Panettone French Toast

Since I've been in a new relationship this year, I've gone out to breakfast more in the past year than probably all the previous years put together.  One of my favorite things to order is french toast.  I've become particularly obsessed with french toast made with unusual types of bread.  I've had french toast made with banana bread, blueberry muffins, zucchini bread and cinnamon rolls.  In honor of the Christmas season, I decided to make my own french toast using Italian panettone.

Panettone is a sweet bread that's usually around at Christmas time.  There are lots of different variations, but they usually include some sort of candied citrus peel and raisins.  

For my french toast I used the whole panettone and that made enough for 4-6 people.

Slice the bread into 3/4 inch thick slices.  Then prepare the french toast batter.  You can use your favorite or I used 6 eggs, about 3/4 cup milk, 1 tsp vanilla and a heavy pinch of salt.

Butter or grease a griddle and cook the slices until golden brown on the outside.  I like to pull my french toast slices off the heat before they are fully set and keep them warm in a 200 degree oven until ready to serve.  Since the batter is basically a custard it will continue to set up even after it is removed from the pan.  

Serve with powdered sugar, maple syrup or like my family does it with lots of butter and white sugar.

Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup

I honestly don’t know what we all did before we could get recipes on the internet.  Don’t get me wrong, I love cookbooks and I own a ton of them but it’s so great to be able to find thousands of recipes online whenever I want them.  This Thanksgiving I was looking around for some interesting dessert recipes to try.  My sister doesn't like pie so I always try to make something that she will eat.  And I also wanted to try something new.  So here are the recipes I tried and how they turned out for me.

Cranberry Crumble Bars

http://www.marthastewart.com/938889/cranberry-crumble-bars

I loved this recipe!  The bars were super easy to make.  I used the canned cranberry sauce and they came together really quickly.  I didn't read the pan preparation instructions very carefully so I didn't notice the whole bit about using butter and parchment paper until after the bars were already in the oven. I just gave the pan a quick spray with PAM.  Whoops!  They still came out perfectly though so I think there is enough butter in the dough to help them not stick.

Pumpkin Tiramisu

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/desserts/pumpkin-tiramisu/

This recipe was not as much of a success.  I loved the idea of it because I’m a huge fan of pumpkin and my family all loves tiramisu.  But it just didn't work as well as I’d have liked it to.  First, I found it impossible to find lady fingers anywhere.  I did a quick search online for substitutions and read that I could use pound cake instead.  Then while I was making it, I was really worried about it tasting good.  I tasted each layer as I made it and wasn't loving how it all tasted.  I put it together anyway and hoped that an overnight stay in the fridge would help everything come together.  And it did mostly.  The layers tasted much better together than separately, but I still thought the balance was off.  In my opinion it needed much more cake and much less filling.  So next time I make it I’ll play around with the ratios.  Also, I thought 1 tsp of cinnamon was way too much. And I love cinnamon.  I’ll cut it in half next time.

Turkey Day

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and like most people when I think of Thanksgiving I think of food.  In the past few years I have developed a borderline insane obsession with making Thanksgiving dinner.  While many people try to stick others with the responsibility (“We can’t host this year, our kitchen is infested with mutated rabid flying squirrels.  Too bad!  Maybe next year…”) I dream of the day when I get to tackle the big meal all by myself.  I know…I told you it was insane!  Because I've always been single and living in a tiny apartment I've never had the opportunity to host.  So I channel my culinary frustration into compulsively watching Thanksgiving specials on the Food Network.

Which brings me to my main topic of concern…food network hosts.  Why are food network hosts so polarizing?  It seems like for everyone who loves Rachel Ray and thinks she’s revolutionized dinner prep there are an equal number of people who think she is a shrill harpy who seriously needs to take a chill pill.   Personally, I can’t stand the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.  I know she has a huge following on her blog, but for some reason I never connected with her.  And then I read her autobiography and learned that she ran over her own dog and then still went on a date with her boyfriend.  Nope, no can do.  Or what about Paula Deen?  My mom absolutely can’t stand her and gets annoyed whenever her show comes on.  She even can’t stand people who remind her of Paula Deen.  But there are tons of people who adore Paula and can’t get enough of her homespun country cooking.

