, to keep them hot.  I served a couple slices of fried Black Forest ham on the side and topped them off with real maple syrup–the good stuff.  Josh was suitably impressed.  Me?  I have reached a mini-milestone of accomplishment.

Next week?  Upping the ante with cinnamon sugar pancakes.  I don’t have a recipe for that yet, but I’m going to make on up on my own.  Stay tuned….

Basic Buttermilk Pancake Recipe from Joy of Baking

1 cup (140 grams) all-purpose  flour
2  teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (28 grams) granulated white sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup (240 ml) milk
2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter, melted
Plus extra melted butter for greasing the pan

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.  In a separate bowl whisk together the egg, milk, and melted butter. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, all at once, and stir or whisk just until combined. The batter should have some small lumps. Make sure you do not over mix the batter or the pancakes will be tough.

Heat a frying pan or griddle over medium high heat until a few sprinkles of water dropped on the pan or griddle splatter. Using a pastry brush, brush the pan with a little melted butter.Using a small ladle or scoop, pour about 1/4 cup of pancake batter onto the pan, spacing the pancakes a few inches from each other. When the bottoms of the pancakes are brown and bubbles start to appear on the top surfaces of the pancakes (2-3 minutes), turn over.

Cook until lightly browned (about 1-2 minutes).Repeat with remaining batter, brushing the pan with melted butter between batches.  Serve immediately with butter and maple syrup.

Makes about 8 – 3-inch (7.5 cm) pancakes.  Serves 3-4 people.

For Blueberry Pancakes: Sprinkle fresh blueberries on the tops of the pancakes just as bubbles start to appear on the top surface of the frying batter.

Related posts:

1. A little cream makes everything better
2. Hearts of Pom: French Toast Style
3. Leave it to me to make a blondie that’s actually brown

Immediately I thought, “I’ll do something French.”  It’s my usual fallback.  I credit this to five years of French class and billions of hours spent watching Pepe LePew cartoons in my youth.  That crazy Pepe.  Doesn’t he realize that’s a kitty?

I had the perfect recipe in mind, too, something I saw recently on FoodTV: balsamic chocolate truffles.  While technically a recipe from Everyday Italian, I consider truffles French.  And even if they were Italian….still fits the international theme.  Also: chocolate.  Win-win.  But then I actually read the recipe and realized it would take like 4 hours to make those things and there was no guarantee they’d come out right the first time, and it’s a weeknight and well—maybe those were better left for a weekend project.  C’est la vie.

So now I had to think of a real dish.  Go go gadget brain!  So to speak.  I scrolled through the 15 or so recipes in my Evernote cookbook that are tagged “French” until I found one for a Roquefort quiche.

Hmm.  Quiche, you say?

According to the omniscient Wikipedia, quiche is a:

baked dish that is based on a custard made from eggs and milk or cream in a pastry crust. Usually, the pastry shell is blind baked before the other ingredients are added for a secondary baking period. Other ingredients such as cooked chopped meat, vegetables, or cheese are often added to the egg mixture before the quiche is baked. Quiche is generally an open pie (i.e. does not contain a pastry covering), but may include an arrangement of tomato slices or pastry off-cuts for a decorative finish. Quiche can be eaten warm but is more commonly eaten cold, making it a suitable component of the food served in a typical summer picnic.

Commonly eaten cold, or room temperature…perfect for an office party.  Also, easy to make, efficient and provides a nice platter for toppings an ingredients.  Ching ching, all aboard for the Idea Express.

I ended up not making the Roquefort one, nor any of the other quiche recipes I looked up because I’m a rebel and I don’t need the claustrophobic and rigid rules imposed by imperialist recipes.  Ok, that’s not true, but I do still consider recipes to be much like the Pirate Code: “really more like guidelines, anyway.”  I knew that I wanted the quiche to be vegetarian, light, pretty and flavorful, so I opted to go with some standard Mediterranean ingredients: tomatoes, spinach, herbs and goat cheese.

Oh and not just any goat cheese.  Drunken goat cheese.

goat!

I know what you’re thinking.  “Wow, the people in the Mediterranean love their wine so much they even give it to their goats!”  No.  Well, maybe.  Someone might.  I’m not one to judge the farmer-goat relationship; that seems kind of private.  But no, “drunken goat cheese” is actually soaked in wine for a couple of days, hence the “drunken” and made from goats milk, hence the “goat” and is cheese….hence the uh, “cheese.”

Quiche is actually extremely easy to make, especially if you do what I did and use a pre-made pie crust (it’s not cheating, it’s efficient).  It’s also extremely versatile and scales very nicely.  I noticed that most of the recipes I looked at used 3-4 eggs for a 9″ pie crust and some cream and went from there.  I used my food processor to mix the ingredients thoroughly and grate the cheese, but all that can be done by hand.  I just happened to be gadgetically oriented.  (If “gadgetically” wasn’t a real word before, it still isn’t, but I’m going to continue using it anyway.  Gadgetically.)

Now for a confession: I didn’t taste the quiche before I sent it off with Josh.  No, I didn’t.  How do I know it was any good?  I don’t.  I relied on my gastronomical inner voice and my sense of smell.  And whew, thank goodness they were working because the reports that rolled in after the potluck yesterday were all extremely positive.  Whew.

