Hawai'ian Banana Bread

A hearty thanks to Mary at One Perfect Bite for this one.








I only changed one thing in the recipe. I upped the mac nuts to a full cup, and after I toasted them, I chopped up about half of them with a hand-chopper. (If you chop them and then toast them, they can burn rather quickly, so I recommend toasting first.)

Ahh, the hand-chopper ... so easy, a 2-year old can use it ...






And because all of two of us in the household right now are either on baby formula or kibble, once the bread cooled I sliced it, zip-lock-bagged the slices, and put it all in the freezer, and then the two of us who are walking on two legs can grab one as we run out the door in the morning.

With the extra fat from the mac nuts and coconut, it's also easily thrown in a jersey pocket or Camelbak for a bike ride or hike instead of a commercial energy bar.

OPB's Hawai'ian Banana Bread

Ingredients:
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 ½ sticks (¾ cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 tsp lemon zest
1 ⅓ cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 large 'naners)
3 Tbs sour cream
1 cup macadamia nuts, lightly toasted and cooled, then chopped
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut, lightly toasted and cooled

Directions:
1) Heat oven to 350º F. Grease and flour two 8 ½ x 4 ½-inch loaf pans.

2) Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars, and then beat in the vanilla, eggs, lemon zest, sour cream, and bananas.

3) Add the flour mixture, stirring just until the batter is combined. Add in macadamia nuts and coconut and gently stir until evenly incorporated.

3) Divide the batter between loaf pans and smooth tops. Bake 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean. Let the pan cool for ten minutes, then remove the bread from the pan and cool on racks.

Simple Currant Scones

We tried this idea the other day. Wasn't a 100% success, but it might work for you, depending on your grater.

I always have trouble cutting butter into a pastry dough. Scott Peacock says to use your hands (as described in our cheddar scone recipe here), but that seems to take forever and I always miss a couple of pieces. The easiest way, in my opinion, is a food processor, but then you have a lot of extra cleaning to do.

But here's an idea from a friend: freeze the butter and then use a cheese grater to grate the butter into the dough.

We used a Pampered Chef grater, which was so simple even a two year old could do it. And it worked great, except that the butter melts from friction and collects in the innermost corners of the grater. I'm guessing about 5% of the butter never made it into the dough. So it's not perfect, but it works.





If you used a box grater, you'll have to work a bit harder, and the very last sliver of butter will melt in your hand, but you can just toss that into the dough and cut it in with your hands, pastry cutter, fork, or whatever.


Maybe I just need to find a better pastry cutter?

Or ... and I'm leaning towards this one ... just use the food processor, but to make the clean up worth your while, make a double batch and freeze half of it. That's what we did with the strawberry shortcakes the other day.





We have shortcake biscuits in the freezer, which take about 15 minutes to thaw before tossing into the oven.







(By the way, I guess I'm the last one to find out that to make homemade whipped cream, all you have to do it take some cream and whip it. Seriously. It's that easy. You can add a wee bit of sugar and vanilla extract if you want, but basically, whipped cream is — get ready for this — cream that has been whipped. Who knew?)







Lots of options ... will have to work on all of them before deciding which one to stick with.

Simple Currant Scones

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
(1 tsp sugar for sprinkling over the scones later on)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick (8 Tbs) butter (freeze for 30 minutes)
1/2 cup currants or raisins
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg

Preheat your oven to 400º.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a 4 quart mixing bowl.

Grate the frozen butter into the dry mixture using a box or cheese grater. Mix thoroughly with your fingers, a fork, or a pastry cutter. (Or, mix the whole thing in a food processor.)

Blend the sour cream and the egg in a measuring cup or small bowl. Stir the wet mixture into the flour, slowly with a fork. Just as lumps start to form, with your hands, press the dough into the bowl to make a ball. Don't worry if the dough doesn't look wet enough — it should still hold together. If not, gently knead it once or twice and try again.)

Pat the dough into a circle on a lightly floured surface, and pat it down to about 3/4 of an inch thickness. Sprinkle with sugar, and then draw a knife through the dough to form eight triangles.






Using a small spatula, place the triangles onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, just until the tops are golden brown.



Favorite variation: add lemon zest to the dry mix and sub blueberries for the currants.

