Do-nut Miss Out on This Recipe!

A week from tomorrow I move into my dorm room. AND I'M BORED. Everyone's starting to pack up and leave and now that I'm not working I feel like half the day I'm usually twiddling my thumbs or coming up with random errands to run. This morning I was bored out of my mind so, naturally, I flipped open one of my cookbooks and started thumbing through pages for a recipe that I hadn't tested yet.

I flipped through page after page making mental notes of things I might come back to, but when I found a recipe for French Cruller Doughnuts I was sold. I wanted something that was reasonably quick and easy, but different, and these are just that.

My brother tried to argue that these are not doughnuts, but the recipe says so and that's good enough for me. Better yet, there was no frying involved! They aren't as heavy as a typical American style doughnut, which I think works brilliantly in their favor, and the dough puffs up to a texture similar to that of a cream puff. In short, delicious! The dough is a combination of flour, water, milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla, cooked on the stove top before beating in 8 eggs. My favorite thing about these doughnuts is that the big blog of dough is piped! I bought that fifty something piece piping set last spring and I've hardly had a chance to pull it out of the closet, but the recipe requested a large star tip and so pipe I did! I couldn't help but laugh a little bit at my piping bag, I always use ziplocks instead of real bags because they are a) cheaper and b) disposable, which I think looked like an obese fish...

But anyway... I piped the dough onto a large cookie sheet, two circles stacked on top of one another and came up with these, popped them in the oven to bake, and came out with these beauties:

So cute! The lines are from the star tip on my piping bag. You can use a spoon to shape the dough into a simple circle on the sheet, but this looks so much better! My pretty piping job was masked a little bit by the frosting, but I guess that's a sacrifice I just had to be willing to make. The actual glaze recipe for these doughnuts calls for a bunch of melted butter, which I made, but quickly ran out of since the recipe yielded about twice as many donuts as it told me it would. I was feeling kind of lazy and my second batch of glaze was a simple mixture of powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla, and tasted, I hope, just as good.



The plateful I gave away seemed to be well received and my family really liked them. My dad even toted off a plateful to work which he claims were gone within a couple hours. I know I say this all the time, but they really are super easy. I'm sure they'd be great company for a cup of coffee or tea and they are delicious for breakfast, dessert, or even just a snack. The recipe is from The Joy of Baking, basically my Bible, and goes as follows (I added in a few notes of my own ;) ):


French Cruller Doughnuts
Makes 12 to 15 doughnuts, depending on size

Choux Paste Doughnut Base
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup water
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 8 large eggs

Creamy Vanilla Glaze
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 2 1/2 to 3 cups confectioners' sugar (aka powdered sugar)
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 to 4 tablespoons hot water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper (I would also recommend using a liberal amount of non-stick spray, these things clung to my aluminum foil for dear life).
For Choux Paste Doughnut Base, in a medium saucepan, stir milk, water, sugar, and slat together over medium heat. Stir in butter and allow it to melt. Increase heat and bring mixture to a rolling boil. Stir in flour all at once. Blend well with a wooden spoon, adding vanilla and beating briskly until mixture forms a ball that leaves the sides of the pan. Beat vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes before removing from burner and turning out into a mixer bowl. Allow mixture to cool for 5 minutes.
Using a wide whisk or a wooden spoon, add eggs, 1 at a time, until mixture is smooth and glossy (I actually gave up on the spoon idea and immediately used a hand mixer and was golden :) ). Spoon choux paste into a large pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch star tip (or a large Ziplock with a hole cut in one corner). On prepared baking sheets, leaving some space between each pastry, make a 4-inch circle of batter with another circle on top (concentric circles). If you don't have a pastry bag you can also use a soup spoon to spread out a ring of batter as best you can.
Bake pastry 15 minutes; then reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake another fifteen minutes or until doughnuts are light in texture and medium brown all over. Let cool slightly.
To make Creamy Vanilla Glaze, whisk everything together in a medium bowl to a thick glaze consistency, mixing in more confectioners' sugar or water, if needed, to achieve a gloppy, thick glaze. Dip each doughnut once, let excess drip off back into bowl, let set, and then glaze again (mine were so thickly coated that I only dipped them once). Let doughnuts set on a wire rack.

