Cherry Almond Granola

Thanks to my friend, Michele, for posting this recipe on Facebook.  I edited it slightly. It turned into sweetened clusters of cherry almond goodness.  Look out CPL staff - you're all getting this for Christmas!

Cherry Almond Granola

2 cups old fashioned oats
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup or more dried cherries (the best are from Costco, but I picked up these at Aldi and they were almost as good as Costco's)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cardamom
2 drops almond extract
2 drops vanilla extract
1/3 cup (or just a smidge more) honey

Preheat oven to 300°. Line a cookie sheet with foil and spray with nonstick spray. Set aside.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix until everything is completely coated in honey. This will take a few minutes and some elbow grease. I used a big spoonula.

Spread out onto cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool completely and then store in airtight containers.

Pumpkin Pancakes

I was ready to make a super easy Halloween brunch with my Pumpkin Waffle recipe. My plans were thwarted when I looked in the cupboard and realized we had no Krusteaz! A couple weeks ago, made pumpkin pancakes from a recipe I found on the internet and they were good, but I couldn't remember the site. I found a recipe on AllRecipes and gave it a shot. I altered it just slightly.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt in a separate bowl. Stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine. Allow batter to rest for a few minutes before cooking.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

They were dense, not light and fluffy. Still pretty delicious - but don't really be tempted to cook them until brown, just make sure the batter is set on the inside and that is how they are best (otherwise, they get a little tough on the bottom).

Bisquick Blueberry Pancakes

A couple of years ago, I signed for Allrecipes.com.  I love Allrecipes, but I submitted recipes and they never left "In Review" status.  That is is the main reason I started this blog! 

I recently ran across yet another social networking tool, GroupRecipes.com, so I thought I'd give it a try.  It's not so picky as Allrecipes, and it go straight to being published.

My first attempt was to publish my Bisquick Blueberry Pancakes recipe.   I was unsuccessful at posting a picture (I probably have to re-size).  Just click on the title for the recipe. I like that you can print it in different sizes and email it.

For the Bisquick Blueberry Pancakes, I altered the recipe for Bisquick's Melt-In-Your-Mouth Pancakes.  I added, lemon zest, vanilla, and blueberries, of course.

Brian likes them so much he made them this morning!

Popovers

Any native Dallasite knows the glory of popovers and strawberry butter from Neiman Marcus. Because of this, while at the Chef's Catalog warehouse sale, I bought 2 popover pans, but rarely make them. They are easy, but require a lot of steps (and a LOT of butter!).

Brian asked me where popovers came from. I didn't know, so I tried to do a little research. It all seems a little sketchy, but seems to be an Americanized version of the Yorkshire pudding, but using butter rather than animal fat drippings.

Here's the recipe that I use, which always results in gorgeous, crispy on the ouside, slightly custardy on the inside, popovers. Now, I've heard you can make them in a muffin tin, but I cannot attest to how they come out. My recipe came with the popover pan.

Popovers

1 1/4 C. Flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 1/4 C. milk
1 TBSP unsalted butter, melted
2 TBSPs unsalted butter, cut into even pieces depending on how many popovers you are going to make - I used a 6 cup popover pan, so I cut the butter into 6 even pieces).

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees and set rack in the middle of the oven.
-Blend flour, salt, eggs, milk, and 1 TBSP melted butter until the mixture is a heavy cream consistency (I use a mixer, but a blender would work too). Set aside.
-Spray pan with non-stick spray. Put popover pan in oven and preheat popover pan for about 2 minutes.
-Remove pan, and place 1 piece of butter in each cup, and place pan back in oven.
-Fill each cup halfway with batter. Bake for 20 minutes.
-Reduce heat to 300 degrees, and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.

To be completely honest, Neiman's popovers are great, but these are knock your socks off... My guess is because no matter what, you are not going to get a straight-from-the-oven popover at Neiman's - they are always slightly cooled off. You can see the steam coming off mine in the photo!



