I love breakfast recipes that can be prepared the night before and popped into the oven in the morning. This is a perfect recipe if you're entertaining overnight guests or for celebratory breakfast for a special someone. The fresh blueberries added such a lovely, light flavor mixed with the french bread. I lightly dusted confectioner's sugar over each warm serving and added just a touch of maple syrup. PERFECT!!
From the heart of my kitchen to yours, may your experience be fun and the food always flavorful. Enjoy!
Baked Blueberry French Toast
6 slices sourdough French bread, torn
4 eggs
1 cup half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1-1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
2 cups blueberries
1/4 cup butter, melted
Place bread into a jelly roll pan. In a medium bowl, mix eggs, half-and-half and vanilla together, pour over bread, cover and refrigerate overnight. Combine sugar, cinnamon, allspice and cornstarch together, fold in blueberries and place in a greased 13"x9" baking pan. Place chilled bread mixture on top of blueberry mixture; drizzle butter over bread. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Source: Gooseberry Patch "Hometown Favorites"
With our crazy, busy weekend schedule during baseball season, I was constantly looking for items for breakfast that would be easy to grab and go. There's nothing worse than rushing tired and hungry kiddos out the door very early in the morning....well, unless those tired and hungry kiddos cause Mom to hop on her broom that early! One of the easiest options (and least mess in the car) is muffins...they're so wonderfully versatile, easy to pack for the road and made a great mid-morning snack between games. :)
Earlier this summer I fed my obsession and purchased "The King Arthur Baker's Companion". As I read through (yes, I read cookbooks like most people would read a book...it's an illness!) I marked several breakfast recipes to try while my kids are home this summer. Since everyone in my family LOVES muffins, I chose to bake up this recipe first. These were moist and delicious and perfect for our crazy mornings. The kids raved about the banana/chocolate combination (haven't we all?) and the best kept secret is that there is just a small amount of whole wheat flour in these that makes them a "touch" healthier!!
From the heart of my kitchen to yours, may your experience be fun and the food always flavorful. Enjoy!
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
8 tablespoons (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 medium-size ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup, 5 1/2 ounces)
1/3 cup (2 3/4 ounces) milk
1 cup (5 ounces) white whole-wheat flour or traditional whole-wheat flour (5 1/4 ounces)
1 cup (4 1/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (4 1/2 ounces) chocolate chips
1 cup (4 ounces) walnuts, chopped
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until they're smooth. Scrape the bowl down, then beat in the egg, spices, banana, and milk. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, then gently stir them into the butter-sugar mixture.
Spoon the batter into 12 lightly greased muffin cups. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and after 10 minutes turn them out of the pan to cool.
Source: The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion
Hello again to all my fellow foodie friends!! I know that it has been an extremely long time since I posted any fabulous food on my blog, but I hope to change that pattern really soon. I wanted to briefly catch you up on the happenings of our family this summer.
First off-our son, Nathan, is blessed to be part of a travel baseball team, and the majority of the beginning of our summer was spent traveling to several tournaments in Indiana as well as a Mid-West Regional tournament in St. Louis. Most of the boys have played together since they were 6 years old and have developed not only their incredible baseball skills as a team, but also amazing friendships with one another. I do have to brag for just a moment on the success of our team.....the picture on the right is from a tournament that the boys won declaring them State Champions and the picture on the left is from the St. Louis tournament where they became the Mid-West Regional Champs!!! What an incredibly successful season for these 9 year old boys.....and their families!!! Way to go Avon Attack!!!
Our daughter, Megan, also celebrated her 12th birthday while we were in St. Louis for baseball. Let me just say, we heard several times how she has spent the LAST 4 years of her birthdays sitting at baseball games!! So, we agreed to allow her to have several girlfriends over for a pool party/sleep-over to celebrate her birthday. The girls swam most of the afternoon and evening and then enjoyed an outdoor movie shown beside the pool.
Megan had picked out these adorable popcorn cupcakes from "Hello Cupcake" but still wanted a cake too. My friend, Sarah, and I brainstormed together about what kind of cake would tie the cupcakes with Megan's outdoor movie experience. Sarah's brilliant plan was to create a cake that resembled a movie theater popcorn bucket!! As you can see, the finished product was absolutely perfect and sooooo adorable! The girls LOVED it!!! Also, we were incredibly proud to debut our first Decadent Dreams Bakery ORIGINAL!!! Sarah and I will be posting more about this cake on our blogs really soon!!
Finally, last weekend we hosted the season-ending party for the baseball team. It's always great fun to get all the families together for a cookout and enjoy backyard baseball, swimming, corn-hole and share in laughter and fun! Here, the boys are awaiting Coach Chris to talk with them and to receive their year-end goodie bags....as if two championships weren't enough!!! :)
This is the cake that Sarah and I baked for the party. It was a double chocolate chip cake with chocolate mousse between the layers and covered with delicious butter cream icing! The baseball is dark chocolate cake wrapped in homemade marshmallow fondant and the laces are piped on with butter cream. Again....more to come on this cake as well!!! Many thanks to my friend Angie for her inspiration and ingenuity on the design!!
I think that pretty well wraps up our summer so far. I have desperately missed catching up with all of you and also have been incredibly touched by the concern many of you have shown by checking up on me with my lack of foodie posts!! I'm still here...still baking...still cooking....and waiting with baited breath to share with you many fun and fabulous dishes! ;-)
From the heart of my kitchen to yours, may your experience be fun and the food always flavorful. Enjoy!
My kids absolutely love to wake up to the smell of fresh waffles on the griddle. I believe that if I gave them their way, I would be preparing a batch every morning. Knowing this, my wonderful husband gave me a restaurant quality waffle iron for Christmas that I absolutely LOVE and it makes baking waffles so much fun! Ulterior motive?? Maybe!