After making these I couldn't help but wonder, "Why 'doughnut'?" I mean, I get the dough part, but whoever though these resemble a nut is... well... a nut. So I Googled it quick! Turns out the idea of a doughnut was brought to American by pilgrims from Holland who called them olykoeks, or oily cakes. These original doughnuts were balls of dough fried in pork fat. Although delicious, the olykoek presented a problem: the middle of the ball was usually a little undercooked. In order to prevent this from happening, apples, prunes, or raisins were often inserted into the middle of the dough. These ingredients needed only to be reheated, not cooked, and therefore solved the undercooked dough issue. Rumor has it, in 1847 a woman named Elizabeth Gregory of New England was known to make some impressive olykoeks. What was her secret? She spiced the dough with a hint of nutmeg and filled the center with hazelnuts or walnuts, calling it a dough-nut! The story continues to describe the way the doughnut evolved to the shape it is today. One variation claims that Elizabeth had a sea captain for a son named Hanson Crockett. Mrs. Gregory would send him off to see with a batch of doughnuts and provided the cook with her recipe. According to the legend Hanson Crockett didn't care for the nuts in the center and after repeatedly poking the middle out finally ordered his cook to prepare them without any center at all. And there you have it!

The Morning After

I don't remember how long ago it was, a month? Nearly two, maybe? Whenever it was, Taylor and I went to this place called Earth House Cafe one night to meet up with a few of his friends and watch live music. It was a Friday night, open mic night, and it was beyond fun! Not only was the music really interesting, but it turns out the Earth House Cafe has a vegetarian, and for the most part vegan, friendly kitchen!

No, I'm not a vegetarian, but often vegetarian options are my top food choices. That night I got what was called a wheat berry pita taco. It was a pita filled with a generous layer of hummus and this mixture that was some sort of wheat berry salad. Sounds a little odd, I know, but it was delicious! Taylor was a little less than thrilled... after all the closest he got to meat was a fried egg, and he didn't touch the wheat berry salad that was piled next to his sandwich, but where I'm a happy camper with cuisine generally he's not I guess.

Anyway, I decided wheat berries were an ingredient I'd have to play with. They look almost like rice, and cook in much the same way, but the grains are a little bigger, darker in color, and have a chewier texture and nuttier taste. Unfortunately I couldn't find a recipe that I thought was comparable to what they serve at Earth House and instead opted for a soup recipe that sounded promising.

I found the recipe for Cumin-Scented Wheat Berry and Lentil Soup in a Google search that took me to EatingWell.com. Cumin is one of my all time favorite spices, so I figured, why not?

It turns out that Cumin-Scented Wheat Berry and Lentil Soup is really not that great. I mean, it was ok. I'll eat it, but my whole family sat around the dinner table making fun of my recipe (not the first time, won't be the last, I'll live to cook another day). Even though I tried desperately to defend it, truth be told it's a little bland... fortunately I cooked too many wheat berries! I had leftover wheat berries after assembling my soup so I decided to take advantage of the left over "berries" and use them to make breakfast Tuesday, another option I'd read about.

This time I decided to screw the whole recipe route and free-style based on what I'd read, which is generally a lot more interesting. I'm not going to lie to you, it was delicious. I took a half cup of plain yogurt mixed with a little bit of dark honey and put it on the side of my wheat berries. Then I added about 1/2 a tablespoon of flaxseeds and a diced apricot. I'm officially adding this to my list of favorite breakfast items, it's delicious, filling, and healthy!

I like to call it a "Breakfast Bowl" because you can throw in basically whatever sounds delicious. At the time and apricot sounded like a good addition and flax seeds make everything better. It's really popular to use berries, though, so you could really mix in whatever kind of fruit you favor. I'm a plain yogurt fan, but you don't have to use that either. If you're really an oatmeal fan you can just mix them into hot oatmeal for a heartier breakfast cause you can eat 'em warm, too!

The wheat berries are those things on the right, they kinda look like Smacks cereal... I soaked them in water overnight (which I actually read numerous places you DON'T have to do) and then simmered them for an hour the next day. Like I said, I made more than I really needed for the soup and ended up having plenty left over after breakfast, too. I just popped the leftovers in the freezer and supposedly they'll keep until I want to defrost them for another morning.

I found these wheat berries at Whole Foods and I'm sure you could get them at any grocery store along those lines. I know some of the stuff I put on here is a little too health food oriented or exotic for some of you, but try these, they're really picky-palate friendly and can be used in so many ways!

