Tag Archives: Breakfast

Cajun Breakfast Souffle

I needed something to bring to a breakfast meeting for a group of, I guess you could say, community organizers. It’s a group of awesome women who meet to throw my community’s big 4th of July celebration. As a food blogger, I feel a certain bit of pressure to bring something great. Not just good, but amazing. Most people aren’t low carb, so I choose to splurge at these events. Hunting for something to bring, I came across something called a “breakfast casserole”. Essentially it was bread, eggs, cheese and ham. Eh. Just didn’t speak to me. But it got me thinking. How could I put a Cajun spin on it? I love all things Cajun. So, I began by subbing out the bread for cornbread, the ham for blazing hot andouille sausage, added onion, green pepper and garlic and BAM! Cajun Breakfast Souffle.

This dish is easy, and can be made ahead and assembled the next morning. It’s pretty great reheated, too. It travels well. This is the perfect “bring to brunch” dish. I cannot emphasize the ease of this dish. The only hard part is deciding whether you are making the cornbread or not. I opted to make the cornbread from a boxed mix, but you could easily buy cornbread and make it work in this recipe. I know that boxed mixes aren’t fantastic (in my defense, there were all natural ingredients), but I can’t get my cornbread recipes to work. I’m cornbread challenged.

Cajun Breakfast Souffle
Serves about 6-8

Butter for greasing a pan
4 cups loosely packed cornbread, cut into 1 inch (or so) cubes (add jalapenos for extra spice!!)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, small dice
1 green pepper, small dice
1/2 pound of andouille sausage, medium dice
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 eggs
1 1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup shredded cheese (I used Cheddar/Monterey Jack)

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease a 2-2 1/2 quart baking dish. Place cornbread into dish and set aside.

In a skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, pepper and andouille and cook until the onion is translucent and the green peppers are soft. Stir occasionally. Add the garlic, salt and peppers. Incorporate the spices. Set aside to slightly cool.

In a small mixing bowl, combine the eggs and the milk. Add the cheese and stir until incorporated.

Spread the pepper and sausage mixture over the cornbread. Evenly pour the milk mixture over the whole concoction.

Bake, uncovered, for about an hour, or until the edges are bubbling and the top begins to just brown. If you are unsure about whether the souffle is done, push a knife into the center of the dish. If it comes out clean, your dish should be finished.

Make ahead notes: You can make the cornbread ahead of time (or cut it into squares ahead of time), as well as the pepper mixture. Store the cornbread in an airtight container and place the pepper mixture in the refrigerator over night until you are ready to make the dish. You can also let the egg mixture “soak into” the cornbread for an hour or so before baking.

Sour Cream Pancakes

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I have a love hate relationship with breakfast. All of the best “breakfast” food is chock full of carbs. As someone who shouldn’t be indulging in carbs, this presents a lot of problems. Breakfast is where one can shamefully eat something that’s a dessert and call it a “meal”. You can’t get away with waffles, pancakes, or French toast at lunch. But breakfast? No problem. Bacon and fatty sausage are paired with such indulgences and it’s perfectly acceptable. What other meal can pull this off? Not one. You have a side of bacon at dinner, you better be eating “breakfast for dinner”. Breakfast is such an anomaly. Eggs and sausage is one person’s low carb breakfast and another person’s health nightmare. On the flip side, one person’s oatmeal is a heart healthy breakfast for some people, but a low carb eater’s horror show.

In other meals, you just don’t get so much controversy. The other meals have a sense of balance. You could be low carb and low calorie/fat with a salad. Or grilled fish or chicken. There is more overlap and options for all types of eaters.

My kids LOVE breakfast. Doughnuts, waffles, pancakes, french toast, regular toast and muffins are all begged for in large quantities. From a practical standpoint, I love waffles and muffins. They keep well, make lots in a short amount of time, and can be reheated easily for breakfast during the week. Add a breakfast meat cooked the night before and reheated and morning breakfasts are a breeze. But, the kids grow tired of repetition and insist on pancakes. I am just not a fan. The first batch comes out meh and it takes FOREVER to cook them. Until, of course, the pan becomes too hot, then the pancakes burn. Saving them for another day? Unless you are going to cut squares of parchment out and place them between each pancake, better not freeze or refrigerate them. They meld into a large mass never to be separated again. My waffles have never betrayed me in such an unforgivable manner. Ditto my muffins.