Kitchen Sink Frittata

I'm not sure what I would do if I was forced to give up eggs. Scrambled with a side of toast and bacon. Scrambled with green chiles in a breakfast burrito. Boiled just right for egg salad. Soft boiled with lots of salt and fresh cracked pepper. Fried hard for a quick sandwich, with cheese and a slice of tomato. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

And in this tough economy, at about a dime each, eggs are the most cost-effective way of getting protein. A dozen of large are just north of a buck at our grocer, and as high as $3 for the hippie eggs. That's still just a quarter an egg, or $2 for all the eggs you need for this frittata that serves four easy.

Throw in two bucks worth of veggies and this meal is a dollar per serving. So take that, you drive-thru, dollar menu clowns.

So here you go. Read the entire thing, then go back to the beginning and pick your ingredients. You have five minutes of prep, then just watch it cook. 30 minutes start to finish.






Everyone's selling frittata pans these days, but any oven-proof pan will work by starting it on the stove and finishing in the oven.

The Base:
8 large eggs
1/2 cup milk or cream (preferably not skim, but skim will work if that's all you have)
1 Tbs flour
salt and pepper to taste



In a very large measuring cup or mixing bowl (about 4 cups) mix all of the above.

Then add any of the following:

The Kitchen Sink:

• Up to 2 cups of veggies and meat: Bacon, sausage, chorizo, canadian bacon, pancetta, or you name it. Fresh red or green bell peppers, mushrooms, jalapeños, onions, spinach, summer squash, or, again, you name it. Steam some asperagus and cut into one-inch pieces. Microwave some diced potatoes. The only caveat is, if you use sauteed or cooked veggies, let them cool before adding them to the egg mixture.
• Half to a full cup of cheese: Any hard or soft cheese will work. Try crumbled feta or goat, or grated cheddar, or packages of mixed Italian or Mexican cheeses. Note, if using salty cheese, like feta, then take it easy on the salt in your egg mix.
  
• Herbs and spices: Sprinkle enough spice to cover the top of your egg mix, then whisk into the mixture until blended. Try red pepper flakes, garlic, green onions, or basil, cilantro, or parsley.

Here's the last bit of your hands-on. Heat your oven to 350°. In an oven-proof pan, heat enough butter or olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan over medium heat. Medium, not medium-high. Get your egg mix ready, and then give the pan a twirl to make sure the oil touches the sides of the pan. Slowly pour the egg mix into the pan, cover, and let it sit on medium heat for about a minute. Then turn the stove down to low and give it about 7 minutes. Check the egg, and when the eggs are set about an inch from the side, you're ready. Depending on your ingredients, this might take up to 12 minutes, so just keep checking.

Then uncover the pan and move it to the oven. Set the timer for 15 minutes, but again, because of your ingredients, it might take up to 25 minutes to finish. You're going to bake it until the top is completely set. Watch the very center; when the center is set, you're done.

If you're using an omelet-style pan, you can slide the frittata to a cutting board. We use a straight-sided pan and just cut it in the pan with a sharp plastic spatula. If you let it cool for two minutes, it will pull away from the pan and will be easier to serve.

Serve it as-is or with salsa. A side salad, green or fruit, goes well with this dish. Or, cut it into one inch squares for an hors d'oevre.

Kitchen Sink Frittata

I'm not sure what I would do if I was forced to give up eggs. Scrambled with a side of toast and bacon. Scrambled with green chiles in a breakfast burrito. Boiled just right for egg salad. Soft boiled with lots of salt and fresh cracked pepper. Fried hard for a quick sandwich, with cheese and a slice of tomato. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

And in this tough economy, at about a dime each, eggs are the most cost-effective way of getting protein. A dozen of large are just north of a buck at our grocer, and as high as $3 for the hippie eggs. That's still just a quarter an egg, or $2 for all the eggs you need for this frittata that serves four easy.

Throw in two bucks worth of veggies and this meal is a dollar per serving. So take that, you drive-thru, dollar menu clowns.

So here you go. Read the entire thing, then go back to the beginning and pick your ingredients. You have five minutes of prep, then just watch it cook. 30 minutes start to finish.






Everyone's selling frittata pans these days, but any oven-proof pan will work by starting it on the stove and finishing in the oven.

