Pancakes!

My little one LOVES pancakes.  She also loves helping me make this delicious, fool-proof pancake mix (Nigella inspired of course) that we always have on hand.  It's a great stand-by for when you're too tired to think of something exciting to make, or when you're trying to get your peanut to eat when they've been on a hunger strike.  Plus, it really does make some of the best darn pancakes you'll ever, ever have.

Pancake Mix

You'll need:

• 4 cups flour
• 3 tablespoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons sugar

Instructions:

Mix all of the above ingredients, and store in a jar or air tight container.

To make the pancakes:

You'll need:

• 1 cup pancake mix
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk (it doesn't matter if it's skim, whole, or low-fat)
• 1 large egg

Instructions:

• In a large bowl, combine and whisk ingredients.
• Heat a skillet to medium heat.
• Spray with cooking spray.
• Using a small ladel, ladel a few sponfuls onto the skillet.  Try to keep the ladeled pancake batter from touching.  (It will taste fine, it just won't be as pretty)
• When you see bubbles forming on the pancake, it's time to flip!
• The pancake will rise a bit from the skillet when it's done.  Keep in mind that it's already mostly cooked when you're flipping it, so you shouldn't need to leave it much longer than a minute. 

Serve and enjoy!

**This recipe is also great if you substitute the vanilla extract with lemon or orange extract, and if you like them, add a few poppy seeds!

Pumpkin Muffins for my Pumpkin

Remember when you were in college and you woke up the next day feeling like the world was kind of moving in slow motion, and all you wanted was coffee, some more sleep, and for everyone to just stop yelling?  Yeah, that was our house last week.  We were all moving around one another like a bunch of hungover college kids, 24/7.  Just when we thought the sickness induced hangover was finally done, our kid woke up with almost 103-degree fever on Thursday morning, giving me the biggest heart attack I've had since bringing Laela home from the hospital when she was born.

After a few sleepless nights of calming our sick baby and making sure she was breathing when she was sleeping (in case you didn't know, paranoia sets in after you don't get a certain amount of sleep- and when your baby feels hotter than your hot blooded spouse), I decided I needed some therapy..er, I mean I wanted to bake.

Laela LOVES pumpkin anything- ravioli, smoothies, cream sauce, bread, muffins, breakfast bars, pie, custard- if it's pumpkin, she'll eat/drink it.  After purusing our pantry, I discovered that I had all the ingredients for this awesome pumpkin muffin recipe by Bethenny Frankel.

Kyle kind of grimaced when he saw that the ingredients were healthy, but then he and Laela proceeded to devour them everyday for breakfast until there weren't any left!

I made a few modifications (I made some without cranberries or nuts because Kyle won't eat either in baked goods.  I also made some with chopped pecans because they're what I had on hand.)

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Ingredients:
•3 cups oat flour

•2 cups raw sugar

•2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

•¼ cup vegetable oil

•1 egg

•1 ½ cups canned pumpkin (puree not pie filling)

•½ cup water

•1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

•1 teaspoon baking soda

•1 teaspoon salt

•1 teaspoon cinnamon

•½ teaspoon nutmeg

•½ teaspoon cloves

•1 teaspoon vanilla

•1 ½ cups dried cranberries

•¼ cup unsalted walnuts

•24 muffin cups

Instructions:
 
1.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine raw sugar, vanilla, melted butter, oil, eggs, pumpkin and water. Beat for 90 seconds, or until well mixed.

2.  Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices, stirring until no streaks remain.

3.  Combine flour mixture and pumpkin mixture. Stir in nuts and cranberries; stirring only until all ingredients are mixed.

4.  Cover batter and allow to set at room temperature for 60 minutes.

5.  Preheat oven to 350°F.

6.  Place muffin cups in muffin holders and fill 2/3 of the way full.

7.  Bake for 40-45 minutes or until muffins tops spring back when lightly touched.

8.  If the muffins will be frozen, allow to cool for 1 hour, then tightly wrap in plastic wrap; store in freezer zipper bags.

9.  To reheat, wrap loosely in foil and bake for 5-10 minutes at 350°F. Or they may be reheated in the microwave wrapped loosely in a damp paper towel.

On Bethenny's website she said that this yielded 12 muffins, but I found that it made 24 normal sized muffins.

Laela really enjoyed hers with a side of vanilla yogurt to dip it in!

Cheese Souffle Julia Child Style

On a cold wintery morning, there's not much better than a crispy cheese-topped, ooey-gooey, eggily delicious souffle.  There's something so special about the smells of nutmeg, cheese, and cayenne pepper wafting through the house.  It's so tempting to open the oven to get a peak at the home of the comforting smell, but at the same time, there is something exciting about not being able to see it until it is truly and absolutely done.

I'm not going to lie to you, this recipe is not for the impatient or faint of heart.  With many of my recipes, I have found ways to make the recipe more accessable and less time consuming.  Unfortunately, this is not one of those recipes, but I do promise you, it is not as difficult as it looks, and it is totally worth it.