But, the heart wants what it wants. Plus, I had sour cream to spare. And maybe one of my kids was boycotting waffles and guilt wouldn’t let me send her to school with nothing in her stomach. So, I when I came across a really old recipe for sour cream pancakes (1850s!), I caved. As an aside, I love when people write about how they “thought” to add sour cream to anything and call it new or improved. Um, people have been cooking for a really, really long time. Unless this is some kind of crazy pancake foam or sous vide, it’s not new.

In The Great Western Cookbook by Angelina Maria Collins, written for Western Housewifes, Mrs. Collins details her very own pancake recipe in one titled: Mrs. Collins’ Batter Cakes. I was particularly interested in this recipe as it would make use of my left over sour cream. I made tacos, and you just don’t need that much sour cream for tacos. I ALWAYS have leftover sour cream.

The recipe is fairly modern, as Mrs. Collins used several interesting techniques, for the time, to make very light pancakes. First, she separated the eggs, and whipped the whites “until frothy”. Aerated egg whites, if the bubbles are left intact through careful folding into the pancake batter, will create a very airy confection. She also employed some chemical assistance. In the days before baking powder or soda, there was, for a brief time, “saleratus”. Instead of sodium bicarbonate (modern baking soda), saleratus was usually potassium bicarbonate. Using a bicarbonate with sour cream, which is acidic, and heat would also create air bubbles, also helping to lighten the pancake. Nowadays, people largely rely on baking powder or soda alone to lighten the pancakes.

The recipe also included all the usual suspects in such a concoction: flour, eggs, and milk:

Take four eggs, beat them separately, and to the yolks add of pint of rich milk, beat in enough flour to make it into a thick batter. Put in a tea-cupful of sour cream, a tea-spoonful of saleratus; add this to the batter, mix in lightly the white of the eggs, beaten to a froth, and bake on a hot griddle like buckwheat cakes.

I’ve updated it slightly to include a bit of salt and vanilla and changed some of the ratios because, well, “enough flour” just isn’t a really good descriptor for a blog recipe, is it?

Sour Cream Pancakes
Makes about 16

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs, separated
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus additional for cooking pancakes
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup blueberries (optional), dusted with 1 tablespoon flour

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a small mixing bowl, combine the sour cream, whole milk, egg yolks, melted butter and vanilla. In a separate bowl, Whip the egg yolks until soft peaks form.

Add the sour cream mixture to the flour mixture and just combine (batter will be lumpy and that’s ok). Gently fold in the egg whites. If desired, fold in the blueberries.

In large non-stick pan, or flat griddle, melt enough butter over medium heat to coat the pan. I like to use clarified butter or ghee for this step, but butter works well. You may need to add more as you work through the batches. It just has to be watched because it has a tendency to burn. When the griddle is evenly heated, add about a 1/4th a cup of batter to the griddle. When the top of the pancake is dotted with bubbles and the bottom is brown, flip over and cook for another minute or so. Remove from the griddle and serve. Alternatively, put the oven on low (170-200 degrees Fahrenheit), and keep the pancakes in the oven until needed.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

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My kids were getting tired of waffles for breakfast on school mornings. Really, really tired. But they are so easy. You make them on the weekend, freeze them, pop them in the toaster and serve with “breakfast meats” you reheated because the hubs made them the night before and BAM! breakfast complete. A seriously 5 star breakfast complete, if I do say so myself. But, repetition has a price. Boredom.