The Base:
8 large eggs
1/2 cup milk or cream (preferably not skim, but skim will work if that's all you have)
1 Tbs flour
salt and pepper to taste



In a very large measuring cup or mixing bowl (about 4 cups) mix all of the above.

Then add any of the following:

The Kitchen Sink:

• Up to 2 cups of veggies and meat: Bacon, sausage, chorizo, canadian bacon, pancetta, or you name it. Fresh red or green bell peppers, mushrooms, jalapeños, onions, spinach, summer squash, or, again, you name it. Steam some asperagus and cut into one-inch pieces. Microwave some diced potatoes. The only caveat is, if you use sauteed or cooked veggies, let them cool before adding them to the egg mixture.
• Half to a full cup of cheese: Any hard or soft cheese will work. Try crumbled feta or goat, or grated cheddar, or packages of mixed Italian or Mexican cheeses. Note, if using salty cheese, like feta, then take it easy on the salt in your egg mix.
  
• Herbs and spices: Sprinkle enough spice to cover the top of your egg mix, then whisk into the mixture until blended. Try red pepper flakes, garlic, green onions, or basil, cilantro, or parsley.

Here's the last bit of your hands-on. Heat your oven to 350°. In an oven-proof pan, heat enough butter or olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan over medium heat. Medium, not medium-high. Get your egg mix ready, and then give the pan a twirl to make sure the oil touches the sides of the pan. Slowly pour the egg mix into the pan, cover, and let it sit on medium heat for about a minute. Then turn the stove down to low and give it about 7 minutes. Check the egg, and when the eggs are set about an inch from the side, you're ready. Depending on your ingredients, this might take up to 12 minutes, so just keep checking.

Then uncover the pan and move it to the oven. Set the timer for 15 minutes, but again, because of your ingredients, it might take up to 25 minutes to finish. You're going to bake it until the top is completely set. Watch the very center; when the center is set, you're done.

If you're using an omelet-style pan, you can slide the frittata to a cutting board. We use a straight-sided pan and just cut it in the pan with a sharp plastic spatula. If you let it cool for two minutes, it will pull away from the pan and will be easier to serve.

Serve it as-is or with salsa. A side salad, green or fruit, goes well with this dish. Or, cut it into one inch squares for an hors d'oevre.

No-Rise Cinnamon Rolls (which makes them sort of a cinnamon biscuit / scone / muffin / roll)

No yeast but 4 tsp of baking powder make these "rolls" more like biscuits. To me, they're just as good as traditional, but just a little different. I actually prefer the more biscuity texture, instead of the doughy, bready feel of your standard roll. And since they take about 20-25 minutes of hands-on time, it's worth it to give them a shot just once. If they're not your thing, go back to the yeast rolls.




Ready for the belly. Maybe the world's ugliest cinnamon rolls, but wicked easy. One notch harder than opening the Pillsbury tube.









2 cups flour
2 Tbs sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, ice cold, baby
1 cup milk
1/3 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 tsp ground cinnamon

Optional: 1/4 to 1/3 cup of raisins, currants, or almonds. (We went with almonds today. Like how they caramelize when they bake in the brown sugar / butter mix.)

Frosting:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Splash of milk


Grease your muffin tin. Mix the 1/3 cup butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon together. Put 1 tsp into each of cup of the tin. Save the remaining mixture for your roll filling.


bit of brown sugar and cinnamon that will soak up into the rolls


In a largish bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in 1/4 cup butter.

* Side: I hate cutting butter. Never get it quite right. But then I read Scott Peacock's description in his American Classics series. Makes a lot of sense, and easy to follow instructions.


In your flour mix, make a well in center and pour in the milk. Slowly stir until you have a smooth dough.

Turn dough out on lightly floured cutting board or counter top. Knead about 10 times. Roll out into rectangle about 1/4 inch thick and a foot long. (That's 12 inches, and you have 12 muffin cups ... so guess how thick each cut will be when you're ready to make your rolls.)

Spread the remaining cinnamon mixture over dough rectangle. Sprinkle the almonds or raisins (optional) onto the cinnamon mix. Roll up so you have a foot long roll, and the cut into 12 slices. Instead of measuring, just cut it in half, and then each half in half again. Then cut each of those pieces into three equal pieces.







Bake at 400º F for about 20 minutes. If your rolls are nice and tight, the cinnamon mix will stay put, but mine were a bit loose and the mix bubbled over the top. I needed to put an extra baking sheet until the muffin tins to catch the overflow.

