Fathers' Day French Toast

One of the great things about French toast is that you can make it with just a few ingredients that are almost always on hand: bread (even stale), milk, and eggs.  My husband loves a hot breakfast, so he is usually the one to treat us to French toast in the morning.  When he wants to make it special, he might add some cinnamon and vanilla.

This Fathers' Day, I decided to make three significant improvements over our normal weekend fare:

1. I bought some challah bread and sliced it myself.  When you compare a thick slice of egg bread French toast to the sliced whole-grain sandwich bread variety we usually have, it hardly seems fair to call them by the same name.
2. I gave our maple syrup a makeover by boiling it for two minutes with a tablespoon of butter and two teaspoons of cinnamon (for one cup of syrup).  Wow.
3. The night before, I sliced up some peaches and let them sit in a bowl with brown sugar and orange juice until they became French toast topping in the morning.

I can't take credit for any of these ideas, unfortunately.  Check out my sources at Epicurious.

Banana Bread Muffins

Well, it finally happened.  Two of our bananas turned brown.  Usually, bananas are the reason I go to the grocery store.  Both kids often want multiple bananas for breakfast (although they only get one each), and if either John or I have one, they're gone in two days.  I don't know what happened this time, but I was thrilled to see those brown speckled bananas.  It meant I could make my famous coconut-banana bread, and then blog about it.

Or... not.  Because you see, a loaf of banana bread takes an hour to cook.  And wouldn't you know it, I found myself out of coconut.  So I looked up a banana bread recipe in my America's Test Kitchen cookbook, mixed up some ingredients, and poured the results into a muffin pan.  We were eating them 25 minutes later.

My favorite part of banana bread is not actually the cakey interior.  The best part of banana bread to me is the crust, specifically the top of the crust where it splits as it rises, and what results is twin peaks of sweet brown crust that surround a small valley of gooey, sticky banana deliciousness.  Am I alone in this?  It doesn't matter.  All I know is that yesterday, I made twelve of those.  Best idea I've had all week.

Someday soon I will make my famous coconut banana bread and blog about it, because these recipes actually yield somewhat different textures.  My usual recipe is pretty cakey, whereas this one was a little lighter and airier.  Perfect for a muffin, if you ask me.

Banana Bread Muffins, adapted from The New Best Recipe from America's Test Kitchen

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 (or 3, if you've got them) very ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Let me say at the outset that I'm the kind of cook that uses only one bowl when I bake.  I'm not washing two mixing bowls just so I can sift out the dry ingredients.  I hope you're still willing to read my blog despite that confession.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Combine the butter, sugar, eggs, yogurt, bananas, and vanilla extract in a medium mixing bowl.  You'll want to use a potato masher, or something similar, for the bananas.  I like some bigger chunks of banana in my bread, so I don't spend too much time mashing.  After the first set of ingredients is well blended, add the flour, baking soda, and salt, and stir just until the dry flour is gone.  Spoon the mixture evenly into the greased cups of a muffin pan and bake for 20 minutes.  Yum.

Purple Party

Menu: Scrambled Eggs with Peppers, Monterrey Jack, and Worcestershire Sauce; Roasted Potatoes; Garlic Lemon Green Beans


Lessons learned:

1. Purple potatoes just aren't quite as good in this dish as my adored Yukon Golds.  But they're definitely fun.
2. Purple peppers are just a tease.
3. Sophie will not eat scrambled eggs.  Ben will.  One-for-two is a partial win in this game.

Even though I haven't really figured out how to use them, I can't seem to resist purple potatoes.  They were at Earth Fare and no more expensive than the Yukon Golds.  That was all I needed to know.  While I was putting them in my cart, I remembered the purple peppers growing in my garden and got very excited:

Do you think I might have a condition?  Maybe I'm just amazed that this color is actually found in nature:

The potatoes.  Not the bowl.  Yes, I use pink mixing bowls.  And a pink spatula.  My food processor is also pink.  So are my dry goods canisters.  I'm feeling very vulnerable right about now.

As I mentioned already, though, the peppers were just a big tease, which you find out as soon as you cut them open:

I dry-roasted them anyway, which completed my disappointment by eliminating ALL of the purple.  What?

So maybe it wasn't a purple party.  It was still a pretty decent weeknight meal.

Golden Roasted Potatoes

I'm having camera issues over here, so I can photograph neither my food nor my son rocking various pairs of Mama's heels.

Yesterday we made our second trip to the Thursday afternoon organic farmers' market.  If you haven't been over there, I definitely encourage it.  They're really trying to grow (not to mention keep the farmers they have), and can only do that if there's traffic.  It's in the shade, too!  Yesterday we got free samples of chocolate goat milk ice cream (which Ben enthusiastically deemed "nummy") and black-eyed pea bread (THAT is why I love farmers' markets; there's always something I've never heard of).  I bought some green beans, blackberries, red leaf lettuce, and some beautiful big new potatoes.  The guy told me I had to make them that night to really capture their flavor, and I said no problem.

So here is my favorite potato recipe, which I made last night.  It's good anytime from breakfast to dinner, and it works anywhere from a barbecue to a baby shower.  And it's super simple.  Normally I use Yukon Golds, but I used the new potatoes last night and they were delicious, too.  Since the potatoes are only flavored with butter, oil, salt, and pepper, the key is to go for it on all four; take the following measurements as minimums.  Don't try to make this healthier than it should be!

Golden Roasted Potatoes, adapted from Gourmet magazine

1.5 pounds potatoes, Yukon Gold are best
2 tablespoons melted butter
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt to taste (I like to use Kosher), at least 1/2 teaspoon
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Garlic powder (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350.  The original recipe says to peel the potatoes, but I see no reason to as long as you clean them thoroughly.  Slice them as thin as you can, within reason.  I mean, don't spend 5 seconds per slice or anything.  Someday I'll get myself a mandoline, but until then I can get my slices pretty thin by hand.  Just do your best.

Put the slices in a mixing bowl and combine them with the butter, oil, salt, and pepper.  Stir them around for as long as it takes to really get each slice coated with fat and seasoning, maybe a minute or so.  Spread them out in a pan; for this amount you could use either 8x8" or 9x13".  I like the larger one since my favorite potatoes are the ones that get brown, and the bigger pan means there are more of those.  If you want, you can sprinkle some garlic powder across the top of the potatoes here, too.  Cover them and bake for 20 minutes, then increase the oven temperature to 450 and take the cover off.  Bake for about another 20-30 minutes, or until the top looks brown enough to you.

Serves 4.