Cinnamon Raisin French Toast Sticks

So easy and delicious, I can't believe I haven't done this before!

Ingredients
3 slices cinnamon raisin bread
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk or cream
dash of almond extract
butter for pan frying

Directions
Purchase (or make!) some thickly sliced or unsliced cinnamon raisin bread.  If unsliced, slice into 3 two inch slices,  and then cut each slice into a 2 inch wide strip.  In a bowl, mix together eggs, milk and almond extract.   Heat frying pan or griddle to Med-Low heat.  When pan is hot, melt the butter in it- enough to coat the bottom of the pan.  Dip each strip of bread, making sure to coat each side and the ends and place in pan.  Cook each side for about 5 minutes.  You may need to reapply butter if you're working in smaller batches.  If you're making a lot at once, keep a ceramic plate in the oven @  200-250 F and store the cooked strips in there until you're ready to serve.  Serve with fresh fruit and maple syrup for dipping.  Dust with powdered sugar or some extra cinnamon if you like.
Enjoy!!

Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas with Creamed Spinach and Cheddar

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Mmmmmmm......

Ingredients

1 Sweet Potato

1/2 Onion, chopped

2 cups Spinach, cooked or frozen

1 tbsp Lime Juice

1 8 oz can Black Beans

1 12 oz jar of Enchilada Sauce (we used Trader Joe's)

1 Tbsp Taco Seasoning

1 tbsp Cream Cheese or Plain Yogurt (for creaming the spinach)

1 tsp garlic, minced or powdered

5-6 small Tortillas

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

6-8 oz Cheddar Cheese

Salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Cube sweet potatoes and boil until you can pierce easily with a fork then drain.   Saute onions with olive oil until translucent, then take them off the heat.  Mash the sweet potatoes and and mix in the onions, lime juice, black beans and taco seasoning.


The creamed spinach- if you have an amazing creamed spinach recipe, or just happen to have some laying around in your fridge, use that.  I made a quick concoction out of cooked frozen spinach that I heated up and mixed with cream cheese, garlic and a pinch of salt.  

In a baking dish, pour half of the bottle of enchilada sauce.

Place a tortilla in the dish and coat both sides with enchilada sauce.  Fill with the sweet potato mixture, top with the creamed spinach, and roll it up!  Repeat until all of the filling is used (makes 5-6 enchiladas depending on how big you decide to make them).  Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce on top and spread out evenly.  Top with cheddar cheese.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until sauce is bubbling.  
Dig in! 

Cadbury Creme Egg Ice Cream

Yowza.   I made a version of this last year with homemade frozen custard and some additional mini chocolate easter egg candies -- and it was fantastic -- but the Cadbury creme flavor did not carry through.  So, I decided to try a more direct version that is much simpler and you can quickly make at home (without an ice cream maker).  The idea was to mix in the crushed Cadbury eggs in a cold bowl with your favorite flavored ice cream (sort of like those franchise places with the frozen marble).  As you can see, we experimented with vanilla, but based on our findings other simple flavors would be just as tasty.

Ingredients
1 pint Vanilla Ice Cream (or FroYo)
3 Cadbury Creme Eggs
1 ceramic bowl (frozen for at least 1 hour)
2 wooden spoons

Directions
First, place a large ceramic bowl in the freezer for at least one hour.  Remove from freezer and scoop out contents of ice cream pint.   Place 3 cadbury eggs on top of the ice cream and start whacking with the wooden spoons.

Once the eggs have been mostly desecrated, start mixing and folding the ice cream until the chocolate is thoroughly mixed but you can still make out the yellow clumps of cream in the concoction.  At this point, you may want to pop the bowl and it's contents back in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to prevent melting.  Once the ice cream has firmed up, you can plate some in a bowl and store the rest in the empty pint container.

A friend of mine also pointed out that using a cracked egg on top of a single serving bowl of scooped ice cream would also be worth trying...

ENJOY!!!

Tart Cakes and Fruity-O Cakes

These freaky-deaky breakfast pancakes are the spawns of seeds planted by Kenny Shopsin of Shopsins in NYC.  You may recognize his name as the inspiration for my French Toast Bagels post several months ago.  I've been reading his book Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin and have been very entertained and inspired by his writings and recipes.  