The Drunken Goat Quiche
Makes 1 9″ quiche, serves however many you want depending on how small you slice it

1 9″pie crust, baked according to package directions
4 large eggs
1/2 c. (or so) heavy cream
5oz frozen spinach, thawed and drained well*
3/4 a pint of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 tbsp herbs de Provence (or just dried Thyme if that’s all you have)
1/2 tbsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2oz drunken goat cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine the eggs, heavy cream, herbs, salt, pepper and goat cheese in a blender, food processor, or mix thoroughly by hand.  Add in the spinach and tomatoes and gently fold in by hand.

Set pie crust (still in pan) on a baking sheet that’s been lined with tin foil.  Pour egg mixture into the crust, smoothing out the top with a spoon.

Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes or until the egg mixture is set.  If you find that the pie crust is getting too dark while baking, wrap foil around the edges before putting it back in the oven.

*If you’ve never used frozen spinach before, you’ll want to run it under hot water until it begins to thaw out (it will get everywhere so be careful) and then wring the water out of it by placing it in a clean dish towel and squeezing for a good minute or two.  A lot of water will come out, which is good, but surprising.  However, you want to get as much of the liquid out as you can or it’ll interfere with your eggs baking.

Related posts:

1. Joie de vivre: bacon, onions, butter, potatoes, goat cheese, mushrooms, cream and wine
2. Brunchin’ Munchin’: Freakin’ Fantastic Frittata
3. Meal For One: Black and Green Pasta

Shortly before Christmas, my grandmother gave me a cast-iron skillet.  Gorgeous one, too, with nice high sides.  I have no idea how old it is but judging by the facts that it had been laying in the back of a cupboard, she couldn’t quite remember how she got it it and that the average age of items in her home is 53, I’m going to assume it’s probably about as old as me. But it’s nice high sides, ability to maintain a constant high heat and ease of going between the stove and the oven made it perfect for this morning’s potato and spinach frittata.

I’ve made frittatas before but I just want to reiterate how fantastic they are.  You can put anything into one, they’re fast and easy to make, very filling, easy to expand for as many people as you like and best of all, easily done in one pan.

I had intended there to be ham in this frittata but while shopping for the cheese and spinach, I completely forgot about that.  However, I didn’t even miss the meat, but you can always toss some in if you like or serve something on the side.  Like…well, just about everything else I make, there’s no real recipe here.  Just a method and some options.

So first I cut up about a third of a large onion and diced it, along with two garlic cloves.  Reflecting back, probably one garlic clove is enough; was a bit much for me but Josh adores garlic, so it was fine with him.  Anyway, I sautéed all that in the cast-iron skillet over medium heat in a bit of olive oil and butter.  While that was cooking along, I steamed one medium russet potato in the microwave, wrapped in a paper towel, for about 5 minutes or until fork tender.  Then I let it cool down a bit while I grated two ounces of Swiss cheese in my food processor (obviously, if you have pregrated, you can skip this step).

Then I scooped out the nicely browned onions and garlic and put them into a bowl with two cups of fresh baby spinach, leaving the tasty oil behind in the skillet.  I turned the heat up in the skillet, added a bit more olive oil and then diced up the potato.  Threw that into the skillet and let them get nice and crispy for a few minutes.  While those were cooking, I cracked 6 large eggs into a bowl, added a couple good splashes of milk (probably about a quarter cup) and whisked it together.  Scoop the potatoes out of the pan and add them to the onions and spinach; the heat from them help wilt the spinach a bit.

I added a couple more tablespoons of butter to the skillet again—I’ve been watching a lot of the French Chef lately and my butter intake is going way up—and waited for the butter to melt and the foam to begin subsiding and then I poured in the egg mixture.  Once I could tell that it was beginning to set—the sides will stiffen up and pull away from the pan—and a nice crust was forming, I added the spinach-potato-onion mixture back on top and then sprinkled on the shredded cheese.  Into the oven that went at 350F for about 15 minutes until the egg was fully set and puffy.

Then I served it up for the two of us along side some fresh navel oranges and orange juice (for Josh) and chocolate soymilk (for me).

I had a dream the other night—which precipitated this frittata frenzy (I like alliteration)—in which we were hosting Easter at our house and doing a massive brunch which include this frittata as well as ham, apple scones, cinnamon rolls, steamed asparagus and a massive fruit plate. Seriously, that was all in my dream.  My goal now is to make that a reality because it sounds freaking delicious.

The frittata options are endless—I mean, there should be eggs and milk or cream, of course, but besides that you’ve got endless vegetable possibilities (roasted red peppers, artichokes, leeks, eggplant and arugula are a few of my faves), meat possibilities (bacon, ham, turkey, chicken, sausage—even leftover shredded beef!) and then there’s cheese…I’m partial to a good Swiss or a sharp cheddar, depending on the meat and veggie choices, but there’s also parmesan, blue cheese, goat cheese, feta…just think of all the combinations.

Think of the deliciousness.

Related posts:

1. A Simple Frittata….I had a lame joke for the title but decided to spare you…this time
2. Meal for One: Eggs Out of Purgatory
3. Veggie Carbonara: it's mostly healthy. And tasty. I swear.