Flippin' Awesome Breakfast

I shouldn't lie to you as often as I do, but I just can't help it. I make plans, what to bake, when to bake it, what's for dinner... and they always fall through. Mostly because my mind wanders. I WILL make raw rood recipes (again, waiting to get my butt up and buy ingredients) and I WILL make those cookies (probably when I get back from London because I have a feeling it will be mostly me eating them) and I WILL decorate a couple cakes with my new fancy tools (in fact, Father's Day is Saturday!!!), just not today.

Today I got up and reminisced about the whole wheat pancakes I had at Denny's while in Bloomington for orientation. They were fluffly, delicious, and most likely not as whole wheat as they could be. So this morning, I denounced the Bisquick box and searched for a homemade whole wheat pancake recipes, making sure I had fluffy in the google search box, too. And later buttermilk. Apparently that's important to the fluffy factor, or so says the internet.

This is the first time that I'm actually writing while in the process of cooking. While each side of my little cakes cooks I'm typing up this entry. So basically every few sentances or so I'm getting up to flip a cake! I did right after that last paragraph. It was the first one. It was not fluffy. Grrr... Oh well, Sally's happily eating a chocolate chip laced whole wheat pancake which is a rather big feat, so I suppose I can't be too too picky. And I'm not going to lie, they are kinda pretty :).





So Sally and her friend, both outside working our neighborhood garage sale while I happily make breakfast in my pjs, are having chocolate chip pancakes. And then there's me. Did you really think I would be so plain? I haven't made my pancake, about to do so now actually, but I'm going to add a teaspoon of flaxseeds to the batter instead of chocolate chips and make a yogurt-honey combination to go on top. A while back I was looking for a healthier way to douse down my pancakes, I had gotten into the habit of topping them with a thick layer of peanut butter, banana slices, and finally maple syrup, which although absolutely divine is a pretty redonkulously calorie ladden breakfast. Yogurt may not sound like a maple syrup substitute, but trust me, it's awesome. I'm a plain yogurt person, so I like to mix non-fat plain yogurt with a little cinnamon (actually, a lot of cinnamon...) and some honey for my topping, but in the past I've used fruity yogurts as well. I went through a phase a couple years ago where I topped ego waffles with a combination of Light 'n Fit yogurt and smashed berries. They are both delicious, and awesome topping choices even if you're not looking for a healthy alternative to regular syrup. But if you are concerned about healthy eating, make sure whatever yogurt you choose has "live active cultures" written on the container, that's the good stuff! Taking a break now to enjoy my own pancake :D...





THAT WAS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!! I can't lie to you, that was a freaking delicious pancake! Sally even said it was awesome, not good, not ok, awesome. So good in fact, that I'm going to put the recipe on here!!! I made a couple changes myself, I used 3/4 cups low-fat buttermilk and 1/2 cup of skim milk, I didn't fill my 1/4 measuring cup quite full when I measured my sugar, I just used a pinch of salt, and put about a 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract in my batter. Oh yeah, and the flax seed I put in my pancake were whole. Otherwise, I followed these directions....

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 tablespoons egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups low-fat buttermilk
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (heaping)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons flax seed meal (optional)

Directions

1. Whisk together dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another. (Whisk just basically means stir, I used a fork to quickly combine the two mixtures.)
2. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and stir only until most of the dry ingredients are in moistened. DO NOT OVERSTIR. Your batter should be lumpy, if it's not, your pancakes will have zero fluff factor!
3. Liberally coat a skillet with non-stick cooking spray or butter and pre-heat. Keep the temperature pretty low when you're cooking pancakes, otherwise the outside will be crispy and the inside will be batter mush. Gross.
4. Pour about 1/4 cup batter into the center of the pan and spread slightly. Cook until the edges puff a little and the batter begins to bubble. Flip and let cook for a few more minutes on the other side.
5. Figure out what you want to put on top of your pancake, put it on top of your pancake, and eat.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until your batter is gone, then repeat steps 1-5 ;).

A Breakfast That's Over Easy

I'm a HUGE breakfast fan, probably my favorite meal to make. Unless you count dessert as a meal, then it's my second favorite! So I was surfing Smitten Kitchen, pretty much my favorite recipe resource and came across some delicious looking recipes. Of course my list of things to try was immediately a mile long and I was looking for something I might actually have the ingredients for already. Now had anyone simply suggested to me poaching eggs in tomato sauce I would have thought the combination pretty unappetizing, but the picture on Smitten Kitchen left me dying to try it out. The toast with homemade sauce piled on and a neat little egg nestled on top, not to mention sauteed spinach on the side! I was sold.

