Blintzes With(out) Blueberry Sauce

I’ve never made blintzes before, mostly because of the labor intensiveness that they seem to require.  I don’t mind labor intensive recipes, but breakfast is not the time to experiment with futz.  So, I decided to get cute and try to make these in advance.  I made (at least) two fatal errors:  I poured too much batter in the bottom of the pan, not leaving enough for the top, and I didn’t account for extra cooking time that was required by having the whole mess in the refrigerator overnight.  The result:  an unattractive, unset, gloopy mess.  At least I didn’t waste the time and ingredients for the blueberry sauce.  In theory, I think this is a good idea – rather than the original concept of making individual pancakes and stuffing them with cheese, I like the idea of putting them all in a pan, and I may start making all of our pancakes in the oven this way.  But because I was both lazy and too careless to accurately measure the bottom vs. the top batter, I had toast that morning instead.  Boo.

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics

Raspberry Corn Muffins

The recipe for these muffins calls for piping “good” raspberry preserves into the baked muffins.  Does it count if I smear on some store-brand raspberry preserves?  A note on the sidebar promises that “These muffins are also delicious without the raspberry preserves,” so I gave myself some artistic license.  A lot easier, and still tasty.

 

The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, p. 215

Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

Barefoot Contessa Family Style, p. 177

In Progress

The Satisfied Customer

Challah French Toast

Like so many other things, I’ve never used a recipe for French Toast.  My mom made it on Saturday mornings when we had surplus milk, eggs, and bread to use up.  When making it for a crowd, I’ve made Baked French Toast Casserole, which is a little bit like a breakfast bread pudding.  I had some leftover challah in the freezer from Rosh Hashanah, and the first snowy day of the season (in October!) seemed as good of a day as any to try out Challah French Toast (Barefoot Contessa Family Style, p. 187).  You may be thinking, “Wait.  She’s an Episcopalian.  Why does she celebrate Rosh Hashanah?  And who in her right mind has leftover challah?”  You’re right.  I’m an Episcopalian, in the upper  Midwest, no less, and had never formally celebrated Rosh Hashanah before in my life.  Some dear friends invited us over for their family celebration, and I volunteered to bring the challah.  I was going to make it from scratch, but ended up ordering (way too much of) it from a bakery.  I think I showed up with six loaves, just because I couldn’t possibly decide between the egg raisin, vanilla raisin, plain vanilla, plain egg… you get the idea.  Our hosts were gracious about the extra loaves, but of course sent some home with me for the freezer.  (I learned that night that challah, while usually oblong, is round for the Rosh Hashanah celebration, to acknowledge the circle of life and to celebrate the cycle of the new year.)  I have to say, I think leftover/stale/day-old/formerly frozen bread is probably actually better than fresh challah for this recipe, since a little bit of dryness allows the custard of the egg and milk mixture to soak in.  There’s orange zest in the custard mixture, which makes it oh-so-good.  Unlike the french toast of my youth (and most recipes I’ve seen), this recipe did not call for cinnamon.  As much as I love cinnamon, I think it would have competed too much here with the other flavors, especially the orange zest, so I didn’t miss it.  This was a big hit all around, including with the picky toddler.  Thankfully, there’s more challah in the freezer to make this again!  

Maple-Oatmeal Scones

These were as good as they look, which is to say, amazing.  Even though there’s whole wheat flour and oatmeal in them, I still wouldn’t exactly call them health food, but they were awfully good.  I used the same biscuit-cutter trick as I did with the chive biscuits, but with a bigger drinking glass.  An added perk is that I had all of the ingredients on hand for these scones, and I didn’t have to leave the house on our fifth straight day of cold rain to get extra ingredients.   A half-batch is the perfect size to bring to the office or a play group, and the full batch would be great for a larger brunch party or tea.  The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, p. 223.