Sources:
http://home.insightbb.com/~bonnett/popover/popover_history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popover

Bisquick Cinnamon Rolls

You'd think I was an old lady as much as I use Bisquick. Here's another one! I used the Glazed Cinnamon Roll recipe from Bisquick's website, but I wanted a cream cheese icing rather than the simple powdered sugar glaze. I used the glaze from this Cinnamon Roll recipe via Epicurious, but added cinnamon to it.

Bisquick Cinnamon Rolls

For the Rolls:
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/2 cups Original Bisquick® mix
2/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup raisins

For the Cream Cheese Glaze:
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon (depending on cinnamony you like it)

Heat oven to 375°F. Grease bottom and sides of 13x9-inch pan. In small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon; set aside.

In medium bowl, stir Bisquick mix, 2/3 cup milk and 2 tablespoons sugar until dough forms. If dough is too sticky, gradually mix in enough Bisquick mix (up to 1/4 cup) to make dough easy to handle. Turn dough onto surface well dusted with Bisquick mix; gently roll dough in Bisquick mix to coat. Shape into ball; knead 10 times.

Roll dough into 15x9-inch rectangle; spread with butter. Sprinkle evenly with sugar mixture and raisins. Roll up tightly, beginning at 15-inch side. Seal well by pinching edge of dough into roll. Cut into 1 1/4-inch slices; place cut sides down in pan.

Bake 23 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan.

To make the glaze, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, and cinnamon in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat until smooth. Spread glaze over warm rolls.

They were pretty good, and Brian seemed to like them. The only thing about them is the obvious: they are the consistency of a Bisquick biscuit. They are dense and crumbly. To get the Flaky layered type of roll, I'd obviously have to spend a little more time making a yeast roll dough. I definitely want to try the recipe from Epicurious!

Also, we didn't eat them all, but they froze nicely, as did the glaze. Hurray again for Bisquick!!

New Orleans!

Brian and I went to New Orleans and had as much cliche food as possible. For the short time we were there, we did good!

First, we ate at the Acme Oyster House. I loved this sign; although, we actually had a waitress available instantly.

Crab and Corn Bisque.... Yum!!!

I was thinking as I was typing this, what's the difference between bisque and chowder? Apparently, bisque is pureed and chowder is chunky.

My "Peacemaker" Po-boy - half fried shrimp, half fried oysters.

Brian's jambalaya (sideways - he said he wished it had shrimp in it).

Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce (which just looks a lot like the bisque under the red glow of the waitress sign).

In the morning, we went to Cafe du Monde.

You have no choice but to get beignets. This is one of those places where you do one thing and you do it right. You probably can't tell from this picture, but basically, this is the tray assembly line. There's the coffee dispenser, the cafe au lait dispenser, the water and orange juice dispenser, and the place where the cook tosses plates of beignets. The waitresses go in the left side with a tray, and go through it getting the order, and then take the tray to the table. I was fascinated by the constant flow of waitresses going through the line and going through the cycle over and over again.

I didn't get a shot of it, but I thought it was hilarious that there was powdered sugar all over floor. This mug was also cute.



We also went to Pat O'Brien's for a Hurricane, I just didn't get a shot of that. We had a good time eating, and definitely want to go back and eat more!

Pumpkin Waffles

More from the BIG can of pumpkin puree: Pumpkin Waffles with homemade whipped cream and crushed up hazelnuts. I used hazelnuts because I didn't have any pecans cracked open.


You can get the recipe here: Pumpkin Waffles.

I still have enough left over to maybe do some pumpkin bowtie pasta!

Offensive Whole Grain Waffles

First of all, I would like to apologize for the amount of typos I always have in my postings. I am good about catching typing mistakes and wrong usage of words in someone else's writing, but not my own. I do re-read them before I post, but I don't do any major editing, and if I catch them after I post, I'm not likely to re-post. I hope it doesn't offend too many people.

Now, this kind of offends me: Whole Grain Waffles. Why? Because I did something I thought I would never do - I substituted applesauce for oil. Not all of the oil, but a big chunk of it. I am soooo glad I didn't make these for Brian, because they started out icky. I ended up making them a little better in the end.