Hope Amos, whom I absolutely adore, came over for breakfast this particular morning. Yes, someone was brave enough to try my latest experiment!!! I even convinced my parents to have a go at a plate of the tomato goodness! Here they are at the kitchen table, enjoying breakfast, or at least doing a good job of faking it for me.





I'm a fan of poached eggs. I think they're clean, simple, and consequently pretty tasty. So I enjoyed this breakfast, it made me feel like I was starting my morning in Italy or something and it was very filling without feeling heavy. I wouldn't make it everyday, or even every week probably, but as an occasional option I'd say it was a wonderful breakfast. My mom was fairly indifferent, as always, and my father's only input was that though it was pretty tasty he felt the sauce overpowered the eggs. Kinda true. Hope was as happy as she always is and I probably could have fed her just about anything and she still would've sat there and smiled her bum off ;).






If you'd like to try the recipe, again, it's on smittenkitchen.com. It's super easy, but a little messy (I had to pull out the animated dog covered apron my dad and sally so graciously gifted me for Easter).

You know what else I think? I think this post was boring... I need to find something interesting to write about!!! For your sake and mine!!! I think I need some suggestions, I mentioned this in the last post but have yet to get any. I know a couple of you people out there read this, you admitted to it! If you find something that looks like a delicious challenge let me know!

Make, Bake, and Break!

So I wanted to leave the house early tomorrow morning. In her rant about how ridiculous it was for me to be getting out of bed my mother made the mistake of saying I could leaving after making my father breakfast. Hmmm.... Really.

I think my mother assumed my dad had to be awake for me to make him breakfast, which is not the case at all! Screw eggs, bacon, pancakes, french toast, waffles, or whatnot! Muffins, breakfast breads, coffee cakes and one of my dad's favorites, scones, are all super make ahead breakfasts. So it is now 1:30 in the morning and I just finished preparing cranberry and pecan scones. All I have to do is pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes in the morning and they will be ready to eat without me even being here!











Admittedly, there's no way I'd get away with sneaking out of here as early as I'd like, but this at least will put me a bit ahead! It's too easy to outsmart my mother... can't wait to see how they turn out in the morning and, more importantly, her face when she realizes she's raised a smart ass. Actually, more like is reminded she raised a smart ass.

*When making scones always make sure your butter is SUPER COLD. Unlike frostings, cake batters, and bar batters, you want the butter in scone dough to form small chuncks (aim for about the size of peas). When the butter pieces melt in the oven they release air that forms little pockets in the pastries, this causes the flakiness that makes them so delicious. Room temperature or melted butter with taking the puff out of your breakfast scones, making them more cake like than the true product is meant to be.

**The recipe I used actually was for blueberry blackberry scones, but I didn't have the berries on hand so I just used what was in the cupboard. For most scone, cookie, and muffin recipes, add-ins can be traded for other add-ins according to your tastes or available supplies. Consider things like dried fruits, baking chips, and nuts interchangeable and have fun experimenting with different combinations of flavors!






These are pictures that I took earlier this morning of the finished scones (seeing as it's now Sunday) which turned out absolutely delicious. They browned wonderfully on the outside but were still soft in the middle, perfect breakfast material. That's my dad enjoying one, he was a pretty happy camper. By the way, the scone plan got me out of the house a whole 90 minutes prior to my previously dictated departure time!

Happy Baking!

Carrots and Spice and Everything Nice

I have to admit, I made these quite some time ago, two weeks I believe! I was distracted with life and other recipes and put my hasty photographs on the back burner (figuratively ;) ), but better late than never, right? Besides, I wouldn't want you to miss out on yet another baked good! They are starting to feel somewhat rare these days...

I want to say it was a Saturday morning. Although I was up semi-early, which is unfortunately my nature, I was waiting on Taylor to find his way out of bed to start the day. I simply couldn't bring myself to wake him, so I, of course, decided to kill the hour or so with a quick recipe! It was still a little early to be thinking about cakes or cookies, so I turned to my favorite breakfast sweet, scones.

Anyone who claims they don't like scones is a liar. If you don't like scones, you're simply eating the wrong ones. The absolutely divine characteristic of scones is that they can be whatever you'd like them to be. Although in America they tend to be sweet, including ingredients like dried fruits, orange zest, cinnamon, pumpkin, nuts, poppy seeds, and so on, they also exist in a number of savory varieties available as well. The British often add raisins, currants, cheese, or dates. Potato scones can be found in Scotland, and other countries one may encounter scones with cheese, onion, and bacon! Um... YUM! They can be baked or fried, thick or thin, light or heavy, the possibilities are seemingly endless!

