I was so proud of myself for coming up with this riff on a tasty cold soup we had in Mexico, only to discover that lots of other people on the internet had the same idea! Oh well. It's pretty tasty all the same.
chunked watermelon
cherry tomatoes
fresh mozzarella
salt
fresh basil leaves
good olive oil
Combine watermelon, tomatoes, basil and mozzarella in desired quantities, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with olive oil. Stir and devour!
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Boozy French Toast: Christmas Eve Brunch Menu
(adapted from The Smitten Kitchen)
This was a hit. A little like a bread pudding, with a sticky caramel topping and custardy French toast texture, this is much easier than the fried versions Brazilians do or even the American weekend staple. Make it ahead of time and all you'll need to do in the morning is pop it into the oven! We served ours alone, but maple syrup wouldn't hurt...
1/2 loaf of stale French (or other) bread, sliced or chunked
3 eggs
1 cup milk
pinch of salt
ground cinnamon, nutmeg or clove
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (for non-boozy version)
2 T (or to taste) of your favorite liquor (Frangelico, Amaretto, Bailey's, etc...)
Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
2-3 T butter
1 T sweetened condensed milk
Put butter and brown sugar in the bottom of a glass baking pan or pie plate and microwave on high for one minute, until bubbly. Stir, microwave for another minute and then stir in the sweetened condensed milk to make a caramel. Grease the sides of the pan. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, milk, booze or vanilla, salt and seasonings to taste. Soak the chunks or slices of bread into the egg mixture, then lay over the caramel until the bread is used up. Wrap in plastic wrap and store in refrigerator overnight, then bake at about 400 F for 30-40 minutes or until dry/golden on top. Turn out onto a serving dish and serve warm.
This was a hit. A little like a bread pudding, with a sticky caramel topping and custardy French toast texture, this is much easier than the fried versions Brazilians do or even the American weekend staple. Make it ahead of time and all you'll need to do in the morning is pop it into the oven! We served ours alone, but maple syrup wouldn't hurt...
1/2 loaf of stale French (or other) bread, sliced or chunked
3 eggs
1 cup milk
pinch of salt
ground cinnamon, nutmeg or clove
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (for non-boozy version)
2 T (or to taste) of your favorite liquor (Frangelico, Amaretto, Bailey's, etc...)
Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
2-3 T butter
1 T sweetened condensed milk
Put butter and brown sugar in the bottom of a glass baking pan or pie plate and microwave on high for one minute, until bubbly. Stir, microwave for another minute and then stir in the sweetened condensed milk to make a caramel. Grease the sides of the pan. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, milk, booze or vanilla, salt and seasonings to taste. Soak the chunks or slices of bread into the egg mixture, then lay over the caramel until the bread is used up. Wrap in plastic wrap and store in refrigerator overnight, then bake at about 400 F for 30-40 minutes or until dry/golden on top. Turn out onto a serving dish and serve warm.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Looks are everything
I admit it. I care, terribly, about appearances. In my opinion, presentation is the second most important aspect of wowing people with the fruits of your kitchen labors. (Taste comes first, obviously). No matter how easy the dish, if it looks elegant on the plate, it will be perceived as more “gourmet,” with better flavor and more preparation time than one with identical ingredients served right out of the baking dish and slopped into a bowl.
Food styling, food plating...you can google these terms and come up with more than you ever imagined existed in the realm of putting dinner on your dishes. Growing up, with five kids, my mother served almost everything out of baking dishes. Since I don’t need that much practicality in my life right now, I like to get a little bit artistic with every meal. Now, I’m not a queen of plating, by any standards, but I wanted to share a couple of examples of what breakfast looks like in our house. Nothing really fancy. After all, it is the most rushed meal of the day.
This is really the only rule I follow when it comes to putting meals out on the table:
Pay attention to colors in both your foods AND dishes.
I like white plates because they don’t compete with my foods; when we married, V- had green plates, which are lovely but tended to make food look blah. I try to plan my meals with plenty of color variation as well. This ensures you’re getting a nutritional meal: if you’re eating a brown or beige themed meal, I can almost guarantee that it’s carb and protein happy with barely a real vegetable in sight (unless you’re big on turnips and cauliflower).