So, I tried pancakes. They were fine, but didn’t store particularly well. Couldn’t really separate them as nicely as the waffles. The kids then came to a bit of an impasse. They could agree on nothing, until I came across a recipe for Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Muffins. Well, what’s not to like? To quote Cosby, it has wheat, eggs and milk! Must be good for you! The recipe was originally from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours. She is one of my favorite cookbook authors. I found it on the Brown Eyed Baker’s blog. I made a very few changes because Dorie Greenspan’s command of baking is just extraordinary. Just reading the ingredients was a joy because you could see how they all fit together and their purpose.

I have one little change. For whatever reason, buttermilk recipes are never quite right for me. The batter is always too dry. When I substitute milk and vinegar, it seems to work quite well. I’ve tried all brands of buttermilk and find that I have to add more liquid. Plus, buttermilk comes in quarts and I always need 1 1/4 cups or something like that. What do you do with the rest? Make the recipe again? Milk is just more versatile and I don’t throw it away like I do buttermilk.

Ok, I lied. I have two changes. I’m not breaking up some fancy, expensive chocolate for this recipe. Bittersweet chocolate chips are just fine!

Also, and I’ve mentioned this before, I scoff at melting chocolate over the double boiler. ESPECIALLY when I’m melting it with butter. Put a dishwasher and microwave safe plate in the microwave and nuke for a few minutes on low power. Done. Stir, use mixture, and place in dishwasher. No messy cleanup of several bowls and pans.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins
Makes 12
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15-20 minutes

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (divided)
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line muffin pan with liners. Set aside.

Place 2 ounces of the chocolate and all of the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Over low power (50% or less), microwave the chocolate and butter in small increments until just melted. For my microwave, I started with 60 seconds on 50% power. Stirred the items, then another 30 seconds on 50% power and the mixture was melted. Stir between each increment, as chips can retain their shape not appear “melted”. Set aside. Or, feel free to use the double boiler method.

Whisk flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large mixing bowl. In a large liquid measuring cup, combine milk and vinegar. Let sit for 5 minutes. Stir. Add egg and vanilla extract.

Pour the melted chocolate mixture and the buttermilk mixtured into the flour mixture. Gently stir together until just blended. I found the mixture to have a mousse-like quality, much more so than a batter quality. Add the remaining chocolate and stir gently. Divide equally among the muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a tester inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool in a baking rack for at least 5 minutes.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

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I’m on a roll with recipes that aren’t really good for you. I had blueberries and cream cheese that needed to be used and thought: what can I do with these items? Around the same time, my son asked for a hiatus from waffles for breakfast. So, despite having the brownies, I figured I would venture into coffee cake land. I love coffee cake, it’s an acceptable cake to eat for breakfast! What made this cake appealing was really the fantastic chunks of cream cheese dotted throughout. The cream cheese adds a sweetness and texture that is so unique and incredibly good to contrast with the tart blueberries.

As always, this recipe is very easy and straightforward. No surprises. I saw this recipe on tasteofhome.com and thought I would give it a go. I added lemon zest and lemon juice for a bit of a bright pop.

My son loved this recipe and my husband said it was amazing! So overall, this was a really big hit.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: about 40 minutes

1/4 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
½ tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, cubed

TOPPING:
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cold butter

Preheat Oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease an 8 inch square baking dish.

For batter, in a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and
fluffy. Beat in egg, lemon zest and lemon juice. Combine 1 cup flour, baking powder and salt;
gradually add to creamed mixture alternately with milk.

Toss blueberries with remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. Stir blueberries and cream
cheese into creamed mixture (batter will be thick). Transfer to the greased dish.

For topping, in a small bowl, combine flour and sugar. Cut in butter
until crumbly. Sprinkle over batter.

Bake at 375° for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Dutch Baby

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I first saw this dish made on Alton Brown’s show Good Eats and I thought it was pretty cool. It’s not really a good entertaining dish in that it doesn’t serve a bunch of people and for breakfast, and it’s pretty labor intensive. However, if you are serving a smallish group or a family, this is a pretty impressive dish.