Ingredients

Pancake Batter (whatever kind you would normally use)

Butter

Cereal or Granola

and/or

Your favorite toaster pastry (we used strawberry)

Directions

Read Kenny's book.  Heat up your griddle and wet with butter then pour on pancake batter.  Sprinkle cereal or chopped toaster pastry bits on top.  Flip the pancake, topping side down, after about 2 minutes of cooking or until the pancake becomes bubbly.  Cook with topping side down for another 2 minutes.  Serve topping side up. 

I like to keep a warm plate in the oven (about 200F) if I'm cooking for a lot of people, and place each finished pancake on the plate until I am done cooking .  That way everyone can enjoy hot pancakes at the same time.

The Results

Well, the the Tart Cakes turned out far better then the Fruity-O Cakes.  The jammy parts from the pastry made a great filling and the iced tops added a bite of sweetness.  The cereal cakes were comparatively flavorless and overly carbohydrated.  In the future I'm going to experiment with raisin bran and granola with dried fruits, chocolate and nuts to try and enhance the flavor.  

Any other ideas?  

Happy experimenting!

Hubert, The Sandwich.

(Reuben's first cousin).

I love sauerkraut.  I really love sauerkraut on a sandwich.  I would say that I love a reuben, but i've never had a real one.  I'm a recovering vegetarian, but I'm not advanced enough to eat a pile of corned beef...yet.  I've enjoyed countless meat-substitute reubens where I've added a tomato to give the sandwich an extra flavor/filling.  However, Hubert was born out of "what the hell do I have in my fridge that I can throw on a sandwich and grill?" and that just happened to include sauerkraut.

Ingredients

2 slices sourdough bread

1-2 slices sharp cheddar cheese

1 Tofurky Beer Brat , sliced into quadrants (or real beer brats)

1 tomato slice

1 onion slice

1/2 cup sauerkraut, drained

Mustard

Mayonaise mixed with olive tapenade

Directions

You know how to put together a sandwich!!  But we suggest this order:

Bread > Mustard > Brats > Kraut > Tomato > Onion > Cheese > Mayo-Tapenade > Bread

We used our cast iron panini press to grill the sandwich into ooey gooey perfection, and then dubbed thee Hubert.  Sauerkraut mixed with more classic sandwich accouterments turned out to be fantastic.  We used a really authentic, fresh sourdough bread that added to the deliciousness.      

Enjoy!!!  (and tell me about any of reuben's other family members that you may have eaten)

Garlic Naan Veggie Burger

Obviously you can use a meaty burger in place of the veggie burger if you like. 

I used a SouthWest Sunshine Burger, one of my favorite non-meaty varieties.  

This is more of a concept then a recipe, and that is:

Concept

Replace your burger bun with a piece of naan sliced in half

This particular burger is topped with lettuce, tomato, pepper-jack cheese, and delicious hummus.  

It was delightful.

Go forth and naan-ify your buns!!!

Soft Pretzel and Hummus

An easy but delicious and satisfying combo.  The hummus pictured above happens to be a very pungent and tasty garlic hummus.  


A short list of other good things to dip into hummus:
Pita
Warm Garlic Naan
Tortillas
Tortilla chips
French Fries
Crudité (especially carrots)
Crackers
Warm Bread 
String Cheese
Fingers


Ingredients
Fresh or frozen soft pretzel
Hummus


Directions
Warm up pretzel in microwave or toaster oven.  If you're using a frozen variety, follow the directions on the box.*  Serve on a plate, with a big heaping spoonful of your favorite hummus, plain or flavored.  If you have more then one type of hummus in the fridge, you should put some of each on your plate -- variety stimulates the mind and the taste buds.  In fact, I would encourage adding a mustard or two to the plate as well if the mood strikes you.


Dip and eat with your hands.  


*once, when i was a young child, i came home from school and attempted to heat up a frozen pretzel in the microwave.  going off of memory, i failed to look at the directions on the box and nuked the pretzel for 2 minutes rather then 20 seconds.  when it finished cooking, it was completely hard.  i had baked my giant soft pretzel into a giant hard pretzel.  unfortunately it was too hard to really eat and enjoy, so it ended up in the trash.  i was very sad because it was the last pretzel.  learn from my mistakes, don't be a sad pretzel-less fool.