Food Friday - Breakfast. It's What's for Dinner!

from Tracey G.

This week's recipe has really been a trial to get accomplished! LOL I didn't plan on 90+ degree temperatures when I picked out a new recipe to try that needs to be baked...poor planning on my part! I thought for the fun of it I'd find something new to make, always looking for new stuff. So, I picked this recipe, sounded super simple and super yummy. Well, it was simple, until you have a grocery store than doesn't quite have the bread you need. Then the frozen blueberries I'd bought for it (as you can use frozen or fresh with this one, which was another appealing thing about it!) somehow never made it to the freezer. I found them on the dining room floor, still in the grocery bag - the next day. I have NO idea how that happened, how does one miss a grocery bag??? I guess though, that's what happens when you're not the one who puts the groceries away - Harry wanted to be helpful and since the Cool Whip had made it to the freezer, I figured so did the blueberries, lol. I was wrong. So, I had to get some more blueberries which also set me back, ugh.

And even the photos were a challenge this week as well, hence the reason there's so very few, I did what I could, and had to just admit defeat and call it good enough, lol. So, let's get to it... ;-)

Here's the ingredients to get started with - butter, bread, sliced frozen or fresh peaches and frozen or fresh blueberries. The bread is supposed to be a long loaf of French bread, cut into 20 slices. Of course my grocery didn't have any baguette style bread - just an already sliced loaf of Italian bread, and not very thickly. So, I ended up improvising, which proved be a bit troublesome down the road, lol, now, looking back, I see a few ways differently I could have done it, but oh well, next time I will when they don't have the right bread, lol. As for the other ingredients, I didn't get any shots of them, lol, it's definitely been a challenge getting this one accomplished! 

First you melt the butter and pour it into a 9x13" baking dish, I tilted the pan to coat the bottom. Then, you layer in your bread slices. You're supposed to layer half the slices, which if you have the correct bread, would be 10, lol. Since I had the Italian loaf to work with, I put mine in this way, as shown in the above photo. And since they were pretty thin, I doubled the bottom layer. (This whole thing was trial and error for me since I didn't have the proper bread - it really threw a bunch of things off! LOL).

This photo, above, shows the dish a few more steps into the process....after putting your first layer of bread in, you top with some of the peaches and some of the blueberries. You then top it with another slice of bread (in my case I used only one slice for the top layer) and then you top that with the rest of the peaches and the blueberries.

Now you mix up the custard part - milk, eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and salt. Once you have that mixed well, you pour it over top of the prepared bread and fruit. At this point you cover and refrigerate 2 hours to overnight.

Pull the French toast out of the refrigerator about 30 minutes before baking, preheat your oven to 350°. Meanwhile, you make the caramel sauce :-) This is a super simple little recipe on it's own, and I am going to use it for other things I think down the road, lol, vanilla ice cream for one thing! But anyway, you melt 1/2 cup butter and together in the microwave with 1/2 cup brown sugar, and cook it for about a minute. Then you add 3 tbsp heavy cream and 3 tbsp corn syrup and cook for about a minute longer until bubbly.

You take a 1/2 cup of the caramel and drizzle it over the French toast, then bake it uncovered for about 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. For me, I ended up going about 60 minutes, but that's because of the bread configuration I'm sure, lol. You let it stand about 10 minutes, then drizzle with the remaining caramel sauce before serving! It's really yummy no matter what it looked like, lol.

I hope the next time I make it I have the right bread, but if not I have a few ways, now that I know how it comes together, that I think will make it a better turn out than this first run, lol.

Peach-Blueberry French Toast

courtesy of Taste Of Home

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1 loaf (1 pound) French bread, cut into 20 slices 3­1/2 cups sliced peeled fresh or frozen peaches

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

6 eggs

2 ­1/2 cups 2% milk

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon salt

CARAMEL:

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter, cubed

3 tablespoons corn syrup

3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

1) Pour butter into a greased 13­in. x 9­in. baking dish. Top with half of the bread slices. Layer with 2­1/2 cups peaches, 1/4 cup blueberries and remaining bread.

 2) In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, brown sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and salt; pour over bread. Arrange the remaining peaches and blueberries over top; cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

 3) Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Place brown sugar and butter in a small microwave­safe bowl. Microwave on high for 1 to 1­1/2 minutes or until sugar is dissolved, stirring once. Add corn syrup and cream; cook 1 minute longer or until bubbly, stirring once.

 4) Drizzle 1/2 cup caramel over top. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 35­40 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving; drizzle with remaining caramel. Yield: 10 servings.


from Kris B.

