Three Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits

 

This was my first time using this recipe. It's from the White Lily Flour website. They were yummy though and tender. They also rose well. They were just a little too salty for me. I will try unsalted butter next time. If that doesn't help, I will go back to my other recipe. That recipe is HERE.

Rosemary Fig Preserves

We're blessed that the house we're in came with a fig tree. The problem is only two of us eat fresh figs and not a lot at that. I decided to use them up this year. Some are chopped in the freezer to make bread later and some I made these preserves with. The thing about these preserves is that they have converted two fig "haters" sure they still don't like them off the tree but they do like them prepared this way.

Dutch Baby, Brunch Baby

I made this Dutch Baby months ago but I thought it was so pretty so I decided to post it. The recipe is the same as it ever was and you can find those here. Different variations and the original.

Ditch Baby 2015 brunch with coddled eggs...

Dutch baby from 2016 brunch.

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Three Broomsticks- Universal Studios Orlando

One of my favorite places is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. It's absolutely magical. I could spend so much time just walking around and soaking it all in. There's so much to see and do. I'll admit food inside Universal isn't as great as Disney food but the foods I do enjoy are in the Wizarding World. 

Maple Almond Bacon

I recently went to brunch and they have Maple Pecan bacon. It was so yummy. My oldest can not eat pecans so I thought I would recreate that bacon at home for her with a nut she can have. This is very simple to make. The salty sweet crunchy flavors and texture combined is satisfying, the almonds and bacon both get a little caramelized from the maple syrup.  This bacon is great for breakfast, brunch, on top of a salad, on top of a creamy soup, or served as hors d'oeuvres. 

Gluten Free/Dairy Free Coconut Pandan Waffles

You guys. These waffles are so good. I love Coconut Pandan Waffles anyway. I used to make batter and keep it in the fridge for snacks or a quick breakfast. While I don't have any gluten intolerance, or dairy intolerance I just finished a Whole30 and feel really good. I'm less bloated, sleeping better. So I try not to goo crazy with the things that do make me a little bloated, like wheat. I am finding that I sleep better if I don't have it for dinner or later in the day. I'm still narrowing it down and keeping mental notes, I should keep a food journal. But that is a whole other post. Back to these great waffles.  I'm literally not missing the wheat flour in my Coconut Pandan Waffles because of this recipe. I'm not missing the butter either. I wasn't sure how to change this recipe, originally I thought I would just try half rice flour and half tapioca, I figured it would work. Then I walked in my pantry and thought I'd try the oats because we do like oats in our pancakes and oats make cookies chewy. So I tried it, what could go wrong right? Nothing went wrong. It went right. The first time. So there was no need to try the just rice and tapioca flour.

Coconut Pandan Popovers

Coconut Pandan Popovers

I know, I'm on a Pandan kick lately. I can't help it, it's like the vanilla of Southeast Asia. These popovers are so yummy and the custard like center is so yum.  They are a fusion of Southeast Asian flavors and the American Popover which is almost like a Yorkshire pudding. It's a perfect fusion of flavors, texture, and culture.
We like these Coconut Pandan Popovers plain, drizzled with sweetened condensed milk, or with butter- plain, strawberry, or honey. I've made them for breakfast, brunch, a snack, to have with tea. I'm not even sure when people eat sweet popovers. We have no rules here apparently. I hope you'll try these though. They are so good

Spicy Sausage Seasoning

Gluten Free Spicy Sausage Patties

Gearing up for another attempt at Whole30 maybe Paleo for this May. Eek. So that means some meal prep. You may think I am constantly eating three square meals a day, but really I sometimes forget about lunch and breakfast during the week. I don't get around it eating sometimes, and I know that's horrible for me. I usually get tired, or end up eating a billion calories late at night. This time around I am going to try to prep some (more) meals ahead of time and see if it helps me be more successful.

Butter Croissants

I use a combination of recipes and techniques from America's Test Kitchen and King Arthur Flour sites to make my croissants. It's a long processes but it's actually methodical and relaxing in many ways. You can find the recipes online. Here are some pictures of the process to show what I do.

Coconut Pandan Waffles

Coconut Pandan Waffles are found in several Southeast Asian cuisines. They are eaten plain and aren't really a breakfast food but more as a snack or dessert. They are very easy to make. I am the only one in my family who likes the shredded coconut in them, which is traditional and how I've had them. It's not a big deal though, I just make plain ones and stir in coconut for the last couple of waffles.

Coconut Pandan Crepes

Coconut Pandan crepes

 Coconut Pandan Crepes, these lovely fragrant crepes. You can fill them with anything you like. Keep them tropical themed with coconut, mango, papaya, and other flavors from South East Asia. I used strawberries and bananas in the pictures. I'm on a pandan flavor kick. It's a bit floral, aromatic, fragrant. It's lovely, especially with coconut. I made a cake with it for Christmas so good, I've made that cake again just a couple weeks ago. I'll try to get that recipe up before next year (wink). It looks like this.

 Pandan or screwpine leaves, also known as pandan goes well with coconut many desserts are paired with these flavors. In Lao,  and also in Thai the leaves are called Bai teoy. They look almost like a tall grass. Fresh leaves are hard to find, but can be ordered. Sometimes you can find them frozen but it's not as flavorful. I have not personally tried the dried leaves yet. I opt for the ever easy gel flavoring. You can also buy a canned extract. If you use the canned, the remaining portion can be frozen in an ice cube tray since it isn't shelf stable. For these crepes I use pandan extract/gel. The extracts do have coloring in them. They are thicker like a paste, the bottles of essence I hear have less flavor. So I stick with the extract. You can find them both at Asian markets. You can also find many pandan flavored desserts in Asian markets.

