AwesomeBites

Category: Breakfast

  • Apples and Blueberry Syrup

    Apples and Blueberry Syrup

    Make your spouse feel like he is on vacation. Serve him this breakfast on a weekend, and he will adore you.

    Apples and Blueberry Maple Syrup

    Peel and slice 2 Red Delicious Apples

    1/2 Cup Chardonnay

    1/2 Cup Maple Syrup

    Simmer apples in Chardonnay until fork tender.  Add Maple Syrup, warm.  Lastly add fresh blueberries.

    Pancakes, bacon, apples and blueberry syrup
  • Breakfast Hash and Eggs

    Breakfast Hash and Eggs

    Sweet Potato, Russet Potato, Sweet Onion and Roast Pork

    As I wake up and everyone in the house is starting to stir and the chorus of “I’m hungry”, I take a gander in my refrigerator and see we have eggs and a bit of leftover meat and decide, let’s make some hash. I have a knack for using leftovers from my refrigerator and bring it together for something good to eat. Hash is great for a crowd.

    Breakfast Hash

    2 Russet Potatoes diced
    1 Sweet Potatoe diced
    1 Sweet Onion diced
    Leftover pork shoulder roast, or ham, or roast beef or chorizo
    Salt and Pepper to taste
    Vegetable oil for frying

    If you can dice all the ingredients so they are about the same size, the hash will look good and cook evenly.
    Brown the diced potatoes and set aside.
    Sweat the diced onions and set aside.
    Warm the meat, then add back in the potatoes and onions.
    Salt and pepper to taste.

    Once the potatoes are browned, crack an egg for each person on top, bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 5 to 10 minutes until the whites are set. Yell out, come and get it!

    If you want scrambled eggs, get ’em done and serve on the side. Breakfast is ready!

    Sunnyside Eggs and Pulled Pork Hash
  • Country Fried Potatoes

    Country Fried Potatoes

    Some people love sweet, I love bread and potatoes.

    Not just for breakfast, Country Fried Potatoes

    While most people only make fried potatoes for breakfast, I am out of the house and to work and lack the time.  And yet, when asked to make a side dish for dinner, I reach for potatoes. 

    Ingredients:

    Potatoes – thinly sliced.

    Sliced Onions, Sliced Bell Peppers (Optional)

    Salt and Pepper to taste

    Heat your frying pan and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.  When the oil is just about to smoke, add you potatoes to the pan.  The mistake people make in frying potatoes is they touch them too much.  Place a lid on top of the pan while the first side browns and leave it alone for about 5 minutes. 

    Remove the lid, season with salt and pepper and turn these beautiful babies over.  Place the lid back on and leave alone for another 5 minutes.   Salt and pepper and turn over and leave the lid off from now on since the potatoes should be cooked thru, you just want to brown a bit more.

    If you want to add onions to the mix, I cook them in a separate pan and add them to the potatoes at this stage.  You can also add sliced bell peppers.  Yummy good.

    Your gonna love ’em.

  • Julia Child’s Cherry Clafoutis

    Julia Child’s Cherry Clafoutis

    Baking my Black and Blue Berry Clafoutis

    I have heard many descriptions for this dish, from pancake to pudding. My goodness, just say crepe! That is the taste and texture. It is a crepe dish. Instead of making a bunch of crepes, you make a crepe casserole. And thinking of this makes me also realize it would be great with a mushroom cheese filling served along a nice salad. I guess any filling for a crepe could be used. How exciting! A savory clafoutis. I have to put that on my to do list!

    For things like clafouti you can’t go wrong with Julia Child’s recipe. While this serves 6-8 people for dessert, it also makes a wickedly indulgent breakfast for 4!
    Cherry Clafoutis

    Julia Child’s Clafoutis  (kla-foo-TEE)
    serves 6-8

    1 1/4 cups milk
    1/3 cup sugar
    3 eggs
    1 Tablespoon vanilla
    1/8 teaspoon salt
    1/2 cup flour
    3 cups cherries, pitted
    1/3 cup sugar
    powdered sugar

    In a bowl mix the milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour with your stick blender. Pour a 1/4 inch layer of the batter in a buttered 7 or 8 cup lightly buttered fireproof baking dish. Place in the oven until a film of batter sets in the pan. Remove from the heat and spread the cherries over the batter. Sprinkle on the 1/3 cup of sugar. Pour on the rest of the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for about for about 45 minutes to an hour. The clafouti is done when puffed and brown and and a knife plunged in the center comes out clean. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, serve warm.