Now, no offense to the author of this recipe because in all honesty, I didn't follow the recipe. Here's what I did:

2 eggs, beaten
1 3/4 cups skim milk
2 TBSP canola oil
1/4 cup + 2 TBSP unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Basically I didn't have wheat germ or flax meal, so I substituted oats and whole flax seeds, and I halved the oil and added more applesauce (I wanted to keep just a little oil).

The batter ended up really runny. I tried it for 2 batches in my Belgian waffler, but there was a lot of run off and they just weren't very dense. They were bitter to the taste (probably from all that baking powder!). Just. Not. Good. At. Aaaaallllll.

I ended up adding extra oats, about another 1/4 cup to the remaining batter. The batter ended up thicker, no run off, and a much better consistency. Still, no where near as good as Amazing Overnight Waffles, but the point is to have something healthier to pop in the freezer for a quick breakfast on the go in the mornings. They need more tweaking, but they'll work for right now.

Whole Grain Waffles

2 eggs, beaten
1 3/4 cups skim milk
2 TBSP canola oil
1/4 cup + 2 TBSP unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup flax seeds
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Spray the hot waffle iron with nonstick cooking spray and rub on a little butter with a paper towel or a piece of bread. Add just enough batter to cover the cooking surface, about 1 1/3 cups for a Belgian waffle, 2/3 cup for a standard waffle.
Cook the waffles until crisp and browned but not too dark, 2 to 3 minutes each.

By the way, Flax Seeds are really good for you!

Banana Nut Pancakes

In the search for something different to make for a special labor day brunch, I thought Banana Nut Pancakes would be awesome. I have made banana nut pancakes before where I layered banana slices and pancakes sprinkled with nuts. I wanted true banana nut pancakes this time though. I found this recipe: Banana - Nut Pancakes at Cooks.com. I changed them up a bit, and they ended up pretty amazing. Brian said you could taste all the ingredients, rather than a mix where all the flavors get muddled.

Banana Nut Pancakes

2 c. Bisquick
1 c. regular or quick-cooking oats
1 egg
1/4 c. sour cream
1 1/2 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 banana, thinly sliced
1/4 c. walnuts, finely chopped

Combine Bisquick, oats, egg, sour cream, milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon with wire whisk or hand beater until smooth. Add up to 1/4 cup milk if needed. Pour scant 1/4 cupfuls onto hot griddle. Arrange banana slices on top. Sprinkle with nuts. Drizzle batter over bananas just to cover them. Cook until edges are dry. Turn; cook until golden brown. Makes about 12 pancakes. Dust with powdered sugar and extra walnuts, and drizzle with melted butter and maple syrup.

Amazing Overnight Waffles

These are the absolute best. The only thing I do to this recipe is add a tsp. of vanilla extract. They’re absolutely perfect: crispy on the outside and slightly custardy on the inside.

Another amazing thing about them is that they freeze perfectly! Since I use a round Belgian Waffler, I wrap half circles in foil, and then put them in a Ziploc bag. I remove them from the foil, microwave for a bit to thaw, then I pop them in the toaster to crisp.

It is imperative that you use good butter for these. I can’t stress that enough. If the butter has absorbed smells from your fridge, you can end up with waffles that taste faintly of leftovers. And for goodness sake, don’t use lowfat. If you want lowfat, don’t eat these waffles!

The following is directly from the book... It really requires no additional explanation. Just make them! They're super easy and super delicious!

Amazing Overnight Waffles

From the book The 150 Best American Recipes by Fran McCullough and Molly Stevens

Yield 6 to 8 waffles (3-4 Belgian)

There’s nothing like a batch of waffles (these come from Mollie Katzen’s book Mollie Katzen’s Sunlight Café) to brighten a morning, especially if they’re homemade. Mix the batter the night before, and all you have to do in the morning is beat an egg, melt some butter, and stir. At the very most, there’s 15 minutes of work here. Yeast gives the waffles a special subtle quality, and the overnight rise adds a mellow tang and a pleasingly chewy texture that sets them apart from the usual baking-powder-and-baking-soda kind.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. active dry yeast (about 1/2 packet)
½ tsp. salt
2 cups milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
6 Tbsp. (3/4 stick) unsalted butter

Combine the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk in the milk until blended. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand overnight at room temperature. (If it’s warmer than 70 degrees, refrigerate the batter.)
The next morning, heat the waffle iron. Beat the egg and melted butter into the batter, which will be quite thin.