Cranberry Orange Sweet Rolls

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you are having a blessed New Year. We had a wonderfully low key Christmas. We stayed home and played games and cooked. Just our immediate family. After Christmas we did have family visit through the New Year. There wasn't any snow and it's been unusually warm on and off here. It's been in the seventies and it's February. Too crazy. Have you all gotten much snow? I'm hoping we'll get at least one good storm.

Look at this ooey gooey filling.

Fantastic Five Grain Porridge

Instant Pot Five Grain Porridge

I'm on a porridge, congee, steel cut oats kick. I think it's the cool weather. Someone mentioned Pret a Manger the other day and how they had the best porridge. So I looked it up on their site and they have a five grain porridge, the site lists the grains, but not the recipe, though they have recipes for other things on there. The grains are what I had on hand so I set off to find a recipe or at least some clue on what to do. My search lead me to Bon Appetite. They have a recipe for this 5-Grain Porridge Bee Pollen with Apples and Coconuts on their web page. It has brown rice, quinoa, millet, wheat bran, and amaranth. Well I didn't want rice. I love steel cut oats. I didn't have millet. I don't really like bee pollen, I used to take it as a kid for allergies, so it's just not my thing now. I still wanted to pull grains from my pantry and see if I could make a mix of my own up. So you should use any grains you have also, just like the Bon Appetite recipe says, "Use what you have". Just pay attention to cooking times and water ratio.

Five Grain Porridge.

Apple Cider Steel Cut Oats

Apple Cider Steel Cut Oats

It's just the right weather for hot breakfast isn't it? I like to send the kids off with a hot bowl in their tummies before school. Although I like oats for a snack or even lunch too. But that's me and the fact that I don't always sit down until about lunch time after I get the kids off to school.

Cranberry Orange Muffins

Cranberry Orange Muffins

Cranberry season is upon us! I don't know what it is about cranberries. I only make a handful of things with them but I really like them. I don't now if it's the tart berry flavor, that they are good in both savory and sweet applications, or that the color just screams "HOLIDAY SEASON APPROACHING" Whatever the case I smile when I see them, and I always grab an extra bag of cranberries for the freezer for the rest of the year for that bright flavor they give.

I also love seeing them on a tree at Christmas, it's so pretty. They aren't the easiest to string but I think it's worth it, here's our tree from last year. Very simple.

Steel Cut Tropical Oats

Talk about "Throwback  Thursday", today I had a bowl of oats that was much like what I used to make for my toddlers and babies. Except of course, at the time theirs looked like this:

Quick Vanilla Lemon Curd with Vanilla Bean Yogurt

Let me start off by saying that I will never never make Lemon Curd any other way as long as I have an Instant Pot. It's so ridiculously easy. There's no standing over the stove making sure this doesn't scorch on the bottom. It only takes like nine minutes of cooking time. I keep using my Instant Pot more and more. The yogurt was also made in the Instant Pot. Both were pretty hands off, other than the straining bit for the yogurt.
If you like a certain yogurt that's sold in what looks like deli containers, that's starts with the letter "N". I'm telling you this is better. Granted it's not as sweet, but I prefer not as sweet.
The Lemon Curd is perfect for scones, on top of ice cream, yogurt, in between layers of sponge cakes, on top of cheesecakes. I've eaten it off of a spoon. It also freezes well if you ever need to use up a bunch of lemons.

Pressure Cooker/ Instant Pot Steel Cut Oats

Steel Cut Oats with sliced almonds, honey, cinnamon, and cream.

Steel Cut oats. I haven't made these on the stove top in years, I've been throwing them in the rice cooker, setting the timer and in the morning there are oats ready for us. As of today I have't tried the delay cooking on my Instant Pot. But I have made oats a LOT. Huge batches when there have been ten people at breakfast and smaller portions for just the 4 of us. I make our oats right in the insert of my pressure cooker. I have not tried the "pot in pot" method. I may do that at some point. But I haven't had any issues with the valve getting clogged up because I do a natural pressure release. My understanding is that the pressure valve can get clogged if the cooking liquid from starchy foods get trapped in there. I am mindful of the max fill line on the Instant Pot insert, I haven't ever made so many oats that I have come even close to hitting it. If that were the case I would make two batches under the max fill line to be on the safe side. 

Coddled Eggs (Oven or Instant Pot)

Perfect Coddled Egg breakfast, but this was our dinner..

I don't think I've ever blogged Coddled Eggs, which is surprising because they are one of my favorite ways to have eggs. I used to bake them in a oven in a water bath and I'm just not a fan of messing with water baths. These can still be made in the oven or simmered/steamed on the stove, but my Instant Pot makes them in about 1 minute cooking time. Which means we have them more often! That's what we'll do today. 

This is a method so I kept the recipe very simple. You can put whatever you want in with your eggs, butter and cream are standard to me. You can add grated cheese, chopped ham, cooked chorizo, sauteed mushrooms, fresh spinach, asparagus, use bacon grease to grease the Coddlers. Don't like cream? Umm.. leave it out, but try it with too! Spice up your Coddled Eggs with different herbs and spices.
For something completely different, use a tablespoon of  Dashi stock and a little soy sauce with a sliver of ginger.

Strawberry Banana Pancakes

Remember these great Banana Greek Yogurt Pancakes? The pancakes above are the exact same batter with some strawberries thrown in. I think along with blueberries you'd have a great Fourth of July