This dish resembles a few others. When eating this dish, you get hints of the influence of German Pancakes and Yorkshire Pudding. Crispy in parts, soft and soufflé-y otherwise. On the whole, a fantastic addition to your breakfast regime, if you are eating carbs/gluten/other stuff that is likely not good for you.

As for the history of the Dutch Baby, the recipe supposedly has its origins in Manca’s Cafe in Seattle. A recipe for the Dutch Baby from Manca’s ran in Sunset Magazine in 1971, making it a popular dish. There are LOADS of recipes now for this dish. I stick to a fairly classic version that uses a cast iron skillet. In order for this recipe to work, you have to preheat the pan, not just the oven. Also, as you’d like to remove the Dutch Baby from the pan when finished, you want to employ pans or methods that aren’t prone to sticking. I like cast iron for this task for a variety of reasons. It’s naturally non-stick if seasoned correctly. But most importantly, I don’t trust coated non-stick pans in high heat environments. I won’t say I never use non-stick pans, but I especially don’t use them with heat over medium. With cast iron, no worries. And, while I could use my stainless steel and lots of oil, I really don’t want to take a chance. It’s not like you get any redos on this recipe. It’s pretty much a one shot deal. It’s an easy one shot deal, however.

My recipe was inspired in part by a recipe I found on Food Network.

Dutch Baby
Serves 6
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 20-25 minutes

3 tablespoons clarified butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup milk, warm (heat 20 to 30 seconds in the microwave)
1 tablespoon sugar,
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch salt

Confectioner’s Sugar for topping

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place clarified butter in a cast iron skillet (about 9-10 inches) and place skillet into the oven. You may ask if you can substitute butter. I’m leery of butter for this recipe, as this cast iron skillet will get hot (see the 400 degrees above) and you’ll really not be watching the butter melt as you are making the batter. Clarified butter is the safer choice. You could easily end up with burned butter here. Any other high heat tolerant fat would be fine here as well.

Place remaining ingredients in a mixer and mix at medium speed until well combined. Remove skillet from the oven (with an oven mitt!!!) and swirl butter completely around the pan (again, with oven mitt!!). If the butter is excessive, whisk surplus into batter. Pour batter into pan and bake until golden brown and puffy, about 20-25 minutes. Serve sprinkled with confectioner’s (powdered) sugar.

Love my Kitchen Aid mixer!!

Right out of the oven. CAUTION HOT!!!

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

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My first brush with a variation of biscuits and sausage gravy was something kindly called sh$t on a shingle, or creamed chipped beef on toast. I couldn’t understand how anyone had a disparaging word to say about this wonderful dish. It was amazing! Creamy gravy, salty beef and crunchy toast. Keep your breakfast pancakes, this was awesome!

Then, I had biscuits and sausage gravy. Combine a white gravy with my favorite breakfast meat and you have me at “gravy”. Let’s be clear, there’s not a single redeeming value about this dish. Sure, you could try to say you are getting “calcium” from the milk in the gravy. I use that justification for ice cream and milkshakes. However, let’s be real, this is a fairly empty calorie carbohydrate extravaganza. It’s up there with a doughnut for breakfast. Maybe a bagel with cream cheese. You get the drift. Not health food.

Biscuits and gravy have a storied history in America. The morning meal was terribly important, but, the meal needed to be economical. A meal that used flour, milk and scant meat was very well received. It kept people full for a day of hard labor in the field. It may have also been a small sign of rebellion, as it was entirely different from anything the British ate for breakfast. I picked recipes from the 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Farmer. They mirrored other recipes and had exact measurements. The instructions were sometimes lacking and the ingredients weren’t necessarily listed in the order they were used. However, I love seeing the differences in preparation. Now, when you make pie crust or biscuits, you are admonished to keep everything cold, or the biscuits won’t be flaky. Mrs. Farmer makes no such admonishment. It just wasn’t an option during her time. Mrs. Farmer was more concerned about the oven being “hot”. If the biscuits were baked “too slow”, Mrs. Farmer warned that “the gas will escape before it has done its work”.