The rolls should pop right out as soon as you take them out of the oven. Drizzle the tops with your powdered sugar / milk glaze.

Happy International Waffle Day!

Of course, we don't celebrate it here in the US. We have our own US Waffle Day, in August.

Here at the Training Table, though, we believe is celebrating all food-related occasions as often as possible, so we'll be observing both. Maple syrup is required, whipped cream totally optional.

What NOT to eat for breakfast

Bill Maher, on Dunkin Donuts new breakfast offering, the Waffle Breakfast Sandwich:

Bacon, egg, and cheese between two waffles isn't breakfast, it's a suicide attempt. This is Dunkin' Donuts' new waffle sandwich. You could wait in line for yours or, if you're in a hurry, just snatch the pistol from the cop sitting at the counter and shoot yourself in the head.


Scramble the first word, and you get Unkind Donuts.

Pancakes: Quick and Easy or Supercharged

If you have premixed pancake batter in your fridge, drop and give me 50 pushups. That stuff is loaded with preservatives and stabilizers and doesn't taste good in the first place.

If you have a box of premixed pancake powder in the pantry, you only owe me 20 pushups, plus another 20 flutterkicks. Same problem as above, plus you're paying way too much for something you can make yourself in about three seconds.

A running theme here has been slowing it down, but slowing it down doesn't have to mean that it takes forever to get ready. And if you forgot to make the french toast the night before, then it's never too late to whip up an alternative to cold cereal and Saturday morning cartoons.

Basic pancakes are super-easy, and my version ups the fiber and protein and makes a great pre-race or pre-workout meal as well as an excellent recovery meal.

For basic pancakes, just remember the number two. You need 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of milk, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter or oil. Throw in a dash of salt and, if you want, a tablespoon of sugar (or brown sugar, or agave nectar, or honey), and you have pancakes for a family of four. (What? Step by step instructions? Come on... they're pancakes! Mix the dry, mix the wet, mix the wet into the dry, and fire up the griddle.)

These are super easy, and taste so much better than anything you're ever going to get out of a jug or a box. Add some mashed bananas, blueberries (fresh or frozen), or anything else that strikes your fancy.

But here's the really cool thing: it takes about two more minutes to take these from pancakes that taste good to pancakes that taste great and are great for you.

The first trick: substitute one cup of whole wheat flour for one cup of the white flour. That single step takes your protein from about 4 grams per serving to 5.5 grams, and your fiber jumps from zero to 5 grams. If you have a couple more minutes, you can grind up some oats in your coffee bean grinder or food processor and make a cup of oat flour. That gives you about 6-7 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. (Mix the one cup of oat flour with the one cup of white flour, and throw a mini-scoop of whole oats in to the batter — presentation counts, after all.)

The second trick: add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of almonds to the mix by chopping them in your grinder, processor, or hand-chopper. About ten whacks with the hand-chopper gives you almond powder that nearly disappears into the flour, but still gives the batter a little bit of nutty texture. Take it down further and you'll loose the texture completely for lightly, fluffy pancakes. And almonds are nutritional powerhouses, giving you an extra 3-4 grams of fiber per serving, plus protein, calcium, and Vitamin E.

So here you go: the Training Table's Super-charged Pancakes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 Tbs brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs (or 3 egg whites, if you're watching your cholesterol)
2 Tbs melted butter or oil
2 cups milk or 1 cup milk, 1 cup buttermilk

1/4 to 1/2 cup ground almonds, chopped finely with a hand-chopper or food processor

One cup blueberries

Question of the Week: Oats

Pat said:
Hey
whats the difference between quaker oats one minute oatmeal and the regular. Does it effect nutrition? Did they precook it?

If you’ve ever seen raw oats or oats in horse feed, you probably noted that they look plumper than what you see in your oatmeal. Humans can’t really eat raw oats — the bran shell makes them indigestible. So you’re three choices are steel cut (like the name says, cut between fine disk blades), rolled (slow cooking), and quick cooking (also rolled, but rolled finer and usually cut again).

Nutritionally, if you gave steel cut oats a 100, then rolled/slow would be around a 90 and slow cooking maybe an 85. It’s a personal question whether the extra nutritional gain is worth the extra cooking time.

