The Very Best Breakfast Bread Pudding

Makes: 6ish servings

Ingredients:

• 2-4 T brown sugar, depending on how decadent you’re feeling

• 2 T butter

• ½ a loaf of Cafe Selmarie’s apple-raisin bread, sliced, torn or diced into bite size pieces

• 4 eggs

• 1 ½ cup milk

• 4 oz cream cheese, sort of cubed, room temp

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1/4 tsp salt

• cinnamon for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Put brown sugar and butter in the bottom of an 8×8 baking dish. I use an oval Pyrex that’s roughly that size.
2. Heat in the microwave 30 seconds to 1 minute or until the butter is melted and the sugar starts to dissolve. Stir the mixture together until all the sugar is mixed with the syrup and butter.
3. Put the diced or torn bread on top of the sugar mixture in the baking dish.
4. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs.
5. Whisk the cream cheese, milk, vanilla, and salt into the eggs.
6. Pour the cream mixture over the bread but do not stir!
7. Press the top of the bread mixture into the egg mixture to get every piece to soak in some of the cream mixture.
8. Sprinkle the top with cinnamon and a little more brown sugar if you like.
9. Cover the dish with foil. At this point, you can bake right away or let it sit, overnight, in the fridge.
10. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
11. Bake, covered for 30 minutes. Raise the temp to 400 degrees, remove the foil and bake another 10-15 minutes. Test with a knife to make sure that the pudding is set in the middle.
12. Serve warm with maple syrup.

Big Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

I found the base of this recipe on line. A woman named "PANTHERA" (I know.) modified a recipe from a woman named Beatrice, then I took suggestions from the comments, made those changes, and a couple more of my own. I'm not exactly sure whose recipe it is now. But, I assure you, it's a good one.

Preheat your oven to 350.

Mix, in a stand mixer until very light and fluffy:

3/4 c. butter, softened

1/4 c. Crisco

1 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. white sugar

Add, and mix until very pale:

2 eggs

2 t. vanilla

Add, and mix until barely mixed:

1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. spelt or white wheat flour (or whole wheat or just more all-purpose flour)

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

Scrape down sides and mix in by hand:

3 c. oats (I used half quick cooking and half regular, rolled oats)

1 c. chocolate chips

1/2 c. mini chocolate chips

Chill dough for at least two hours, the longer the better. Six hours was very good.

Spoon rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets with ample room for spreading. Work quickly and get those cookies in the oven whiles the dough is still cold. Bake for 12-13 minutes. The cookies should be golden around the edge and nice and soft in the middle.  Yields about 40 cookies.

Warning: If you make these on a Sunday then go to Washington, D.C. Monday through Wednesday, you will be disappointed to find these nearly GONE when you return.

Yogurt Biscuits from Super Natural Every Day

When Mama makes biscuits, everyone's happy.

I made these yummy biscuits to go with this broccoli soup for dinner.  They're from Heidi Swanson's cookbook Super Natural Every Day. I like the book quite a bit, in fact, better than her last cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. She also has a nice blog called 101 Cookbooks. It's healthy, interesting stuff and despite the health bent, she seems very lovely and the site's not annoying at all. Anyway, the biscuits were fantastic and you should make some. They'd be a great breakfast with jam.

Makes 12 biscuits (She says 12, I say 16.)

1 ¼ cups spelt flour or whole wheat pastry flour (I used spelt)

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling

1 ½ teaspoons fine-grain sea-salt (I used iodized)

1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder (I was delighted to find that my baking powder was, in fact, aluminum-free!)

½ cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

1 ⅓ cup Greek-style plain yogurt (I used a combo of Greek and regular plain yogurt, about 50/50)

Preheat the oven to 450 with a rack in the middle of the oven. Place an ungreased baking sheet in the oven to preheat as well.

Combine the flours, salt, and baking powder in a food processor. Sprinkle the butter across the top of the dry ingredients and pulse about 20 times, or until the mixture resembles tiny pebbles. Add the yogurt and pulse a few times, or until the yogurt is just incorporated. Avoid overmixing, it’s fine if there are a few dry patches. Gather the dough into a ball and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead five times and press into an inch thick square. Cut in half and stack one on the other. Repeat two more times - flattening and stacking, then cutting. Add more all purpose flour to prevent sticking when needed. Press or roll out (I pressed) the dough into a 3/4 thick rectangle, but no thicker; if the dough is too tall, the biscuits will tilt and tip over while baking. Cut the dough into twelve equal biscuits.

Transfer the biscuits to the preheated baking sheet leaving 1/2 inch between each biscuit. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the bottoms are deeply golden and the biscuits are cooked through. Serve with butter and jam.

Puff Daddy Baked Apple Pancakes

Make this for breakfast for someone you love. Everyone will be happy.

