They say that the greatest form of flattery is imitation, but what do you call an outright swipe? I guess that would be stealing. I have to admit right off the bat that I swiped this right off of Smitten Kitchen. I came across it one day, and it was so beautiful that I knew I had to include it on this menu idea list. Instructions are on the blog.
Wouldn't mom absolutely love this salad? It would be a colorful, flavorful, and seasonal addition to any brunch menu. I generally think of brunch as more breakfast-y, but (a) lot of people include lunch or dinner items in brunch and (b) who wouldn't want something as beautiful as this salad at breakfast? Anyway, it's just a suggestion, but one I know I wouldn't want to pass up!
Today is National Eggs Benedict Day and man, do I wish it were a weekend so I could have some runny-yolked goodness for brunch!
Traditional Eggs Benedict is simply poached eggs on a round of Canadian bacon perched on a split English muffin, covered in a soft yellow blanket of hollandaise. But, as brunch.org (I love that "brunch" deserves its own "org!") points out, there are lots of great variations. How would you like some Country Eggs Benedict (poached eggs and sausage gravy over ham on a biscuit) or Eggs Maryland (poached eggs and hollandaise over crab cakes) or Eggs a la Commodore (poached eggs and Béchamel sauce over foie gras puree on buttered toast circles).
In the world of frozen food, the one frozen meal that has always perplexed me is the frozen breakfast. Why? Why do we make breakfast from the freezer?! Of all the meals in a day, breakfast is quite possibly the easiest one to make "from scratch." Heck, how hard is it to pop two slices of bread into the toaster? And yet the frozen food aisle has an entire section dedicated to frozen eggs with bacon, frozen breakfast sandwiches, frozen oatmeal. What is so difficult about making oatmeal that we have to turn to the frozen stuff?!
However, there is one frozen breakfast item that gets an excuse: the frozen waffle.
Waffles, you see, are not all that convenient to make. They're not difficult, but they do require the preparation of a batter as well as their very own, uni-jobber piece of equipment, a waffle-maker. A frozen waffle, if you find the right one, will not be anywhere close to as good as homemade, but are probably the least lame of the frozen breakfast foods. (About frozen pancakes, we are a little less forgiving because you don't need a special gadget or tool to make pancakes.)
Let's be real here. Going out for breakfast is a luxury because no other meal costs more for what you get. However, even during these recession times, the luxury of going out itself is best had at breakfast because a $9 plate of eggs and toast is still cheaper than a $20 dinner.
Justification for my love of breakfast dining aside, Men.Style.com has culled together a list of the 15 Best Places in America for Breakfast. I've not been to most of these places (obviously, since who has time to travel that much?!?!) but I was glad to see that some place in Los Angeles made the list. Of course, the best place in LA for breakfast is Toast, in my opinion. Take a peek at the list and if your city was left off, what's the best place for breakfast in your neck of the woods?
When I was in college, one of the best things about being on the food service plan was that every Easter, Bon Appetit (the food service company at Whitman) would go all out and put together a fancy brunch for everyone who stayed behind that weekend. It would be held in the lobby of Cordiner Hall and there would be tables of pastries, made-to-order omelet stations and an absolute abundance of fresh, gently blanched asparagus. I would go every year in large part to binge on the asparagus, eating it until I could hold no more.
For some reason, the moment I saw this image of a bouquet of fresh asparagus, this memory of Easter asparagus in college is what my mind immediately conjured up. I don't have much in the way of Easter plans this weekend, but I do believe that I need to add "buy asparagus" to my shopping list.
I grew up eating crustless quiche. My mother, always looking for a way to save on the calories and fat content in a recipe gave up making crusts for her quiches long before I was born. In recent years, she stopped making them all together, in an attempt to reign in her cholesterol. This is why I was fairly surprised when she called me the other day to tell me that she had discovered the easiest quiche recipe ever. However, when I asked if she had used a crust, she responded with shock in her voice, "Of course not!"
So folks, in anticipation of the weekend, when one of you might want to whip up a simple Saturday or Sunday brunch dish, I offer you my mom's new, very easy quiche recipe. You don't have to make it crustless, but if you do, you can indulge a little more in a scone or muffin.