The other morning the breakfast fixins' were pretty slim (I had neglected to make it to the store) and I knew that I would have my hands full with grumpy kiddos if I didn't figure out breakfast quick. I rapidly searched All Recipes for a waffle recipe with ingredients I had on hand. I liked this particular recipe because the batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week!
These were light and fluffy and absolutely wonderful!! They had just the perfect hint of cinnamon flavor and I'm thinking I just might add a touch of nutmeg to them next time too. I can't wait to prepare these again and serve with some fresh fruit Yummo!
From the heart of my kitchen to yours, may your experience be fun and the food always flavorful. Enjoy!Cinnamon Waffles
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons white sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamonPreheat waffle iron. Beat eggs in large bowl with hand beater until fluffy. Beat in flour, milk, vegetable oil, sugar, baking powder, salt and vanilla, just until smooth.
Spray preheated waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray. Pour mix onto hot waffle iron. Cook until golden brown. Serve hot.
This batter can be stored in the fridge, covered, for up to a week. Whisk well before using again.
Source: All Recipes
These tostadas were the second dinner prepared from the original Spice-Encrusted Pork Tenderloin posted earlier. I was so excited to be using left-over meat to prepare an entirely new and exciting meal.
These were absolutely delicious!! The combination of the spicy pork, salsa, and beans was perfect and packed with huge flavor! At first, I was tempted to leave out the black beans and salsa combination, that the recipe called for but after tasting the first bite of my tostada I was so thankful that I went ahead and prepared it! To be honest, the beans didn't look appetizing at all, but..oh, my they had tremendous flavor!
This meal was another successful one for our household, not only delicious and packed with tons of flavor but also a great savings on the weekly budget! Hooray!
From the heart of my kitchen to yours, may your experience be fun and the food always flavorful. Enjoy!
Pork Tostadas3 tablespoons corn oil
6 (5-inch) corn tortillas
3 cups Seasoned Black Beans (Recipe follows)
1 (15.5-ounce) jar prepared salsa
Guacamole (I omitted)
2 pork tenderloins, warmed and shredded
1 (16-ounce) container sour cream
In a large nonstick skillet, heat corn oil over medium-high heat. Cook tortillas on each side until golden. Drain on paper towels.
In a small saucepan, add beans, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until all liquid has evaporated. Use a potato masher to mash beans.
To assemble tostadas, layer beans, salsa, guacamole, shredded pork and sour cream on each tortilla. Garnish with fresh cilantro, if desired.
Seasoned Black Beans(I halved this recipe for our tostadas)
4 (15-ounce) cans black beans, drained
2 (10-ounce) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
In a medium saucepan, combine beans, tomatoes, salt and pepper. Cook according to above directions.
Source: Cooking with Paula Deen Jan/Feb 2009
Lately I've been on the search for dinners and recipes that will offer and provide a couple of different meals throughout the week for our family. Trying to stretch our family grocery budget has become a priority with me not working over the summer months. And it never hurts to tighten up the budget strings anyway...just ask my husband! :)
Pork tenderloin was not on sale the week I had this on my menu so I hesitated a moment at the meat counter. These two loins were a total cost of $10.34. As I stood and figured out that I would be preparing three different meals for the six of us, I realized that the cost per person per meal for the meat was right around .55 cents. WOW-not such a bad deal after all!!
This recipe was quick and simple to prepare. After rubbing the loins with all the spices, I browned the meat for a few minutes per side to seal in the flavor and juices of the meat and then baked them for 20 minutes. Pretty easy, huh?!
The flavors of the spices on the tenderloins were fantastic!! It definitely had a little "kick" to it, but not too much that the kiddos wouldn't eat it.
In my next post I'll be sharing a recipe for Pork Tostadas using shredded pork reserved from this recipe!!
From the heart of my kitchen to yours, may your experience be fun and the food always flavorful. Enjoy!
Spice-Encrusted Pork Tenderloin
2 tablespoons ancho chili powder
2 tablespoons ground coriander
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons Mexican oregano
2 tablespoons garlic salt
2 tablespoons cracked black pepper
4 (1.5-pound pork tenderloins, trimmed)
1/4 cup olive oil, divided
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil; set aside.
In a small bowl, combine chili powder, coriander, cumin, kosher salt, oregano, garlic salt, and pepper. Coat tenderloins evenly with spice mixture.
In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook 1 tenderloin for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until browned. Remove tenderloin and place on prepared pan. Repeat with remaining olive oil and tenderloins. Bake for 20 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of tenderloin registers 155 degrees or desired degree of doneness. Slice to serve.
Source: Cooking with Paula Deen Jan/Feb 2009
I'm sure that you all have been waiting to see who the incredibly lucky cookie winner is! Well, today my niece Taylor, and Megan sat at the kitchen table and wrote down everyone's name, then folded them and shook all of them up in Nathans hat, then Lauren chose the lucky winner. Before I give away the name, I would first like to thank everyone who entered this contest and became a follower. I can tell everyone really would love to win these cookies, and we have a winner! The name on the paper that was pulled out was... CaSaundra Leigh! Congratulations CaSaundra Leigh, I will start working on your cookies very soon!
CaSaundra, if you could please e-mail me a way to contact you, and also your mailing address. Thanks, ChristyOoley@yahoo.com :-)
From the heart of my kitchen to yours, may your experience be fun and the food always flavorful. Enjoy!!This post was written by my talented niece-Taylor.
I love breakfast recipes that can be prepared the night before and popped into the oven in the morning. This is a perfect recipe if you're entertaining overnight guests or for celebratory breakfast for a special someone. The fresh blueberries added such a lovely, light flavor mixed with the french bread. I lightly dusted confectioner's sugar over each warm serving and added just a touch of maple syrup. PERFECT!! 