She has 3 versions of baking powder biscuits in her cookbook: Baking Powder Biscuit I, Baking Powder Biscuit II and “Emergency Biscuit”. I chose to work off of Biscuit I, as I didn’t have an emergency that a biscuit would solve. It also used lard and butter, versus just butter, which was good enough for me. I like the combination of the two fats, as they each add something different to the biscuit. Butter adds a flakiness as it melts and lard adds tenderness. I also interpreted a “hot oven” to be 425 degrees Fahrenheit. I can’t really say that I was impressed by the biscuits. They were very serviceable. They had a great crunch on the outside and were tender inside. However, they didn’t rise really high. Maybe that’s a modern convention. Maybe the oven needed to be hotter. Maybe, as an American, I’m used to biscuits that are just too big. I don’t know. They tasted wonderful, they just lacked in presentation. So, be warned. I passed it off as “how they ate back then”. No one cared and there wasn’t a drop left. They were very good, just a little plain.

The sausage gravy is a different story. Why does it have to be soooo drab? Fat, flour, milk, salt, pepper and bits of sausage. So bland, albeit delicious. But, what if it could be better? So, I decided to break the mold. I used onion. I know, gasp. I then added cognac. That’s a pearl clutching ingredient there. Look, this recipe can be fancied up. The cognac adds a warm layer of flavor that compliments the sausage perfectly. Your kitchen will smell amazing. I am using a small amount to deglaze the pan, nothing too boozy. You are free to leave these out for a more “pure” experience.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy
Inspired by Baking Powder Biscuits I and White Sauce I from Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
Serves 6
Prep and Cook Time: 30-40 minutes

Biscuits
2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lard (or vegetable shortening)
2 tablespoons butter, divided
3/4 cup milk

Sausage Gravy
1 pound ground breakfast sausage
1 small onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon cognac
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

For the biscuits:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix dry ingredients together and sift twice. Work 1 tablespoon of butter and the lard into flour mixture with tips of fingers; add milk gradually while mixing with a knife. The amount of liquid needed to bring the dough together may vary depending on the flour. Place dough on a floured surface, pat and roll lightly to one-half inch thickness. Cut dough with biscuit cutter. Place biscuits on buttered pan, and melt the remaining butter and brush on the tops of the biscuits. For a crunchy surface use a cast iron pan. Bake for 10-14 minutes.

For the sausage gravy:

Over medium heat, brown the sausage and cook until thoroughly done. Remove sausage from pan. Sauté the onions in the sausage drippings until translucent. Add butter if more fat is needed. Deglaze pan with cognac. Add flour to the pan and cook until the raw flour taste is gone, about 1-2 minutes. Do not let the flour brown. Whisk in the milk and bring the mixture to a slow bubble. If the mixture becomes too thick, add more milk. Season with salt and pepper and return sausage to the pan. Serve over biscuits. Traditionally, this dish is served with scrambled eggs.

Muffins

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When my kids were in daycare, for Mother’s Day there would be “muffins for mom” and for Father’s Day there would be “Doughnuts for Dad”. I was so jealous of “Dad”. The moms would get these large, dense, tasteless, mass produced muffins that sat in packaging for weeks. Dads would get doughnuts fresh from a local shop. So not the same!

The only muffins I really remember growing up were blueberry. I guess there were other flavors, but I don’t recall having them. Muffins had their heyday in the 1990s. There was an entire Seinfeld episode dedicated to the best part of the muffin: the top. Thanks to that episode, you can buy a muffin top pan. Who would possibly want those terrible muffin stumps? The tops were clearly the best part!! I love Seinfeld.

Muffin flavors exploded, and there was a bit of a muffin craze. No different than the cupcake phase now. Can that be over now? No one looks good eating a cupcake. It’s messy, you get frosting everywhere, and those little things are expensive! I’m really not a big fan. But, I digress.

As everyone has a muffin tin, there should be no “special equipment” required to execute this recipe. Most people now probably make cupcakes out of their “muffin pans”, but I like the old standby of blueberry muffins. Simple, elegant, and well, it’s got to be good for you, there’s blueberries in it!