Here is Julia Child's Cheese Souffle recipe, also known as Souffle Au Fromage:

serves 4

The souffle base sauce:

Ingredients:

A 6-cup souffle mold (a 3 1/2 inch high, 6 cup mold)

1 tsp butter

1 Tb grated Swiss or Parmesan Cheese

3 Tb butter
A 2 1/2-quart saucepan
3 Tb flour
A wooden spatula or spoon
1 cup boiling milk
A wire whip
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
A pinch of cayenne pepper

Pinch of nutmeg

4 egg yolks

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Measure out all your ingredients.  Butter inside of souffle mold and sprinkle with cheese.
• Melt the butter in the saucepan.  Stir in the flour with a wooden spatula or spoon and cook over moderate heat until butter and flour foam together for 2 minutes without browning.  Remove from heat; when mixture has stopped bubbling, pour in all the boiling milk at once.  Beat vigorously with a wire whip until blended.  Beat in the seasonings.  Return over moderately high heat and boil, stirring with the wire whip, for 1 minute.  Sauce will be very thick.
• Remove from heat.  Immediately start to separate the eggs.  Drop the white into the egg white bowl, and the yolk into the center of the hot sauce.  Beat the yolk into the sauce with the wire whip.  Continue in the same manner with the rest of the eggs.  Correct seasoning.
• *May be prepared ahead to this point.  Dot top of sauce with butter.  Heat to tepid before continuing.

For the egg whites and cheese

Ingredients:
5 egg whites
A pinch of salt
Coursely grated Swiss, or Swiss and Parmesan Cheese- 3/4 to 1 cup (3 to 4 ounces) depending on its strength

Directions:

• Add an extra egg white to the ones in the bowl and beat with the salt until stiff.  Stir a big spoonful (about one quarter of the egg whites) into the sauce.  Stir in all the rest of the egg whites.  Be careful not to over fold. (It's better to not have the sauce and the whites totally mixed together than to flatten the whites).

Baking: 

• Turn the souffle mixture into the prepared mold, which should be almost three quarters full.  Tap bottom of mold lightly on the table, and smooth the surface of the souffle with the flat of a knife.  Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.
• Set on a rack in middle level of preheated 400-degree oven and immediately turn heat down to 375. (Do not open door for 20 minutes.)  In 25 to 30 minutes the souffle will have puffed about 2 inches over the rim of the mold, and the top will be nicely browned.  Bake 4 to 5 minutes more to firm it up, then serve at once.

*This recipe is from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle, pgs 163-165

Take the plunge!  It's one of the most delicious things you'll ever eat, and it is truly worth the effort.

Donut French Toast

This morning, my little brother's holiday leave ended.  Farewells are never easy, but they're especially difficult when it's a loved one in the military leaving.  Even those with the safest jobs are putting themselves at risk, and I know that even though my brother minimizes his job, he's a part of a really important machine- his part matter as much as the next; his risk is as big as the next.

Since Navy food is notoriously terrible, I knew he'd be coming home wanting all his favorites (ginger cookies, good ol' eggs and bacon, hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, etc. etc.).  I made sure we were fully stocked and ready to stuff him to the gills while he was home and send him back with plenty of goodies.  One of his favorites are donuts, so I decided to try Nigella Lawson's donut french toast recipe.  It's really simple, and my husband, his best friend Darin, and my brother swooned over it.

Ingredients

•  (2) eggs

•  (1/2) cup full fat milk

•  (4) teaspoons vanilla extract

•  (4) slices from a small white loaf or 2 slices from a large white loaf, each large slice cut in half
•  (1) ounce butter, plus a drop flavourless oil, for frying
•  (1/4) cup sugar

Directions

• Beat the eggs with the milk and vanilla in a wide shallow bowl.
• Soak the bread halves in the eggy mixture for 5 minutes a side.
• Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan/skillet, fry the egg-soaked bread until golden and scorched in parts on both sides.
• Put the sugar onto a plate and then dredge the cooked bread until coated like a sugared doughnut

Enjoy!

Post Thanksgiving Food Coma

I don't know about you, but I'm still a zombie from the holiday.  Between cooking a feast (I cooked WAY too much by the way, and don't worry, I'll post pictures soon!), pigging out on the feast, boozing, hosting family, getting a Christmas tree (which somehow wound up being 12 feet high and my husband had to saw half of it off!!), decorating the tree and the house, wrapping presents, and getting Kyle's lunches ready for the week, I'm about ready to sleep for three days.  Oh wait, I can't.  I have a one year old who wants to play tag and jump in the ball pit.  Oh well.  Rest is for the lazy anyway!

The one major benefit is all the leftovers.  Laela and I ate sweet potatoes mixed with granola for breakfast.  She was saying yum yum yum the entire time!  Healthy?  Check.  Easy?  Double check.

If you made sweet potatoes for Turkey day, just sprinkle some quick oats onto your sweet potatoes, mix them in, and heat them up!  You'll have a really yummy and nutritious breakfast or snack for you and your little one!