Spray the hot waffle iron with nonstick cooking spray and rub on a little butter with a paper towel or a piece of bread. Add just enough batter to cover the cooking surface, about 1 1/3 cups for a Belgian waffle, 2/3 cup for a standard waffle.
Cook the waffles until crisp and browned but not too dark, 2 to 3 minutes each. Serve hot.

A great way to keep waffles warm until you’re ready to serve them is to heat the oven to 200 degrees and place the cooked waffles directly on the oven rack without stacking. This keeps the waffles warm and crisp, whereas stacking makes them soggy.

This content is from the book The 150 Best American Recipes by Fran McCullough and Molly Stevens.
Copyright © 2006 Houghton Mifflin

Chocolate-stuffed French Toast

Brian kicks butt at French toast. He uses more egg than most people I know, resulting in a super custardy toast. Last weekend, he made Challah French Toast (the weekend before I made French toast with Easter Bread of the Alps from Central Market, which tastes like challah, with a little bit of lemon. I topped it off with a whipped cream and sliced strawberries). We still had a bit of challah left over from last week, but not really enough to do French Toast again. I remember seeing a Chocolate French Toast recipe (I finally figured it out that it was in Everyday Food: Great Food Fast). I had some Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips left over after making the Chocolate Cherry Almond Oatmeal Cookies, so I thought, "Hey, it's Sunday. Why not?!"

Chocolate-stuffed French Toast

6 slices of Challah bread
5 eggs
1/2 to 3/4 Cup half and half
2 TBSPs sugar
dash cinnamon
2/3 or so semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat griddle or non-stick pan to medium heat. Beat together eggs, half and half, sugar and cinnamon. Dip challah in egg mixture, one at a time, until soaked. Place one soaked challah slice down on buttered griddle, sprinkle enough chocolate chips on top to cover (about 2-3 TBSPs). Place another slice on top. Cook until bottom slice has cooked through and chocolate is starting to melt. Flip, and cook other side until done. Repeat until done. Plate and dust with powdered sugar

I made some fake sausage patties to go along with it - to balance out the sweetness. It was pretty good! I think they could use a wee bit of adjusting, but I'm definitely willing to give these a shot again.

Leftovers

We had some great leftovers from my mom's BD Extravaganza.

Sunday Morning, Brian made Mexican Breakfast. He took the rest of the refried beans and reheated them. Then he chopped up some potatoes and sauted them with some onions, green pepper and seasoning. Then he scrambled up some eggs and topped it all up with some cheese. MMMMM.

My mom bought the Tortilla Warmer at a church bazaar. It is basically a hot pad that you can slip tortillas into and pop them in the microwave. It works amazingly well, just as well as my old method of wrapping tortillas in 4 or 5 paper towels and sprinkling with water before nuking.

The rest of the Dulce de Leche and Whipped Cream made an amazing Cafe con Leche, and I don't know how I went back to my low fat version the next day.

Now, on to Brian's Spanish Rice! Brian makes the best Spanish Rice. I discovered this when I had a Supper Club where I was supposed to make Spanish Rice. I had tried to make it before, with no success - the rice ends up looking like it has acne, and it doesn't soak up the flavors at all. It's basically just ick. My sister had made a good package rice that would have worked just fine, but Brian said he would make it for me. He wrote out the recipe:

It made so much rice, my mom took some home, my brother-in-law took some home, and we still had a ton left. I made black beans and rice for dinner and we STILL had some left for lunch.

The black beans were super easy - I sauted garlic, onions, and red chili pepper flakes in some olive oil. I added a can of black beans, chopped tomato and green bell pepper and taco seasoning. Sauted until heated thouroughly.

I heated up the rice and put it in a pasta bowl. I made a well in the middle and put the beans in the well. I topped it off with grated cheese.