Puff Daddy

• 1/2 (1/4 cup) stick unsalted butter
• 2 large firm, tart apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (granulated is fine in a pinch)
• a couple of decent shakes ground cinnamon
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (many recipes call for far less flour but I don't like it too eggy)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Confectioner’s sugar

Preheat oven to 425F. Melt butter over medium-high heat in an ovenproof 10-inch skillet. Add apples, granulated sugar, and cinnamon and saute, stirring occasionally, until the apples begin to brown and most of the juices have evaporated, 5 to 7 minutes. Turn off heat.

Combine eggs, milk, flour, and salt in a bowl and whisk until smooth. You can also whisk in some (2 T.) melted butter but that takes this to a new buttery level that is not actually necessary but, yes, delicious.

Spread the browned apples evenly across the bottom of the pan. Pour the batter over the apples. Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the pancake is golden and puffed, about 15-18 minutes. Be amazed.

Remove the pan from the oven and let the pancake rest in the pan for about 3 minutes. Squeeze a little lemon on it if you wish, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar, cut into wedges, and serve with warm maple syrup.

Serves 2-4.

Stuffed Portabellas aka Leftover Magic

Okay, you have to believe me when I say that I am a better cook than a food photographer and therefore, these taste way better than this looks. looked before I removed the photo because it looked so very awful.

Stuffing for caps, mix together all ingredients:
2 cups of grain/carb (brown rice, orzo, cous cous, bulgur, leftover pilaf, what have you)
2 cups sauteed veggies (onion, garlic, fresh spinach, grated carrot, etc.)
1/2 t. basil
1/2 t. oregano
1/4 t. red pepper flakes
1 T. olive oil
salt and pepper liberally
Optional: 1/2 c. crumbled feta or 1/4 parmesan or romano (decrease salt if using romano) or whatever cheese you like

4 big portabella mushroom caps, stems removed, brushed clean with a damp paper towel

olive oil

balsamic vinegar

optional: bread crumbs

Generously, oil a Pyrex baking pan with olive oil. Lay the caps smooth side down in the oil. Splash the caps with some nice balsamic vinegar. Mound 1 cup of the stuffing on top of each cap, flattening the stuffing and pressing all over the cap. At this point, feel free to sprinkle on some bread crumbs or a bit more romano cheese for extra crispy topping.

Bake at 375 for about 25-30 minutes or until the top is nice and crispy and the mushroom is cooked through and releasing its juices.

Al Di La's Torta di Pere

I didn't make this recipe up, I've never eaten it at the restaurant and I didn't even blog about it first. But it is a true third-hand winner. And I've made it a half dozen times, without adjusting the recipe one smidge. Imagine a warm Toll House cookie filed with little soft pear pieces nestled inside. It's that good.


The point of origin: Al Di La
The recipe I use from: Smitten Kitchen

Blog-esque photo of the stuff you need.

Couldn't even wait to transfer off the pan before eating some.

Melty goodness.

Zucchini Pie for Zucchini Haters

When I was in fifth grade, my mother made me eat a bite of zucchini. Really-gross-stewed-to-death-like-the-Italians-like-it zucchini. "I don't like it." "Just one bite." "I really hate it." "You have to eat one bite." "I really hate it and I won't eat it." So after a bit of this back and forth, I took a bite but refused to chew it or swallow it. I sat at the table for a while until she needed to go downtown so into the car we went, me still with the zucchini in tow. Once on foot, we saw her banker heading towards us and my mom realized how embarrassing it would be to have an eleven year old with a mouth full of food, unable to say hello. "Okay, you can... Spit. It. Out," she said, under her breath. So I spit it in the gutter and never looked back. No zucchini. Ever. (BTW, that was very therapeutic. Stay with me for the actual recipe...)

And then, a couple of years ago, after 30 years of avoiding the stuff, I had dinner at the lovely home of Michael and Staci, and Staci made a fantastic quiche-like dish called zucchini pie and it was so delicious that I was loath to believe it was, in fact, zucchini. Since then, I've tried. Really I have. Grilled. Raw, shaved onto a salad with lemon and chives. In tempura batter. Not horrible.

But every summer, there it is. A friend has a bumper crop, or it shows up week after week in your farm box, or Nancy Essex shows up with a gift of a giant zucchini in a wine bag and it sits on the counter begging to be eaten. And I wanted to be able to really like it. Here's the best recipe for those times. Even a zucchini hater like me will eat two pieces. I've adapted it only a wee tiny bit from the original Real Simple recipe.

Zucchini pie that would have photographed better with a little green salad or a wedge of fruit.

3 cups zucchini, grated (and peeled and seeded, too, if you really hate the stuff)
1 onion, grated and sauteed
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup grated smoked gouda
3 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil (maybe could get away with less)
2 T. pecorino romano cheese
2 t. good pesto
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. kosher salt
lots of freshly ground pepper
hearty dash of cayenne


Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Pour into a well greased ceramic pie pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes at 350 or until golden brown and a tester comes out clean. Cool 10-15 minutes before slicing.