I, however, in my attempt to make my baked goods appear a little healthier, was attracted to a carrot cake scone recipe. Carrots and raisins folded into a thick cinnamon spiked scone batter was intriguing and a cream cheese glaze won me over. I will admit, I upped the health ante and replaced half the flour with whole wheat flour. Whole wheat is just has so much more depth of flavor, and feels so much better to eat!







Of course, where I make healthy strides I tend to counterattack them with equally unhealthy embellishments, and I didn't fail here! The cream cheese glaze was delicious, though not aesthetically pleasing enough for my taste. The recipe recommended decorating the scone tops with cinnamon or coconut, so I thought "why not both?" Coconut, in my opinion, is best when it's lightly toasted. Before my handful of snowy coconut was oven-bound, I mixed in a bit of cinnamon to infuse in the heat. And so each of my carrot cake scones received a light layer of cream cheese glaze and a dusting of cinnamon toasted coconut.





They were fairly well received, I quite enjoyed the one or two I ended up polishing off! They are a lovely breakfast go-to and would certainly make wonderful company to a cup of hot tea. The recipe is simple and quick, a wonderful go to for a homemade breakfast within an hour, for those of you who simply are too lazy to tackle the art of bagel making!

The Weather Outside is Frightful, but the Kitchen is So Delightful!

I absolutely love snow days. There is an atmosphere about them that is so unique it really doesn't compare to any other type of day. The brilliant comfort of a snow day is built on the fact that you can't possibly have any plans. I always feel like I have a mile long to-do list, a thousand places to be, and I rarely get to treat myself to time spent on tasks I've longed to tend to for my own personal satisfaction. Snow days, however, are not like real days. They are like an extra day thrown into the year, like Mother Nature saying, "Screw the real world, do whatever the hell you want!" And so today I am doing just that.

I was woken up at about 6 by my brother who so graciously informed me that school was not something I needed to worry about on this particular Wednesday. I was so incredibly excited about the prospect of having a day open to do whatever I wanted (which, inevitably, was try out a few recipes) that falling back into a snow sent slumber wasn't an option. I was a little disappointed that on a day with so much potential I was getting up earlier than I would on a school day, but now that I've spent my morning I'm thrilled with the way it turned out!

So by the time I dragged my butt downstairs at 6:30 in the morning, cookbook in hand, I had already decided that a completely open day called for a good challenge. This particular recipe was one I was eager to try and was ecstatic to find an opportunity to test run. My father, who was quite befuddled that his teenager daughter was wandering downstairs so early in the morning by choice, met my ambition with a considerable amount of doubt.

I've never been a huge fan of everything bagels, but having never heard of homemade bagels, I found the recipe screaming "MAKE ME!" And I don't ignore screaming recipes. So when I eagerly told my father I was making bagels he responded by saying, "Molly... I think bagels are the type of thing that you make once and then you realize why you buy them." I AM NEVER BUYING BAGELS AGAIN!!! Except maybe when I don't have roughly two to two and half hours to make my own. But seriously, bagels have always just been alright in my book. Turns out that when they come fresh out of the oven the combination of a browned crust and a soft, warm interior is nothing short of orgasmic.

You may be wondering, as I did when I first flipped to this recipe, what in the world goes into the making of a deliciously fresh homemade wonder bagel? The recipe starts out much the same as any other bread recipe, activating yeast and kneading in lots of bread flour with a little sugar, salt, and whatnot. The recipe says to mix most of this together with a dough hook, which is a nifty device that slips into a standing mixer, but since I don't have a big $200 KitchenAid mixer, I got mine together with a considerable amount of elbow grease. After the dough rises for an hour or so, it's divided, rolled into strips, then formed into the typical bagel ring which is allotted another 15 minutes of rising time. Then 6 quarts of water is brought to a simmer with 1/4 cup honey, 1 T sugar, and 1 T salt. The bagels are simmered in the water for roughly 30 seconds on each side, 2-4 bagels at a time (I did 3 and managed quite well). The only bagel recipe in the book I was working from was the everything bagel recipe which, although I could probably adapt to easily accomodate any type of bagel, called for a mixture of satueed onions, poppyseeds, sesame seeds, and kosher salt as a pre-baking topping. After rubbing on an incredibly aromatic "everything" topping, I popped them in the oven for half and hour and found my labor was well rewarded.