Though invented sometime in the late 19th century, Eggs Benedict is still, in my opinion, the ne plus ultra of brunch foods. But a lot of people (including myself) are put off by making hollandaise and poaching eggs. Well this twist on the classic brunch dish, from Bon Appétit, does away with the hollandaise, replacing it with a gorgeous but unintimidating chive oil. Prosciutto takes the place of Canadian bacon and asparagus adds a springy touch. Serve over traditional English muffins, or skip them in place of something else. We had these for brunch at my parents' this morning (thanks, Dad!), over cornmeal biscuits.
Egg-poaching tips: adding a little vinegar to the cooking water helps the egg white to solidify faster, cutting down on feathering. Make sure the water is simmering, not boiling, when you put the eggs in - vigorous bubbling will break the whites. And use the freshest eggs you can; they spread less.
Saturday mornings call out for an extra lazy hour in bed followed by a leisurely brunch. This weekend, think about whipping up a batch of pancakes or waffles instead of heading out to a local restaurant. These fluffy peanut butter pancakes might just make a tasty meal. You can find the recipe here.
There's nothing like a wobbly stack of thick, fluffy pancakes spilling over with melted butter and maple syrup on a weekend morning (or early afternoon, if you prefer), but there are occasions when we need to be a little more refined. That doesn't mean you can't have pancakes, though. It just means that you might want to dress them up by molding your pancake batter on the griddle with a set of molds in floral shapes. Williams-Sonoma has a set of three in different sizes for pretty stacking for $16. Williams-Sonoma also provides a recipe for Praline Pancakes (pictured above) so that your Sunday morning brunch will feel a little bit fancier than a truck stop (not that truck stops aren't absolutely delicious).
Well, I told you about the cherry smoothie I made from the summer cherries I put into the freezer for safe-keeping. A lot of good those will be to me in the fall since I subsequently used them all for a liquid breakfast every morning thereafter until they were.
What I didn't tell you is what I did with the cherries I kept fresh on the counter. You, my Slashfood faithful friends, suggested clafouti to spare my fingers the chore of pitting cherries, as well as a multitude of recommendations for what I should do with the result of my gluttonous run at the market. I took the advice of a few and made...
As you know, there is an enduring battle at breakfast time for me between Savory and Sweet. For almost all of my life, I've loved sweet breakfast foods, whether that was cold cereal in the form of Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Belgian waffle with sweetened fruit and whipped cream. However, savory has taken the lead in recent years, and it's everything I can do to keep myself from ordering the same egg white, vegetable, and cheese omelet.
Food blog What Did You Eat has put a break in the battle, if at least for one morning. Jalapeno Corn pancakes (a recipe from Ask.com) look like normal pancakes, and with a small amount of sugar in the recipe that "lends a subtle sweetness to the pancakes," may even taste like regular pancakes, but the addition of masa flour and jalapenos, makes these all kinds of spicy and savory. You could eat them as is (I don't think I'd add any syrup), or do like Sher did and throw a fried egg on top!
Lately I have been more of a savory breakfast/brunch person, and especially in the summer, pancakes seem awfully heavy for a hot, late morning meal.
However, I could not stop staring at this stack of banana pancakes from one of my favorite LA food bloggers, Acme Instant Food. For some reason, the way they are plated and photographed breathlessly sigh "summer" to me (even though banana pancakes definitely sound like a fall breakfast). The pancakes are lazily laying all over each other as if just after a playful *ahem* "romp, glistening with syrup, and with coca nibs and pecans carelessly scattered all over. Makes me just want to drape myself on a chaise lounge by the pool.
Clever piece by John Burgess over at The Boston Globe. It's about the cooking he has done for his kids over the years and what he expects them to make for him this Father's Day (it's this Sunday, if you forgot).
Burgess describes what he has learned all these years of cooking for his children. It all comes down to maintaining perspective (no "food scolds"), no cooking "from the heart," and that texture trumps taste.
Y'all know how much I love French toast; and a stuffed French toast? I may as well assume I'm going to be out of commission with a food coma for the entire day after I gorge myself on multiple helpings.
For a lazy Saturday morning, especially on a long weekend, there's nothing better than waking up (late, of course), to a gorgeous day and breakfast on the way.
Normally I wouldn't be into banana pancakes in the Spring and Summer. Something that hearty, I usually reserve for the colder seasons, but for some reason, this photo of banana pancakes, with whole slices (how's that for an oxymoron?) of banana, looks so absolutely sunny!
Clever 
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