Lots of folks advocate eating more oats. If you’re fighting high cholesterol, cancer, or celiac disease, you’ve probably read that you should eat more. So here are a couple of tips.

For one, avoid the individual packets of oatmeal. They are highly processed and contain tons of sugar. And they’re expensive. Just buy a big tub of oatmeal and add your own brown sugar, maple syrup, walnuts, dried fruit, unsweetened coconut, or whatever you want. For three bucks you get eight individual servings, or for three bucks you get a tub of oats that will last you a month or more.

Second, if you’re going to microwave your oatmeal, then there is no difference in cooking time between regular and quick cooking oats. They both require the water to get right up to boiling, so you’re not saving any time and you’re losing a tiny bit of nutrition by picking the quick cooking.

For baking applications, I have found that quick cooking give you a chewier cookie while regular give you a crisper one. We use the regular in our granola, because I like that smokier taste of the browned, crisp oats over the softer, quick cooking ones. But both work and there’s no time adjustment to the baking.

Finally, you can grind oats in your coffee bean grinder and make oat flour. Substitute about one half cup of oat flour for one half cup of wheat flour for every two cups of flour called for in the recipe, and you’ll probably get the same results (in terms of rise and baking time) with a slightly nuttier flavor and bit of a nutritional boost.

Cheers!

Brunch ideas... don't forget the wee ones.

Just one more quick one: Baby Frittatas from Weelicious.

I'm thinking that, instead of asparagus, I'll make it a Denver omelet. And maybe add some cottage cheese to the egg mixture, instead of milk. If anyone beats me to it, let me know how it went.

Valentine's Day Surprise

This weekend, surprise the family by making them something new for breakfast. Head this way for three ideas.

Weekend Brunch Part II

So your first option is the World's Greatest Granola. It's easy, relatively quick, and provides you with a hot breakfast today and left-overs for the rest of the week.

But if granola isn't your thing, here are a couple of others for the weekend.

Let's start with french toast. I love french toast, but it's hard to make for 4+ people if you make it the traditional way, by dipping bread in the batter and frying up on the griddle. The first one served either has to eat his warm toast alone or wait for everyone else and watch his golden fried bread go cold. And for some reason my first batch never looks like the last batch, since cleaning the griddle or skillet between servings isn't really an option.

But baked french toast makes all of that go away. Whip it up the night before, let it soak up the custard all night, clean up the kitchen before you go to bed, and then just pop it in the oven when everyone's up the next morning.

I use day old french bread, but any sturdy artisan bread will work. I've cut the recipe in half for just the two of us, doubled it for company, or make it as listed here. Any left-overs can be put in the fridge and nuke for 20-30 seconds for breakfast later in the week.

2 baguettes or one large loaf of french bread, day old or air dried for a couple of hours
(Slice the bread into 2 inch slices)
7-8 eggs
1 ¼ cups milk and 1 ¼ cups half-and-half, or 2 ½ cups buttermilk, or any other combo
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Spice: minimum of ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, and ¼-½ teaspoons of cinnamon, ginger, or cloves, according to your taste. (I'm a big user of ginger — probably use a full teaspoon plus half a teaspoon of cinnamon, but that's your call.)

Butter or spray a baking dish with non-stick spray. (13X9 for the 2 baguette version, but it's best to lay down the sliced bread and eye-ball it to see what size you need. I'll use two smaller pans a lot of the time.)

Whisk together everything else in a largish bowl. A wide bottom in essential so that you can soak as much of the bread at the bottom as possible.

Gently place the sliced bread into the custard mixture and let is soak up the egg for about 5 minutes. You might need to toss the bread once or twice to get it all evenly soaked. Use tongs (silicon coated are best) so you don't tear the bread.

Place the coated bread into your baking dish, and pour any extra egg mixture evenly over the bread. Cover with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge. You can chill it for as little as an hour, if you get up early to make it the same day, or for up to 24 hours before the bread will start to fall apart.

When it's time to bake it, make a streusel topping as follows:

½ cup flour
¼ cup sugar
dash of salt
3 Tablespoons butter, slightly melted
¼ cup sliced almonds

Mix everything in a small bowl and spoon over the sliced bread.

Pre-heat the oven to 375º and then bake for about 30 minutes, until the bread is set and the struesel is golden brown.