Pumpkin Waffles

A co-worker asked me for my Pumpkin Waffle recipe. I haven't made it in a while, but I thought I'd go ahead and add it since I mentioned it in the pasta post below. Mmmm... I'm craving them now. So simple. So good.

Pumpkin Waffles

Makes 4-5 Belgian Waffles

3 C Belgian Waffle Mix (I use Krusteaz)
2 eggs
1/3 C oil
1 C canned Pumpkin puree
1 C water
1 tsp. or more to taste Pumpkin pie spice (or a mix of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves)

Heat waffle iron. Mix all ingredients together until smooth. Cover bottom of lightly greased waffle iron. Cover lid and cook until done (about 3-5 minutes).

I have to admit I have never made them of this proportion before - I usually make them for 2-3 waffles, but the math of figuring out how much was one half of everything was hurting my head. I also usually don't measure too closely, but they always turn out good.

Pancakes

Once again, brunch food! This one is all about pancakes. I grew up with Pancake Sundays. Every Sunday my dad would make pancakes out of Bisquick. He used a blender to mix it, and they were thin, light pancakes. I still love Bisquick pancakes and that is usually what I use for pancakes. However, sometimes you want to up the bar on the simple, delicious breakfast food. Here's three great pancakes recipes.



Apple Pancakes

Last year on Brian’s birthday, I made him apple pancakes. I got the recipe from a Williams-Sonoma catalog (See here for original recipe and picture), but the original recipe called for thinly sliced apples (with a mandoline, since they were selling a mandoline on that page) to be cooked into the pancake. I tried this once, and it came out tasting good, but the food stylists in the magazine have skills I don’t have, so mine were really ugly. Here’s my Apple Pancake recipe (I half it for 2 people):

Apple Pancakes

1 egg
1 Cup Pre-sifted all-purpose flour
4 TBSPs Sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
1 Pinch ground nutmeg (freshly ground if you can swing it; if not, the pre-ground stuff works fine)
1 Very small Pinch cardamom
1 Cup plus 1 TBSP buttermilk
2 TBSP (¼ stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 peeled Granny Smith apple (yes, I keep the same amount of apple if it is a small Granny Smith; it should be roughly 2/3 Cup grated)

In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat eggs on medium until frothy. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, buttermilk, butter, and vanilla. Stir just until smooth. Stir in grated apple.

Heat a griddle over medium heat. Pour 1 TBSP cooking oil on griddle. Spread around with a paper towel.

Pour enough batter to make them the size you want. When they start to bubble in the middle flip them. Cook a couple minutes more.

Dust with powdered sugar and drizzle syrup over pancakes.

Gingerbread Pancakes

Brian likes Gingerbread, so for the past couple of years I've made Gingerbread at Christmas. There were too many sweets on the menu this year, so I didn't make any, but I also didn't want to leave Brian Gingerbreadless. So I made these Gingerbread Pancakes (the recipe comes from the Big Yellow Gourmet Cookbook).

Gingerbread Pancakes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 salt1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
(I add a dash of nutmeg and cardamom)
3 TBSP molasses (not robust or blackstrap)
1 large egg
1 cup sour cream
3 TBSP whole milk
2 TBSP melted butter, plus additional for brushing griddle

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Whisk together flower, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl. Whisk together molasses, egg, sour cream, milk, and butter in a small bowl, then add to flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Heat a griddle over moderate heat until hot enough to make drops of water scatter over the surface. Brush with butter. Working in batches of 4 to 6 (depending on the size of the griddle), drop 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto griddle and cook until bubbles appear on the surface and undersides are golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip pancakes with a spatula and cook until golden brown and cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes more. Transfer pancakes to a heatproof plate and keep warm in the oven while you cook the remaining batches. Serve with sour cream and maple syrup.

I used non-fat milk instead of whole milk and lite sour cream, and it worked just fine. And I did not serve it with additional sour cream. I just dusted it with powdered sugar, and a drizzle of butter and syrup. They came out really good. Brian said they were best pancakes I've made. I did however slightly burn the first batch, and it is hard to tell because of the dark color of the pancakes. I should have used the trick my father always did, he would make one pancake to test the temperature of the griddle. That usually ended up as my dog's pancake, and the rest of the batches were just right.

