Category Archives: breakfast

Omelettes a la Julia

breakfast 4 Comments

“How about dinner in half a minute?”

Okay, you have my attention. The truth is that I tried for years to learn to make omelettes and they were always, without fail, consistently awful. Rubbery and browned and thick and generally unappetizing. I don’t remember how who “taught” me to make them, but it involved flipping them like a pancake and the results were horrid.

One look at this video of Julia Child making omelettes and I’m converted. Did you know these could be so easy? I certainly did not! But it turns out they are. And in the time it takes The Kiddo to say “I don’t wike it” I’ve got my new standard breakfast almost ready to go. It’s insanely easy to throw in some chopped up whatever-was-for-supper-last-night and a little cheese and I’ve got a meal. This one has chopped colby jack cheese and some leftover turkey from Martin’s, one of middle Tennessee’s greatest treasures: a BBQ joint which you really, really must try at some point in your life. Anyway, the protein in this omelette keeps me going all morning, and the fresh eggs are amazingly nutritious, tasty and pretty. By the way, as long as you’ve made the trip down to Martin’s, you can’t leave without stopping at the Nolensville Feed Mill too. Julia child said she was very careful about where she buys eggs, and so am I —  the Feed Mill is the only place I’ll buy eggs. Don’t you love their gorgeous yellow color?

Your turn! What would you put in an omelette?

Craisin bagels

baking, breakfast 15 Comments

Oh my moly.

Can one addition change a really great recipe into a really amazing recipe? You bet your Red Rider it can. Especially when that one addition is a bag of Craisins.

I started with the recipe for super simple bagels. You remember this, right? Flour, water, yeast, salt. I said they were simple! But to the mix, toward the end of the kneading, I added a bag of Craisins.

They still puffed up just right.

They survived the boiling just fine.

And they baked up beautifully.

And I got to eat this for breakfast!

Hard to argue with that, isn’t it?

Here’s a quick run-down of the recipe; full details can be found at the original post.

Make a starter of:

  • 2 1/8 oz bread flour
  • 2 oz. cool water
  • a pinch of yeast

and let it sit overnight at room temperature.

The next morning mix your bubbly starter with:

  • 17 ounces bread flour
  • 10 ounces cool water
  • 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

Then:

  1. Knead with abandon. Bread flour is high protein and will take longer to develop gluten; I let the stand mixer have at it for about eight minutes
  2. About five minutes into the kneading, add one bag of Craisins
  3. Let the dough rise for one hour, then deflate it. Let it rise for thirty minutes more
  4. Divide the dough into 12 roughly-equal parts, roll into balls, and let rise under plastic wrap for 30 minutes
  5. Preheat oven to 425 and bring a pan of water with 1 Tbsp. brown sugar to boil
  6. Poke your finger through the middle of the dough balls and twirl on your finger to shape into a bagel. Poke in any Craisins trying to escape
  7. Boil bagels, a few at a time, for 2 minutes on one side; flip with chopsticks and boil for one minute on the second side, then move to parchment-lined cookie sheets
  8. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, but start checking after 15 — you want them browned, but not too crispy

Enjoy! These are great with cream cheese. They also mail rather well, which is a nice bonus. 😀

Savebucks! How to make incredible iced coffee at home

breakfast, drinks 45 Comments

One taste of this and I promise you’ll think twice about dropping $6/cup for iced coffee.

This all started when I stumbled upon this article about cold brewed coffee. “Cold brewed” just sounded… odd. How does that work exactly?

Turns out: pretty well. It further turns out that it’s likely what you’ve been drinking from the mermaid all this time. AND it turns out that you can so easily make this at home!

Like all good drinks at my house, it starts in a Mason jar:

It’s like moonshine, but for morning.

Okay, write this down — it gets complicated:

  1. In a one quart Mason jar, pour in 2/3 cup of coarsly ground coffee
  2. Fill jar with cold water
  3. Let sit for 12 hours at room temperature

Oh. Hmm. Not really that complicated, is it?

After 12 hours, strain the coffee. I strain it through a paper filter into another jar, but you can use a sieve or cheesecloth, too. Now you have coffee concentrate.  Strong stuff. Keep it in a jar or container in the fridge; mine has lasted up to three weeks still tasting great.

For hot coffee: mix 1/2 concentrate with 1/2 water (or part water part milk, depending on how you take your coffee) and microwave.

For iced coffee: mix half concentrate, half milk and pour over ice. If you want to get super fabulous, shake your milk and concentrate in a cocktail shaker with ice, which makes a nice little foam on top. I do this, and add a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk, too; this makes it a little sweeter and a little thicker.

Also fun for iced: make an tray of coffee ice cubes! Use half coffee ice cubes, half regular ice cubes and your drink will never be watered down.