In the first picture (the scrambled eggs and fruit salad), note the ADORABLE fluted bowls we received as a wedding present from my sister. They are so, so, so useful!
Photo #2 is from breakfast today: a simple egg casserole (basically, scrambled eggs poured over some chunky bread crumbs, cheese and some bacon/onion/peppers that had been previously sautéed) and a citrus salad (orange, grapefruit and lime).
I peeled the oranges and grapefruit, sliced them into rounds and squeezed half of the lime over the slices, topping it off with a little honey drizzled over everything. I peeled thin strips from the lime rind in a symmetrical pattern, diced them fine and dumped over the top for a bit of lime zest and extra color. The zested lime, now decoratively striped as a result of the missing peel, perched on the edge of the salad. It took five minutes (the oranges were already peeled as I’d used them for candied orange peel; I just plastic baggied the naked oranges overnight). I’m not sure we would have eaten two oranges and a grapefruit for breakfast if they’d just been sitting in a bowl on the table...this way, we licked the plate clean!
Beyond the pretty quotient, there’s another reason why attractive plating is worth considering. Beautiful food may actually encourage appropriate portion sizes, helping control overeating. I prepare our plates in the kitchen and bring them to the table restaurant-style. Everything is already on the plate and if seconds are desired, we have to get up and serve ourselves from the kitchen. As we’re fairly lazy, it takes a little while to decide whether it’s worth it to get up, which gives our stomachs time to say “Enough! Full!”
Food styling, food plating...you can google these terms and come up with more than you ever imagined existed in the realm of putting dinner on your dishes. Growing up, with five kids, my mother served almost everything out of baking dishes. Since I don’t need that much practicality in my life right now, I like to get a little bit artistic with every meal. Now, I’m not a queen of plating, by any standards, but I wanted to share a couple of examples of what breakfast looks like in our house. Nothing really fancy. After all, it is the most rushed meal of the day.
This is really the only rule I follow when it comes to putting meals out on the table:
Pay attention to colors in both your foods AND dishes.
I like white plates because they don’t compete with my foods; when we married, V- had green plates, which are lovely but tended to make food look blah. I try to plan my meals with plenty of color variation as well. This ensures you’re getting a nutritional meal: if you’re eating a brown or beige themed meal, I can almost guarantee that it’s carb and protein happy with barely a real vegetable in sight (unless you’re big on turnips and cauliflower).
In the first picture (the scrambled eggs and fruit salad), note the ADORABLE fluted bowls we received as a wedding present from my sister. They are so, so, so useful!
Photo #2 is from breakfast today: a simple egg casserole (basically, scrambled eggs poured over some chunky bread crumbs, cheese and some bacon/onion/peppers that had been previously sautéed) and a citrus salad (orange, grapefruit and lime).
I peeled the oranges and grapefruit, sliced them into rounds and squeezed half of the lime over the slices, topping it off with a little honey drizzled over everything. I peeled thin strips from the lime rind in a symmetrical pattern, diced them fine and dumped over the top for a bit of lime zest and extra color. The zested lime, now decoratively striped as a result of the missing peel, perched on the edge of the salad. It took five minutes (the oranges were already peeled as I’d used them for candied orange peel; I just plastic baggied the naked oranges overnight). I’m not sure we would have eaten two oranges and a grapefruit for breakfast if they’d just been sitting in a bowl on the table...this way, we licked the plate clean!
Beyond the pretty quotient, there’s another reason why attractive plating is worth considering. Beautiful food may actually encourage appropriate portion sizes, helping control overeating. I prepare our plates in the kitchen and bring them to the table restaurant-style. Everything is already on the plate and if seconds are desired, we have to get up and serve ourselves from the kitchen. As we’re fairly lazy, it takes a little while to decide whether it’s worth it to get up, which gives our stomachs time to say “Enough! Full!”
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