I could take or leave Paula myself, but weirdly I’ve developed a fascination with her two sons, Bobby and Jaime.  Not like I think they are cute or I want to date them or anything.  I save my chef crushes for Alton Brown.  What?  He’s really smart!  Instead I’ve dreamed up an elaborate fantasy where the brothers are constantly competing for Paula’s love and approval.  I have all sorts of evidence that Jaime is the favorite son.  Like for example, he’s the one who stayed in Savannah with his wife and adorable children while younger son Bobby left home for the big apple.  And Paula probably doesn’t like apples unless they are in pie form.  Also, both Jaime and Bobby had cooking shows that debuted around the same time.  While Bobby’s healthy cooking show airs on the lesser known and watched Cooking Channel, Jaime’s family cooking show plays on the Food Network.  Interesting, no?  Although now that Paula has announced that she has diabetes Bobby might gain some ground.

I indulged my conspiracy theories last week while watching the Deen brothers Thanksgiving special.  The show was actually a charming program about the brothers making Thanksgiving dinner for their mom, but I envisioned it as a cage match between Bobby and Jaime.  A food fight to the death where each son attempted to win his mother’s love through strategically implemented calories.  For the record, I’m Team Bobby.

So hopefully your Thanksgiving finds you surrounded by good food, friends and family.  I know mine will.  But as the rest of the family is settling down to watch football or parades, I’ll be sneaking off to watch Food Network and dreaming of all the elaborate recipes I can make in my imagination.  And dreaming of Alton Brown…obviously!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!

Growing Pumpkins

I don't know about you, but it always frustrates me to see all these seasonal magazines showing gorgeous pictures of unusual types of pumpkins and then suggesting that you "pick them up at your local produce stand".  What?  Where are these people shopping?  I've never seen more than the regular jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins at my grocery store or pumpkin patch.  In particular I've been coveting the all white Lumina pumpkin for years now, but I've never seen it anywhere around here.

So I grew my own!

Exactly one white pumpkin grew, but I was still excited that it worked at all.  I put it front and center in my display so all the other pumpkins could be jealous of it.

What didn't work so well were the Cinderella pumpkins I planted.  They were supposed to be deep orange and slightly flattened looking and resemble the pumpkin coach from Cinderella.

Not so much...

It still looks pretty cool though if you didn't know what it is supposed to look like and it adds a nice splash of yellow to my balcony.

So if there is a particular type of pumpkin or squash that you see in a magazine and want to get your hands on, don't wait for your "local produce stand" to start carrying it.  Try growing it yourself!

I bought all my seeds on amazon for less than $3 a packet so this was a very affordable experiment.

Happy Memorial Day!

I love all holidays so I couldn't resist getting into the spirit and dressing up a few of my planters with some cute patriotic pinwheels.

I also made this flag cake in honor of the holiday.

I've seen cakes like this in blogs and articles for a few years now, but they always seen to involve lots of cutting of cake and reassembling it.  I don't have those kinds of cake skills (or time) so I wanted to find an easier way.  My dad's favorite cake is checkerboard so I already had a set of checkerboard cake pans.  I made one solid red layer and one solid white layer.  Then I filled the outer ring of the checkerboard pan with blue cake batter and filled in the rest with red.  Then its easy...just bake, stack and frost.

My sister's dog seems to like it too.

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day everyone!

UPDATE: I've had some questions about what a checkerboard cake pan is...check it out here:
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?sku=2105-9961

Earth Day

There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew. 

~Marshall McLuhan Communications theorist, educator, philosopher

Happy Earth Day!

As a garden blogger, I can’t let Earth Day pass unacknowledged.  It’s become very trendy in the past few years to be ‘green’ but I don’t think enough people really think about what it means to them personally.  The fact is everything we do on this planet affects it in some way.  If we decide to only buy organic, then we might spend more gas driving to the Whole Foods than if we just stayed closer to home and bought regular produce.  If we use only cloth diapers to keep disposables out of landfills, then we are using more water to keep then clean.  So I think the best thing we can do is make a difference in small ways that are meaningful to us and not get too caught up in doing things perfectly. 

For me, it’s about not being wasteful.  So in the spirit of not wasting things I’m sharing my ‘recipe’ for slow cooker stock.  This is a great way to use up those odds and ends of vegetables and meats.  It’s not so much  a recipe as a method so feel free to substitute what you have.


Slow Cooker Stock

• Start by adding 5-6 cups of water to a slow cooker
• Then add any odds and ends from vegetables, any leftover herbs, shrimp shells, chicken bones, Thanksgiving turkey carcass… basically whatever you have.  I keep a bag in my freezer and when I’m finished chopping vegetables or herbs and just have the ends of carrots or onions or whatever left I toss them in the bag.  When the bag is full, I make stock.
• Add salt if you like.  This is totally optional.
• Cook on low for about 6-8 hours.  Strain into quart jars (makes about 2 quarts) and use within a few days or freeze.