Some notes:

  • If you want your iced coffee sweeter add some simple syrup (sugar will never dissolve in there — go with the syrup)
  • Go crazy with the add-ins! Vanilla? Caramel? Cinnamon? Chocolate syrup? Whipped cream? It’s yours. Go nuts
  • Like it blended? Throw your concentrate and milk in a blender with ice and a little powdered milk to thicken it up
  • Be sure to stop and snicker periodically at how much money you’ve saved

Spring yogurt

breakfast, dessert, kids, snacks 9 Comments

Do you know the difference between winter yogurt and spring yogurt?

Spring yogurt is cuter.

The orginal how-to is here with all the details. But a quick run-down of the process, lest you be afraid:

  1. Heat a quart of milk to 180, add 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 dry milk, plus vanilla or maple syrup to flavor
  2. Let it cool to <120 (assuming you’re using pasteurized milk, you can technically just heat it to 120 and go from there, but I find it doesn’t thicken up quite as nicely that way)
  3. Add yogurt starter: 2 Tbsp. of yogurt containing live active cultures (ideally, 2 Tbsp. you saved from your last batch of yogurt; it freezes great in ice cube trays) and stir
  4. Pour into your very cutest containers and incubate at around 115 or so for four to six hours — I do this by lining a dutch oven with a heating pad set to low, then setting the jars in it and putting the lid on. If you want to make super-cute spring yogurt, add a couple drops of food coloring in each jar, stir to combine, then proceed with your incubation

That’s it! This is worlds better and cheaper than store-bought, and you can easily strain it to make it Greek-style if your little heart desires.

Super simple bagels

baking, breakfast 8 Comments

I’ve so long been intimidated by bagels. I mean bagels. A staple of NYers past and present. The extent of my NYC experience involves dragging a ridiculous number of kids through Grand Central Station and into Times Square, and having unheard of amounts of fun doing it. Toys R Us anyone?

But my college roomie was coming in town with her husband and her sister. I wanted to be able to serve them an awesome breakfast, but I also knew that we would certainly be up till all hours the night before and I probably wouldn’t feel like rolling out biscuits the next morning. Or doing anything much beyond stumbling toward the warm glow of the coffee pot. So the day they were to arrive, I made these — the world’s easiest bagels!

This recipe called for an overnight starter of:

  • 2 1/8 oz bread flour (I actually used AP flour for the starter and it was fine)
  • 2 oz. cool water
  • a pinch of yeast

Pretty easy so far, yes? Cover that and let it sit at room temperature overnight.

The next morning, mix your now-bubbly starter with:

  • 17 ounces bread flour
  • 10 ounces cool water
  • 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1. Now it’s time to knead. It takes a little more time and effort to develop the gluten in bread flour, so don’t be a hero; bust out the stand mixer or the bread machine for this one. It took me about eight minutes in the stand mixer to make it look nice and smooth (tip: spray the dough hook with non-stick spray to keep the dough from climbing up the hook).

2. Put your pretty dough in a greased/sprayed bowl, cover it with a tea towel and let it rise for one hour. After an hour, gently push the air out of the dough, and let it rise again for thirty minutes.

3. Now to split up the dough! Divide it into 12 roughly even pieces (I was not even a little scientific about this — I patted it into a disc, then cut it like a pie). Roll each piece into a little ball, then cover them all with plastic wrap and let them puff up a bit for thirty minutes.

4. Transfer the dough to a work surface, and divide it into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth, round ball. Cover the balls with plastic wrap, and let them rest for 30 minutes. They’ll puff up very slightly.

5. Turn on your oven to 425, then heat a few inches of water in a wide pan till it’s boiling; add 1 Tbsp. brown sugar to the water.  I *ahem* heard the bagels will still taste very yummy even if you forget skip the sugar.

6. Line two cookie sheets with silicone sheets, or grease with butter. Parchment is not your friend for this: the wet bagels will stick to the parchment forever. Shape your bagels by poking your finger through the middle of a dough ball, then twirling two fingers in the middle (think the same motion as twiddling your thumbs) till the hole is about two inches across.

7. Time for a swim! Drop bagels, four at a time, into the boiling water bath. Cook for two minutes, then flip and cook for one minute on the second side. Fish them out with a chopstick through the hole and put them back on the lined cookie sheets. Repeat till all bagels are boiled.

8. Bake at 425 till the bagels are as browned as you like; for me this was about 20 minutes. Sneak one to eat warm from the oven, then cool the rest completely on a rack.

I served these with cream cheese, fresh butter and pear jam from the awesome feed mill in our county. So yummy!

Incidentally, this article (which is great) says that homemade bagels are dramatically cheaper than store-bought. And so much better tasting, it turns out!