What I have to offer this week seems more about reminders and resolutions than it does a recipe.  Here are my somewhat random thoughts in a random order that will eventually result in a recipe...sort of.

First of all, breakfast is my favorite meal.  Or perhaps more appropriately stated, breakfast foods are my favorite foods.  Oatmeal, eggs, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, fruit, French toast...it doesn't matter.  I love them all.  Therefore, when I am stuck for what to eat for whatever meal, I will usually reach for something "breakfasty."  This is how we arrived a this week's theme.

Though having breakfast foods for dinner sometimes feels like cheating as far as meal preparation goes, they really do make for a perfectly reasonable anytime meal.  Who decided that eggs are a breakfast food, anyway?  It is the perfectionist in me that somehow drew the conclusion that dinner should be well-planned, painstakingly prepared, and beautifully served.  I don't know where these ideas originated.  What I do know is that no matter how tasty, oatmeal or an English muffin with peanut butter doesn't really count as dinner in my mind.  Believing that dinner should be a more elaborate meal than the others sometimes keeps me from preparing a simple, but really perfectly acceptable to most, meal.  I share this week's recipe as a way to help myself shatter my own unrealistic expectations.

"Hash," as used here, means whatever you happen to have in the veggie bin in the fridge, a potato, and a fried egg on top for a little protein.  There are many different ingredients that can be used in this and equally as many seasoning variations that you can vary it every week and make it your own.  The ingredient that makes it worthy of being called hash is the potato.  Hash does not need to be well-planned or painstakingly prepared.  Quite the contrary.  It can be thrown together at the last minute with whatever ingredients you have on hand and the preparation requires nothing but dicing the ingredients.  It can, however, be beautifully served.

Here is my simple version.

INGREDIENTS
1 russet potato
1 sweet potato
1 zucchini
1 red bell pepper
1/2 medium yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 TBS olive oil
1 TBS butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Microwave the russet and sweet potatoes for 8-10 minutes, depending on size.  You want them to be "not quite done."  This is a lesson I learned late in life.  Any kind of fried potatoes need to be partially cooked before they are fried or the outsides burn before the insides get done.  

While the potatoes are in the microwave, dice the other vegetables.  When the potatoes are done, dice them as well.  I leave the skin on the russet potato, but remove it from the sweet potato.  

In a heavy skillet, (I am partial to cast iron.) heat the olive oil.  Add all of the vegetables, but no potatoes yet.  Saute the vegetables until they are tender.

Add the butter and the potatoes to the veggies.

Cook the potatoes until they start to brown on the edges and have a little bit of "crunch."

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare a fried eggs sunny side up in a non-stick skillet.

Serve the egg on top of the hash.  And that's it!

Like i said, the variations here are endless...add herbs, spices, different veggies, or meat to create a meal that is suitable for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

Food Friday - It's Easy Eating Green!

from Tracey G.

I'll be honest - it's been one of those weeks, lol. Being out of town last weekend, and not home until Monday really threw me off. I was a day behind from the start! Tuesday felt like Monday and so forth. And before I knew it Kris was asking what we wanted to do  - I thought she had a fabulous idea, could I work with it? I of course said sure because I knew I could, with what, I'd no idea, but I knew something would come to me, lol. And then it struck me that since a veggie was the superstar in her recipe, I'd use one too - and try to stay with the same color. It gave me a parameter to work within as it seems like lately I've needed that sort of structure. All the things going on with Harry  have sapped my brain of its creative spark, lol. So, yes, I could do a veg and ok, it has to be green. I can work with that! I have some definite things to focus on, no real thought required - if it's a vegetable and green, it's perfect! :-D LOL

It wasn't too much after that I remembered a broccoli dish my mom used to make, wonderfully easy and really yummy. Another thing Kris and I share, broccoli is a favorite! This recipe I imagine is really kid-friendly since it involves a cheesy topping on the broccoli, lol. Not that it mattered to me, even as a kid, I loved broccoli and I really ate just about any and all vegetables. I still can't do okra, and I know I've mentioned that before, and I don't ever see that changing, lol. But that's ok - there's so many other vegetables to choose from, I'm sure I don't even miss it. ;-)

I really don't know where my mom ever got this recipe, I just remember her making it, I can't say I remember the first time even, just seems like it'd always been in her repertoire, lol. And it always struck me as odd that there's no salt and/or pepper involved, and yet once it's cooked it doesn't need it. I imagine the natural saltiness of the cheddar covers the salt base, lol. ;-)

The green superstar - broccoli. Frozen broccoli at that! That makes this a great any time of year side dish, since frozen broccoli is always good! And you can use either florets (as I did) or just the usual broccoli cuts, which I've also done a time or two.