Hangover with a Splash of Flavor

Is this a fancy breakfast?  No.  Is it easy?  Yes.  Will it cure your hangover?  Probably. 

There's two things I made to "woo" my husband that got him hooked..one was hangover breakfast, and the other was the anniversary chicken recipe I shared with you guys a while back.  Hangover breakfast isn't rocket science people.  You make some French Toast (you can go fancy with this, but if you're feeling up for fancy breakfast after a night of boozing, then you're a better woman than me). 

How do you make French Toast, might you ask?  Beat two eggs with 2 Tbs milk.  You can add more milk if you want to, I do it by eye.  Add a capful of vanilla extract (or almond extract if you're out of vanilla), a few good shakes of cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice if you don't have any cinnamon), and a dash of sugar to the eggs and milk mixture.  Whisk the mixture really well (but not so well that it'll give you the spins!)  Heat your skillet to medium, spray it with cooking spray or grease it with some butter.  Dip bread slices one by one into the mixture, shake off any excess, and toss that sucker on the heated skillet.  Depending on how crispy you like your french toast, do one and a half minutes per side for soft French Toast, and two or two and a a half minutes per side for crispy French Toast.

Now let's talk eggs.  Here are some simple scrabled eggs that made Kyle able to function.

To make scrambled eggs for 2.5 people (and considering Kyle eats twice as many as me), I beat five eggs with about 5 Tbs of milk.  We only drink skim in our house (with the exception of the baby), but use whatever you have at hand.  Beat the eggs and milk together, add a sprinkle of salt and pepper and pour into a greased medium-hot pan.  The trick to these eggs is to keep moving them around as they cook.  That way they get really fluffy, instead of that weird fried egg texture that a lot of scrambled egg recipes have.  And be sure to remember, trying to cook them on higher heat will do nothing but make some awful rubber eggs!  Now, once your eggs are good and fluffy, and seem like they're about done, get a few slices of really good cheese- cheddar and American are my favorites, remove the pan from heat, and cover the eggs in cheese.  Once you've covered your eggs in cheese, put a lid on them for 2 minutes and leave them alone.  Don't open the lid to check on them, just keep a lid on it.  When you uncover the pan, you'll have deliciously gooey, yummy eggs that will line your belly in warm happy goodness.

Mmmm...potatoes.  You really can't go wrong with potatoes. Get your cast iron skillet piping hot, then turn it down to medium high heat.  Pour a 1/2 inch of olive oil, bacon grease, or whatever kind of oil blows your hair back into the pan.  Cut your potato into little cubes (or if you're too tired, just roughly chop it).  Throw in some Tony Chachera's Cajun seasoning, or some Mixed Up Salt, stir, and just leave the potatoes alone for 2 minutes with the lid on.  After 2 minutes are up, keep the potatoes moving in the pan.  If you feel they're getting to dry for you, add a splash of water, put the lid back on for 2 minutes.  Stir the potatoes.  Now this is where personal preference comes in.  Kyle likes his potatoes almost burnt, so I leave them on for a bit so that they get that yummy crunchy, almost overcooked texture.  If you like your potatoes soft, just keep an eye on them, and when you think they're done, give them a taste!  When your potatoes are done, sprinkle a little cheese on them, and whalah!  You've got cheesy hangover potatoes.

Okay, so for the most important part of any greasy hangover breakfast...BACON!!!  Sigh, I swear, I could be Homer and dip it in butter.  MMMMM..okay, maybe I don't want to dip it in butter, but I do love me some bacon, hungover or not.  Unfortunately, no one in my house likes bacon the same way (Kyle likes his barely cooked, Laela likes it kind of crispy, and I like mine almost burnt), so I had to come up with a solution that could save me some time, keep me from having to do a million dishes, and have the bacon come out in a way that we'd all be happy.  Where did I turn to do this you might ask?  My fabulous friend, the oven.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil (parchment and wax paper are not a good fill in for this one guys, so please don't waste your time trying.)  When the oven is hot, place as much bacon that will fit on the sheet without touching (if bacon touches, it melds to itself, and that can make a greasy hot mess if you want to flip your bacon.)  Pop it in the oven, and just keep an eye on it to see how chewy looking you might want it, or how crispy you may desire it to be. If you like your bacon really crispy like I do, you may want to flip your bacon so that it gets evenly crispy on both sides.  Just keep an eye on it, and always remember, if you can smell whatever's in the oven, it's darn close to finished.

If you've finished reading this and you're finding yourself wondering how to get this all done at once, you should attempt it in this order:
Bacon, potatoes, eggs, French toast.

Yes, I know this blog is about Mommies and babies, but let's be real people, some days you go out on date night, or for a night out with your friends, and you wake up the next day wishing your Mommy was there to make you breakfast.  Unfortunately (and fortunately!) for you, you're a grown up with responsibilities, so get your butts in gear, fill up the sippy cups, give the kids some pots and pans and wooden spoons to play with while you cook and make your family some breakfast!  I promise, you'll feel at least 90% better.