This recipe is allegedly based on a Martha Stewart Recipe. The blueberry recipe currently listed on her webpage is loaded with comments asking where the old blueberry recipe went. One of the commenters kindly put the more popular “old” recipe up. I used that one as a base for the following recipe. If the recipe was so good that people were willing to print it and save it, then comment on Martha’s site about it on another recipe’s webpage, it was good enough for me! A purloined recipe! Quite the scandal!

As you can guess, it’s made two ways. One for the boy and one for the girl. She wouldn’t touch blueberries for anything.

Muffins, two ways

2 cups of all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk

Blueberry Version (double if you aren’t making chocolate chip muffins)
1 cup of blueberries
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Chocolate Chip Version (double if you aren’t making blueberry muffins)
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Topping
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 Degrees Fahrenheit. Line a muffin tin with baking cups or liners.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small mixing bowl. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and the sugar in a large mixing bowl, until fluffy. About 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time until combined. Add vanilla and milk until combined.

Take 1 teaspoon of the flour mixture and use to coat the blueberries.

Using a wooden spoon, slowly stir the remaining flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Divide the batter in two. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice and blueberries to one part of the batter and the chocolate chips to the other part.

Add the batter to the muffin tin. Mix together the sugar and nutmeg and sprinkle on top of each muffin. If you have too much batter for 12 muffins, bake a second batch. I got 14 muffins out of mine.

Bake until the tops of the muffins start to brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Sour Cream Waffles, two ways

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You may think I’ve only photographed the blueberry waffle, but no, the bottom waffle in the back is the Chocolate Chip one!

As followers of my blog may be aware I have a boy and a girl. The boy likes bold flavors. He makes hot sauce (like Tabasco) with his daddy. The girl eats in the “white” food group: potatoes, chicken, pancakes, waffles, apples, bananas, etc. with a few exceptions like salmon (because it’s pink!), hot dogs (ditto) and strawberries (almost pink!). However, my boy and girl have come to an impasse. The boy has tired of my chocolate chip waffles. He’d like a different flavor. The girl seeks no such change. There will never be anything wrong with chocolate chip waffles to her. Ever. She could have the same three meals forever: chocolate chip waffles (or doughnuts), hot dogs, and salmon. The girl never tires of the tried and true.

So, as I was looking through my fridge I noticed a container of sour cream I bought for a meal and forgot to put out. Oops. It’s about to expire,. I also have some blueberries that I bought as a snack for my son. Apparently, he found other things on which to snack. Imagine. Anyway, I asked him about blueberry waffles. He enthusiastically said yes and asked if I can add some lemon flavor to it, because he likes that combination. Ok….

At this point, the girl has stated that she will not eat blueberry pancakes. Of course she won’t. So, decide to divide the batter in half. Some for the blueberry and lemon waffles and some for the chocolate chip waffles. Oh the mess I will make!! The dishes I will do!

So, I need a waffle recipe to use up my sour cream. I don’t like wasting money on food I forgot I had! The White House Cookbook by Fannie Lemira Gillette (1887) and The Good Housekeeping Woman’s Home Cook Book by Isabel Gordon Curtis (1909) have recipes for “Cream Waffles” that use sour cream (but ironically, not cream). James Beard has a recipe in his American Cookery (1972) that is nearly the same of the aforementioned titles. I think sour cream may be have been different back then. I made the recipe and ended up with a really thick batter that wasn’t pouring anywhere, much less onto a waffle iron. So, I thinned out the batter with whole milk to make it pourable and problem solved. The waffles are really rich and very good. Even the blueberry lemon ones!! If you want to only make one type of waffle, just double the extra ingredients of the type of waffle you want to make (e.g. 2 cups of blueberries, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons of flour).

Sour Cream Waffles, two ways

Base batter:

1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour (I used 1 cup all purpose and 3/4 cup white whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 cups sour cream
3 eggs
6 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup whole milk

For 1/2 Blueberry and Lemon Waffles:
1 cup blueberries, rinsed
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon lemon juice

For 1/2 Chocolate Chip Waffles
1 1/4 cups semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat waffle iron, grease iron when hot with spray oil.

Combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar) in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until combined and aerated.

In a separate, smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the sour cream, eggs, butter, vanilla extract, and 1 cup of the milk.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. If the batter is too think, add the remaining milk in parts until the right consistency is achieved. Divide the batter in half and separate.

Blueberry and Lemon Waffles:

In a small bowl, combine the blueberries with the flour, coating the blueberries well. Gently fold the blueberries and the lemon juice into half of the batter and cook according to your waffle iron’s instructions.

Chocolate Chip Waffles:

Stir the chocolate chips into the remaining 1/2 of the batter and cook according to your waffle iron’s instructions.

Goofy Toast

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I can’t believe I am writing this post, but kids are insistent. “You have to do a post on this!” They cried. Now, when I made the Chocolate Chip Cookies Noir, they forbid me from putting the recipe on the blog. They didn’t want the “secret” recipe to get out. But for this, they thought everyone should share in the fun. I’m having trouble because I’m not sure this is “blog worthy”, but I’ll give it a go.

Let me start by saying the reason I made this dish is that I announced we were having pork loin for dinner. You may have heard the crying and whining where you are. Let’s just say pork loin doesn’t pique the kids’ fancy. Any chance they can get, they’ll try to make a play for “breakfast for dinner”. If they sense any weakness in the resolve of the person making dinner, the begging will commence. Seriously, it is their favorite meal. You may notice a lot of breakfast dishes on this blog. We mostly have them for dinner. Tonight is no exception. Since Daddy was away, they made a play for Goofy Toast. The idea of pork loin wasn’t too hot with mom either, so they won that round.

The history of Goofy Toast begins at Disney World. We have taken many a vacation to Disney World. Back during the depths of the ~~Depression~~ Recession, Disney was deeply discounted. So discounted, we could afford to stay at the Polynesian Resort. Man, does that spoil you. We went one year and got 30% off the hotel, free food AND a $250 Visa Gift Card. Now, you may get 30% off the hotel rate, but that’s about it. The exact same vacation is nearly twice as much money as it was 3-4 years ago. I guess the economy has recovered? Luckily, we have pictures to relive the experience. Anyway, at one of the many breakfasts we ate at the Polynesian during our stay was something called “Goofy Toast”. The kids loved the name and ordered it. In the old days we would have called it “Eggs in a Nest” or something like that. Now, Goofy Toast. I’m sure that’s trademarked or something.

My kids fawned all over this dish. I looked at it and it appeared to be grilled bread with an egg in the middle. No big. I was perplexed as my children were not big egg eaters. Nor were they particularly fond of toast, unless it was slathered with peanut butter and dotted with chocolate chips. But the Goofy Toast had cast its spell. Moving the egg from the side of the plate to the middle of the toast transformed both moderately despised food items into an edible creation. I guess those Disney people really know their target audience.

So, when we got home I asked if they wanted Goofy Toast. I got the eye roll. No, really, I can make it, I replied. So, I made it and they were amazed that I could recapture the magic of the Goofy Toast. Truly amazed. Like I had turned lead into gold amazed. Ok…..

So, if you would like to try something ever so slightly different for breakfast, here you go. Apparently, this is crazy kid friendly! I will say, it is an elegant presentation of what is otherwise humdrum eggs and toast. So, there is that.

Goofy Toast (aka Eggs in a Nest)
makes 1

butter
slice of bread
egg
salt and pepper

Melt butter in a nonstick pan over medium heat.

While the butter is melting, cut a hole in the middle of the bread.

Place bread in pan.

Crack egg into the hole in the bread. Season with salt and pepper. Dot bread with butter. When egg has set on the bottom (2-3 minutes), carefully turn over in pan. Cook until desired doneness.

Seriously, that’s it. As a variation, my daughter only likes scrambled eggs, so I scramble the egg before putting it into the opening in the bread.