    Directions

    1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch baking dish, 1 1/4 inches deep. Coat with granulated sugar; tap out excess. Whisk eggs, yolk, and flour in a medium bowl; whisk in creme fraiche, milk, granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt.
    2. Arrange cherries in prepared dish. Strain batter over cherries. Bake until browned around edges and set in the center, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool slightly. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, and serve warm with creme fraiche.

    Clafouti is best warm, so bake it just before you serve dinner. Scoop it into bowls, with a spoonful of creme fraiche or bake it up and have it for breakfast in the morning!  

    Clementines, Blackberries, Raspberries, Cherries all are great in this crepe like dish with fruit!

    Blackberry Clafoutis
  • Arroz con Leche – Rice Pudding

    Arroz con Leche – Rice Pudding

    Serve as dessert or for breakfast in the morning

    Abby would make this for the kids for breakfast and they would go crazy for it.  It is still a favorite.  I tried to make it on the stovetop like she did, but invariably I burn it. Nothing smells as bad a milk and rice.  Yuk.  I stick to the oven method. The classic recipe is with raisins, but they make it too sweet for me, so I omit them.

    4 to 6 servings

    • Milk — 4 cups
    • Short-grain rice –1/2 cup
    • Cinnamon stick — 2 broken into pieces
    • Salt — pinch
    • Raisins — 1/4 cup (Optional, I like mine without raisins)
    • Sugar — 1/2 cup
    • Butter — 2 tablespoons
    • Vanilla — 1 teaspoon
    • Zest of one orange
    • freshly ground nutmeg (garnish)

    Method

    1. Place the milk, rice, cinnamon stick, orange zest, salt and sugar  in a medium oven proof bowl and set into oven at 300 degrees for 2 hours.  Stir every 20 minutes. 
    2. Add the raisins if you are using them, vanilla and nutmeg and bake for another 20 minutes. Stir often to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pot.  Adjust sugar to taste and serve hot or cold, with some ground cinnamon or nutmeg and orange zest to top as garnish.

    Variations

    • Arroz con Dulce (Puerto Rico), or Arroz-Doce (Brazil): use coconut milk in place of regular milk.
    • Short-grain rice, like arborio or Valencia rice, is best for rice pudding as it gives the dessert a creamier texture, but regular long-grain rice can be used to good result too. A little more rice can be added if you want a firmer pudding. If the pudding gets too thick, just add a little more milk.
    • Sometimes water, cream, sweetened and condensed milk or evaporated milk is substituted for part of the regular milk. Just make sure the total amount of liquid adds up to 4 cups. And adjust the amount of sugar as needed.
    • Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of brandy or rum when you stir in the butter and vanilla if you like.
    • Some recipes call for stirring in 2 beaten egg yolks at the end before adding the butter and vanilla. The heat of the pudding will cook the yolks, make it creamier and give it a pale golden color. (I like mine eggless.)
  • Baking Powder Biscuits

    Baking Powder Biscuits

    Biscuits and Gravy

    My sister Wanda would always make the best light fluffy biscuits.  I am sure she learned from my Mom, but she got it right.  She would whip them up and have them served with a bit of gravy in no time at all.  Wanda was also known as “Peaches”, her handle on the CB Radio – if you remember those good old times.  Her son Jeromy was “Peach Pit”.  Great memories.  In honor of my sis.

    2 cups flour

    2 tsp baking powder

    1/2 tsp salt

    6 T shortening

    2/3 cup milk

    Combine and mix all dry ingredients, cut in shortening until consistency of meal.  Add milk all at once.  Knead one minute on floured board. Roll out to 1/2 inch thick, cut and transfer to baking sheet. Bake 450 degrees for 12 minutes.

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