Serve plain with maple syrup or with sliced fruit, berries, or what have you. Just no peanut butter! We're not savages here, you know. And no hot sauce — it's not a t-rat, after all.



So there's option #2. Option #3 is a sausage / potato casserole. This one is great for a family sit-down breakfast if one person can get up about half an hour before everyone else. It takes about 20-30 minutes to assemble, and then you bake it for 30, so you have half an hour to clean up and get the table set. I love recipes like that, because there's nothing worse than enjoying a great meal and then looking at a trashed kitchen when everyone wents to get started on the weekend.

This came from our buddies to the east at the Greasy Skillet. He did a great job explaining the steps, so I won't steal his thunder. Check it out here.







Like he said, we need to add some veggies to this. I'm thinking a half-cup each of sauted green peppers and onions, but I need to figure out whether it goes on the bottom with the sausage or into the flour/egg mixture. Spinach might work, and you can't miss with tomotoes, either.




So the ball's now in your court. You have three choices for a hot, sit-down, family breakfast instead of cold cereal in front of the TV this Saturday morning.

Now comes the fun part... burning off all of these calories.

Happy trails!

Weekend Brunch

Here is the first of three options for a weekend breakfast. The first is the healthiest of the bunch, so I'll start with the world's greatest granola recipe. I know what you're thinking: Ewell Gibbons died just like everyone else, so you're not going to sit around eating pine cones and tree bark just to go out like he did. Trust me on this one: this isn't the crap you buy from the far end of the cereal aisle.


Mountain Granola, adapted from Colorado Collage, from the Junior League of Denver.



(click the graphic for a close-up view.)









Homemade Granola
8 cups oatmeal
½ cup vegetable or olive oil
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 cup honey
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups shelled, unsalted sunflower seeds, toasted
⅔ cup sesame seeds, toasted
1 cup sliced almonds, toasted


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread seeds out on a baking sheet and toast in oven for 5–10 minutes, stirring once or twice to avoid burning.
Place oatmeal in large bowl. In a medium saucepan, heat oil, brown sugar, and honey over medium heat, until thin—about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and salt. Pour mixture over oatmeal; add sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and almonds and toss to combine.
Spread evenly on 2 baking sheets and bake 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Serve with yogurt and berries.

(Makes enough for a family of four for about a week. Feel free to cut everything in half if you only want to use one baking sheet.)

For variety, use a little less sunflower and/or sesame seeds and add the difference in pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, raisins, dried apples, or whatever else. We also usually add a little coconut and a sprinkle of flax seed meal.

I almost forgot to mention: friends of the family used this recipe at the Nebraska State Fair a couple of years ago and took the grand prize in the breakfast category.

For options #2 and #3, continue reading here.

Saturday Brunch

Heading out the door, so just pix today, story tomorrow.

Made a scrumptious brunch this morning, using a recipe from our flatlander neighbors to the east at the Greasy Skillet. One of life's biggest joys is making something tasty and watching your kid devour it.




Super simple and moderately messy... The Greasy Skillet Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole is going to be seen in our house on weekend mornings a lot this year, I'm thinking.






Z. learned a new trick to day. We got him this gimmicky bowl that sticks to his tray with a suction cup and has a spill lip that sticks out in his general direction, sort of like an inverted fly fishing cap with an over-sized bill. Supposed to catch spills.





Well, Z. figured out that if he spills some food on the lip, presses down on it, and then releases it, he can launch the mess out into the stratosphere, catapult-like. Lovely. Now I have to keep him from watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Please, no one get him this for his birthday.

Sick call, fall out!

Z. has an ear infection, so he's on antibiotics that are giving him fits. I'm on Day Two of the flu. M's nursing a sore throat. So it's just one big party around here these days.

Being sick isn't fun. Being sick and needing to take care of someone else is the worst. I picked up Z. and ran him downstairs for a bottle and I nearly passed out. Then I threw my back out putting him down.

So there won't be much new here until everyone's feeling better.

Good thing we made muffins the day before, so at least we have breakfast for a few days. But wish I had seen this first, because it sounds a bit heartier.

Getting my swing back

We've cooked dinner maybe three times since getting our SBJ, and I haven't made anything for Sunday brunch once. Too many bottles to fill, diapers to change, noses to wipe, and butts to powder. Or at least, that was my excuse. So this Sunday I had to get back into it, but given my time off, I needed to start slowly.