Waffles!

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Waffles are a really, really old food. So old, that there is reference to them in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales the 14th Century! Puritans, fleeing English persecution, stayed for a bit in Belgium and brought the waffle to colonies. Thomas Jefferson, according to legend, brought a waffle maker from France and threw lavish waffle parties. Who doesn’t love a good waffle?

I really, really love waffles. When I was a kid (and there were only 3 channels on the tv), all we had were pancakes. Waffles were restaurant type food. Fancy stuff, not something mom would just make for breakfast. Even though pancakes are made with essentially the same batter, the batter was transformed into something special on the waffle iron. Crunchy, yet tender. Somehow always sweeter.

In 2009, Kellogg’s put out a press release saying it would have to ration its Eggo Waffles due to a flooded plant in Atlanta and issues with a bakery in Tennessee. This shortage was a really big deal at the time. There were panicked consumers stocking up just like when Hostess recently shuttered it factories. I should confess, I have a hard time understanding why one would pay for a frozen waffle. They don’t taste particularly good and are insanely expensive, given the ingredients (ingredients listed are for Eggo’s Homestyle Waffles):

Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, vitamin B1 [thiamin mononitrate], vitamin B2 [riboflavin], folic acid), water, vegetable oil (soybean, palm, and/or canola oil), eggs, leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), contains 2% or less of sugar, salt, whey, soy lecithin, yellow 5, yellow 6.

Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium carbonate, vitamin A palmitate, reduced iron, niacinamide, vitamin B12, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), vitamin B1 (thiamin hydrochloride), vitamin B2 (riboflavin).

I think the normal price is about $2.50 per 10 ounce package. The organic brand (Van’s) is $3.50 per 8 ounce package. The ingredients aren’t really much different:

Water, Organic Whole Wheat Flour, Organic Unbleached Wheat Flour, Organic Soybean Oil, Organic Oat Fiber, Organic Cane Sugar, Baking Powder (Baking Soda, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Organic Cornstarch, Organic Malt Extract, Sea Salt, Organic Soy Lecithin, Organic Guar Gum, Organic Caramel Color.

I’m not sure how I acquired my first waffle iron. I just remember buying a box of frozen waffles and thinking how EXPENSIVE they were. And I had to buy 2 boxes for just the weekdays. I decided to buy a waffle iron and try it out. It was so easy! My kids pretty much eat waffles every day for breakfast. I make them on the weekend, freeze them, and toast them all week. It’s really not that hard and makes my mornings SO easy. I make eggs or reheat sausage made the night before and toast the waffle. Viola! Breakfast. Of course, my kids now think pancakes are a special treat! The ingredients I use are organic or pastured and I don’t need guar gum and colors to make them look good. And, the fat in the recipe is butter versus soybean/vegetable oil. Needless to say, they are a lot cheaper!

Waffles require a gentle touch. The key is bubble maintenance. A good waffle recipe has two methods to infuse bubbles into the batter. One is through chemistry. The combination of an acid and a base (usually baking powder, which is activated by liquid). The other is through the whipping of the egg whites. I will confess that I have skipped the egg white whipping portion of the recipe and just tossed the eggs in there and really, saw no appreciable difference. I’m serving a 7 and a 10 year old. Not Gordon Ramsey. So, when you get to that part of the recipe, understand that you can take a short cut. Also, I have substituted Whole White Wheat flour from King Arthur Flour for the All Purpose Flour and no one seemed to notice.

Chocolate Chip Waffles

1 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 3/4 cups of milk
6 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips (I use 60% cacao)

Preheat waffle iron.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Whisk until aerated and well combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, butter and vanilla. Slowly add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until the flour mixture is moistened.

In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until they hold firm peaks.

Fold the egg whites into the now moistened flour mixture until just combined. Gently fold in the chocolate chips.

Spray the waffle iron with a spray oil (I use coconut) and then follow your waffle iron’s instructions. I freeze the leftovers in a freezer bag and enjoy the rest of the week.

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