By the time they came out of the oven it was around 9:30 and the rest of my family, clearly more sane than I, was just beginning to roll out of bed. Even though the bagels seemed to be coming along fantastically, I felt they could use a partner in crime if they were to perfectly grace the breakfast table. I love to chop, so it wasn't much of a surprise that I might have gone a little overboard with the onion I was mincing for the bagel topping. I reserved half the onion bits and mixed them into some scrambled eggs. I sliced my chosen bagel in half and put the eggs in the middle and LOVED IT.





My brother stole half the eggs and added some cheese and ham in the middle of his bagel, which after a few minutes of cheese-melting time in the oven seemed like a fantastic idea. The whole family loved them, and you will too! Although the recipe sounds a little funky, it's quite simple besides being a little time consuming. But believe me, the time and effort are a small price to pay for a bagel you will enjoy more than any other!

French Toast of a Breakfast Past

I wish I could bake everyday. Or cook, though I'm really nowhere near as good at that. I don't think I'm really a great baker or anything, I just know how to follow recipes. And I love what I'm doing enough and have gone through so many recipes that I can't help but tweak things to be just the way I want them. Anyway, I wish I could be in the kitchen whipping up something lovely everyday. But for that to work out the way I'd like it would have to be the only thing I really did. Sometimes I volunteer to make dinner on a school night or after work or something and that's really never an awesome idea because I get stressed too easy and when I feel like I have a time limit to making something wonderful it turns into something very unwonderful, the experience that is, and usually the food too cause like I said I'm really not a great cook. I want to be in the kitchen everyday and I want to have all day to it. I don't need all day to make a cake or pie or bread or soup or whatever, but it's feels so wonderful to pour over something for as long as you'd like, with as much precision as you'd like, giving it as much attention and detail as you want, without seeming to have any other pressing matter to attend to. Have you seen the movie Waitress? You should see it. I love that scene where she's in the kitchen with the doctor singing her little pie love song with the sun shining through the windows, not caring how long it takes to make the pie she's making and forgetting about her awful husband. That's probably one of my favorite movies. Because of a number of things, including that picture perfect scene and the relaxed happiness in the end when she owns her own pie shop that really probably couldn't happen because to serve that many pies you'd have to work your butt off. But if she can do it, maybe I can, too. Then again, I like to work my butt off, for a some of the time. But I think that's what I'd really like, that scene, everyday. I don't think I necessarily need a doctor there, but sunshine in the windows for sure.

I started this post to talk about French toast and haven't gotten there yet... But I began with good intentions. I'd like to be in the kitchen everyday, right? But I can't. Which means I can't post things as often as I'd like, because even when I can get in the kitchen, if I'm feeling time pressured, writing about it is usually not on the top of my to-do list, let alone higher on the priority list than homework and such. In the past, however, I happened to take photos of some of the things I made and I think I'll share them with you when I hit a lull. I know I posted just a couple days ago, and really nobody is reading this blog anyway, but I came across pictures of my mother's last birthday breakfast and really wanted to put them up. The pictures are great, but the food was beautiful. I really like things that have deep, rich colors, and really rustic appearances. Food should not be neon, nor should it be pale. What's really tantalizing are golden browns and deep greens and purples and being able to see the textures before you can taste them. And this had most of that. It was a birthday breakfast, as I mentioned, so I wanted to do something special, something different, and of course, something challenging. I'd made this "almost fat-free french toast" once or twice that was pretty bland because, well, read the title again. French toast sounds pretty in itself, doesn't it? Maybe just because everything about France seems to sound pretty. Except I heard from a number of people that once you get there it's really not as pretty as you'd hoped, but maybe they were just having a bad day. So I decided to make real french toast. I had seen.... I think it was Tyler Florence make this one day while I was running and thought it looked fantastic. I was right. It was Tyler Florence too, now that I really think about it, because it was very "Ultimate." I don't remember what it was called, and I really don't care enough to look it up (I'm sure it's on the Food Network website) but it was very unconventional, in my eyes at least, which was probably why I was drawn to it. I remember cooking apples and dried cranberries in a caramel like sauce, then covering them with custard drenched challah bread and baking it in the oven. It was so good. So good. I suppose since the pictures were what made me think I should bring it up, I might as well show one to you.



I feel like I could write much more, but I really don't think the purpose of blogging is to sit down and write a novel. And I'd hate to bore you to tears so I suppose I'll just have to find time to relax in a sunshine filled kitchen to make something else to post, or maybe dig up more old photographs.