Fluffy Pancakes

Brian found this recipe and made these fluffy pancakes. They were really good and it made quite a lot of pancakes.

Hannah's Pancakes (From Epicurious.com)

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole milk
4 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) or more unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
Additional melted butter
Pure maple syrup

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in large bowl to blend.

Whisk milk and egg yolks in medium bowl to blend. Whisk milk mixture into dry ingredients.

Add 2 tablespoons melted butter and whisk until batter is smooth.

Beat egg whites in another medium bowl until soft peaks form.

Gradually add sugar, beating until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into batter in 2 additions.

Heat nonstick griddle or large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Brush generously with additional melted butter. For each pancake, fill 1/4 cup measuring cup half full and drop batter onto griddle. Cook pancakes until bottoms are brown, about 3 minutes. Using spatula, turn pancakes over and cook until bottoms are brown and pancakes are cooked through, about 2 minutes.

Transfer to plates. Serve warm with syrup.

NOTE: I think everyone prefers a different syrup based on what they had when they were growing up. For me, it was Mrs. Buttersworth. I have sampled many other high-fructose corn syrup based syrups on the market, and I still find Mrs. Buttersworth has the best flavor overall. Even still, I much prefer the taste of pure maple syrup, but since it has to be stored in the refrigerator and then heated back up, it ends up being super runny, and I don’t like that. So, If you want to do this, heat it up and add a little bit of Arrowroot to it. Just a pinch at first, and keep adding until you get the consistency you want. It will take some experimenting. It still won’t be a thick as the fake stuff, but it won’t sink into your pancakes and waffles and make them soggy.

Smoked Salmon Benedict

I love Brunch. Breakfast foods are some of my favorites to eat and certainly to make. They are so calorie-laden, but I never feel too guilty about it because I know I have the whole day to burn it off. One of my favorite Brunch restaurants in Breadwinners. I love everything they have, but I have a tendency to order the same thing because it is just so good: the Smoked Salmon Benedict. It is something I didn’t think would be too difficult to make, other than the Hollandaise sauce. So, last Sunday, I gave it a shot. I used the Hollandaise sauce from the Better Homes and Gardens checkered cookbook, and I only made 1/3 of the recipe. Here is the recipe:

Hollandaise Sauce

½ cup butter
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 TBSP water
1 TBSP lemon juice
Dash salt
Dash pepper (called for white pepper,
but I just used regular)

Cut the butter into thirds and bring to room temperature In the top of a double boiler, combine egg yolks, water, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add a piece of butter. Place over boiling water. Cook stirring rapidly with a whisk until butter melts and sauce begins to thicken.

Add the remaining butter, one piece at a time, stirring constantly until melted. Continue to cook until butter melts and sauce thickens.

Okay, so I made it perfectly, but waiting until poached eggs cooked did cause it to curdle a little. Just a little though, it was still good.

So the recipe for my version of Breadwinners Smoked Salmon Benedict is as follows:

Smoked Salmon Benedict

2 English Muffins, halved
4 eggs
4 tomato slices
8 oz package Smoked Salmon
Hollandaise Sauce

Lightly toast muffins.

Poach eggs. The way I poach eggs: Crack eggs into a shallow bowl. Fill a skillet ¾ full with water and bring to a boil. Stir boiling water with a wooden spoon to create a swirl. Gently pour eggs into the middle of swirl, careful not break any of the yolks. Boil until desired firmness of yolk – I like mine runny! Remove very carefully with a slotted spoon. Blot very carefully with a paper towel.

Arrange on each plate 2 halves of an English Muffin, place a couple slices of salmon on each half of muffin. Place tomato slice on top of salmon. Gently place one poached egg on top. Pour Hollandaise sauce over eggs.

I conquered! They turned out super good. I used Central Market’s Multi-grain English Muffins. They were really good, but very tough to cut. Brian suggested in the future I should add a little extra Hollandaise directly to the muffin to soften it up a bit – or use regular English muffins. The whole thing is fairly healthy too – well, all except the Hollandaise, but what would it be without that?