I'm not sure why pumpkin is thought of as only a Thanksgiving and Christmas treat. Because it's easily canned, it's available year round, has a long shelf life, and is chocked full of beta carotene and vitamin C. And, it's nearly idiot-proof in the oven. Bread, muffins, pie... you can forget to set the timer, set the oven for the wrong temperature, forget how many scoops of sugar you added, and it's still going to turn out okay.

So the easiest way to get back up on the horse and find my culinary sea legs is to take one of the many cans of pumpkin from down in the pantry and slap together some muffins.

Now, this being the Training Table, I have to make a nod to nutrition, expedience, and flexibility. I like making muffins on Sunday because they take about 30 minutes to prepare and then 30 minutes to bake, so while the muffins are in the oven, you can finish the dishes, and sit down to enjoy a muffin and cup of coffee without worrying about the pile of bowls and measuring scoops in the sink. I also double the recipe and then freeze most of the muffins in little zip locks, two per bag, so I can grab one as I go out the door all next week.

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 15 oz canned pumpkin
1/3 cup vegetable oil or 1/3 cup apple sauce
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Pumpkin spice mix: either one Tbsp of pre-mixed pumpkin pie spice, or one tsp each of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, or whatever floats your boat. I tend to go overboard on the ginger, and no one has ever complained.

For the topping:
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon


Preheat the oven to 350º. Prep the pans with liners or the grease of your choice. (I usually skip both with our Wilton pans, so your call there.)

Mix together everything but the flour, and then slowly sift in the flour until just combined. I use the beater from the electric mixer for this step, since it only has four tines and lets a lot of air into the mix without clumping.

Fill the muffin cups, then sprinkle the sugar/cinnamon mix on top.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Let them cool in the tray for five minutes, then pop them out and serve. Let them cool to room temperature before bagging or tupperwaring.

Well: Healthy Food for under $1

Check out the NYT's Well today.

Healthy Foods for Under $1

I've never understood why folks will spend 20 minutes in line during the lunch rush for a "fast" food burger, when in the same amount of time they can run into the grocery store, grab an apple, a bottle of Odwalla, and a block of cheese or the like, for the same amount of money. It has to be the perceived convenience of not picking out the components and assembling them oneself, along with the perceived "value" of the dollar menu.

Maybe if the cost of a quad bypass was factored into the 99 cent burger, folks would figure it out.

There are some obvious things one can do to both save money and eat better. For under three bucks, you get a tub of oats that will make five to ten times the cereal that you would get in a three dollar box of Sugar Coated Choco Bombs. But the packaged cold cereal is much more convenient, and we've become the laziest consumers on the market. (For that matter, a three dollar tub of oats will make ten times the oatmeal as those individual packets of oatmeal from the same manufacturer that cost a little bit more — explain that one to me.)

Instead of big box cereals, buy these items in bulk and try this out.

A Month-full of Muffins

The beauty of this batter is that it keeps for about a month, so you can whip up a batch on the weekend, and then make a couple or three muffins each morning. You get a freshly baked muffin each day for about the same amount of energy as putting a PopTart in the toaster. Slap some batter in the muffin pan, finish reading the paper or applying hair products or pack your lunch or have a cup of coffee, and then twenty minutes later, you have a muffin to take to work or pop in your kid’s lunch pail.

The recipe makes 4 dozen — cut it in half if that’s too many for your family for a month.

8 cups of Raisin Bran cereal (one 14 oz box)

5 cups flour

3 cups sugar

5 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons salt

4 cups buttermilk

1 cup oil

4 eggs

1.5 cups dried cranberries

1. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients: the cereal, flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredient (buttermilk, oil, and eggs) and whisk until smooth and completely blended. Pour the buttermilk/eggs/oil mixture into the cereal/flour/sugar/baking soda/salt bowl and gently stir until just blended, and then fold in the cranberries.

2. Place in a tightly sealed container and refrigerate overnight. Important: do not stir the mixture again. When you need some batter, spoon from the top — do not remix the batter.

3. Preheat the oven to 400º. Grease muffin pan and spoon in the batter. Bake 18 minutes (check the first time with a toothpick). Cool in the pan for a couple of minutes, then serve warm or throw ‘em in your lunch box.