The cheeses are simply shredded cheddar and cottage...

...mixed in a bowl with one egg and 3 tablespoons of flour. 

Cook the broccoli according to the package directions and place it in a 9x13 pan. For my batch, since I'm the only one it seems who likes broccoli, I downsized the recipe to work in an 7x11" pan, which amounted to: 1.5 packages broccoli, 1.5 cups cottage cheese, 1.5 cups shredded cheddar. I stuck with the whole egg and 3 tbsp flour as the recipe calls for though. ;-)

Once you have the cheese mixture ready and the broccoli in the pan, you spread the cheese mixture evenly over the top.

Then you bake it for about 20-30 minutes in a 350° F oven. For some reason my batch took longer to get to where I wanted it, so I would say past the 30 minute mark it's "to taste" once it's set. I like the edges of the cheese topping a bit browned and crispy, lol. ;-)

That's all there is to it. I let it stand for a bit when it comes out of the oven, then serve.

Here's the recipe:

Cheese Broccoli

3 packages frozen broccoli, cooked and drained (there is not any designation on what exact size package of broccoli to use, I just use the "basic" size sold in my grocery store, which I think ranges from 10-14 ounces, and the package sizes I used today were 14oz)

2 c cottage cheese

2 c shredded cheddar cheese

1 egg

3 tbsp flour.

Mix cheeses, flour and egg in a bowl. Put broccoli in a 9x13" pan. Spread cheese mixture evenly over the top of broccoli. Bake 20-30 minutes at 350° F.

from Kris B.

This week's recipe was a favorite of my oldest when she was little.  I am thankful that my kids have always been fairly healthy eaters so getting them to eat vegetables has never been a problem.  I haven't made "green hash browns" in a long time, but with the warm weather produce starting to make its way to the farmer's markets and grocery store it seemed a good thing to have this week.  Bring on the zucchini!

I originally started making these as a side dish, but when Offspring #1 became a vegetarian, we would eat them as a meal unto themselves, kind of like zucchini pancakes.  That is how Weber and I ate this batch.  LOL!  The kid that inspired "green hash browns" was working the night that I made them so didn't get to indulge with us.  Looking back, that was probably poor planning on my part.  I did have some extra zucchini and these are easy to make.  And, she is now a grown-up and can maker her own dinner:-)

"Green Hash Browns" require a few fresh items - zucchini, onion, garlic, eggs, and Parmesan cheese - and a a few basic pantry items - flour, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

The first step is to grate the zucchini.  I have "a thing" for my box grater, so I usually grate by hand, but if your "thing" is for your food processor, by all means grate away that way.

This next part is the most important step!  Once the zucchini is grated, place it in a colander.  Mix in the salt. 

 Place the colander over the sink and let the zucchini and salt mixture sit for about ten minutes. This releases the moisture in the zucchini.  After ten minutes, place the zucchini in cheese cloth or a tea towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can.  When you do this, what looked like a massive amount of shredded zucchini suddenly looks like a whole lot less.  Removing the excess liquid will make the "hash browns" crisp when they cook.  

INGREDIENTS

5 medium zucchini, grated (You should end up with 2-2 1/2 cups of zucchini once the excess liquid has been squeezed out.)

1 tsp salt

1/2 Cup flour

2 lightly beaten eggs

1/2 grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 diced onion

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Black pepper to taste

Olive oil for cooking

Prepare the zucchini as directed above.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, eggs, cheese, onion, garlic, and seasoning.  Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet.  Drop the zucchini mixture by large spoonfuls into the hot oil.  Flatten into a patty using a spatula.  Cook until the bottom is golden brown and then flip the patty to cook the other side. Cooking time is 2-3 minutes on each side depending on the moisture levels of the mixture. 

Serve immediately.  A dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of green onion on the top make a tasty final touch for these "green hash browns."

Oh, and because I am fascinated with photographing whisks, I leave you with this.

At least it's a whisk in its natural habitat!

Also, don't forget to leave us a comment at the end of this post so that you will have a chance to win the gift basket that we are giving away.  I wish that I could tell you what's in it, but I can't.  Not because I am mean and like secrets, but because my daughter is meaan and likes secrets.  Just kidding!  If you have no idea what I am talking about, scroll back and read the most recent Tuesday in Texas post.  It should clear everything up for you!