Peanut Butter Banana Breakfast Squares

For most of the year I ate oatmeal for breakfast each morning, but that has gotten REALLY old.  So I’ve been trying to make breakfast foods over the weekend or on days when I don’t have much work and storing them for the rest of the week.  A few weeks ago I saw this recipe on pinterest (have I mentioned how fabulous that site is?).  I had a banana that was getting over-ripe, so I decided to slightly adapt the recipe and give these squares a try.

They turned out pretty good, chewy and with the right amount of banana taste.  They’re especially delicious with extra peanut butter on top (and thus helping to facilitate my peanut butter addiction).  These squares make a yummy snacks and breakfasts, but make sure you eat them in the first 2 or 3 days, they’re not quite as good after that, even when covered.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c quick oats
1/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c milk
1 egg
1 large mashed banana
1/4 cup peanut butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix the oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Add in the vanilla, milk, and egg; mix the ingredients together.  Add the mashed banana and peanut butter; stir to combine all of the ingredients.

3. Pour the mixture into a lightly greased 8 by 8 inch baking pan. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Apple Cheddar Scones

I stumbled on the recipe for these scones on pinterest a few weeks ago.  They sounded absolutely fantastic, and though quite fall-inspired, I didn’t really care and decided I absolutely needed to make them.  Plus, they’re from my absolutely favorite real food blog, Smitten Kitchen.

Wow, totally worth it.  My friend Megan and I are OBSESSED with them and have made at least 3 batches of them in the last month.  Also, I’ve learned that the most important aspects of making scones are three-fold: 1. DO NOT over mix, 2. don’t freak out by how sticky the dough is before you bake it.  I freaked out when I made orange-cranberry scones and added more flour, but this time I was more laissez faire about stickiness (I trust SK), and it totally worked out.  3, and possibly most importantly, egg washes are AMAZING.  Oh my god, I’m giving an egg wash to every batch of scones I ever bake, they turn out so beautiful.

So, without further ado, apple cheddar scones (slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients (makes 8 scones):

2 firm tart apples; peeled (actually do this, I didn’t the first time, and it turned out way better the 2nd time when I did), cored, and cut into chunks
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c sugar, plus a small handful for sprinkling
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt, plus a smidge for egg wash
6 tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into chunks
1/2 c sharp cheddar, shredded (white is recommended, you know, for aesthetics)
1/4 c heavy cream
2 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place apple chunks in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake them for about 20 minutes; let them cool completely (I put them in a bowl in the freezer) and leave oven on.

2. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together; set aside. Place butter in the bowl along with cooled apple chunks, cheese, cream and one egg. Sprinkle flour mixture over the top and mix with an electric mixer on low speed until the dough comes together.  Be careful not to over mix!  (You can do this by hand as well, but make sure you chop the apples more beforehand).

3. Flour your counter top or cutting board and place the dough on top of it.  Mold the dough into a 1 1/4-inch thick, 6-inch circle. Cut circle into 8 wedges.  Transfer them to a baking sheet that has either been buttered or sprayed with cooking spray.

4. Beat the second egg in a small bowl with a pinch of salt. Brush the scones with egg wash and sprinkle them with a small handful of sugar. Bake until firm and golden, about 30 minutes.

Orange-Cranberry Scones

One of my favorite things about my experiments in cooking is when I discover how ridiculously easy it is to make something I love and had hitherto always gone out to buy at the store.  It constantly blows my mind.  The day I discovered how easy it was to make hummus and pita chips at home, well, it  basically changed my life.  Today was one of those mind blowing and life changing days (as far as food is concerned).

Earlier in the week, my friend Megan proposed that we make scones this weekend.  She’d been craving them, and since there is literally know place to get good scones here (the Delta is a sad, sad place sometimes), the only way she was going to get them was if we made them ourselves.  I’d never made scones before, but I’ve made muffins and cookies, so I figured it couldn’t be all that difficult to make scones.

The reality?  The scones were 10x easier (and more delicious) than I had expected!  With a food processor, this recipe is a snap!  Without one it’ll take a bit longer, since you’ll have to mix it yourself, but just follow the same guidelines.

I am officially obsessed.  I’m thinking about getting one of those covered cake plates and keeping it constantly filled with scones.  Seriously.

The recipe I’m posting here is from allrecipes.com and is for Orange-Cranberry scones, but the basics of it will work for any type of scones you want to make.  Just change the orange zest and cranberries for something else.  I also made raisin scones this morning using raisins and I think my next foray in the world of scones will be making cinnamon or lemon-blueberry.  Yum.

Ingredients (makes 8 scones):

2 c flour

1/3 c sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into chunks

1/2 c sour cream

1 egg

1/2 c dried cranberries

1 orange, zested

1 tbsp sugar

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and move rack to lower middle position.

2. Combine dry ingredients and butter in food processor and pulse until combined.  Add wet ingredients and pulse until combined, then add cranberries and orange zest.  Pulse until the dough is fully mixed together.

3. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and shape into a circle, about 3/4 inch thick, sprinkle with 1 tbsp sugar.

4. Cut into 8 wedges.  Arrange wedges on a greased cookie sheet and bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until golden.

Absolutely Amazing French Toast

With our glorious 3 day weekend for MLK day, we decided to reprise my fantastic brunch idea from last semester.  We’ve been pretty bad about keeping up with this intended tradition, but I’m hoping this semester we will be able to do brunch more often.  It really is so enjoyable, plus it leads to delicious food, which is of course always a good reason to do anything.  I made another delicious quiche, this time with onions, spinach, mushrooms, and roasted red peppers.  It was possibly even more delicious than the broccoli mushroom one I made last time.  One of the other teachers from my school brought crepes (which I desperately need to try making myself, get excited for that possibility…) and Katie and I made french toast.  I was a little skeptical at first, I’ve never really liked french toast before.  I’ve always thought french toast tasted too much like eggs.  Eggy toast.  I’m sorry, if I want to eat eggs, I’ll make eggs.  But that’s just my opinion.  This recipe, however, was delicious!  I absolutely loved it and am going to make some more tomorrow since we only made half the batch today.  The flour in this recipe is a bit different from most other french toast recipes, but the people who reviewed the original recipe this is based off of (from allrecipes, of course) are insistent that the flour is the secret ingredient that makes this french toast so delicious.  Considering I’ve never really liked french toast before, I think I’m going to take their word on this one.  Also, while I highly recommend using some sort of cinnamon raisin bread for this french toast, you can obviously use regular bread as well.  I don’t think it will be QUITE as amazing, but I’m sure it will be still be delicious.

Ingredients:

1/4 c flour

1 c milk

1 pinch salt

3 eggs

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp sugar

12 thick slices cinnamon raisin bread (we used cinnamon raisin walnut bread from the local bakery…omg…)

Directions:

1. Pour the flour into a large mixing bowl and slowly whisk in the milk. Whisk in salt, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla extract and sugar until smooth.

2. Heat a lightly buttered griddle or pan over medium heat.

3. Dip the bread slices into the egg mixture, whisking the eggs in between slices. Cook bread on each side until golden brown. Serve hot with powdered sugar and syrup if desired.

Pumpkin Pancakes

Election Day.  Now I’m not registered to vote in Mississippi…so normally election day wouldn’t mean very much to me.  BUT, today election day meant no school.  Oh yes, a blissful day in the middle of my week to do whatever I wanted.  So what did the roommates and I decide to do?  Sit around in our pajamas all day, listen to Christmas music, watch Christmas movies, and make cookies.  Think it’s too early to be doing the Christmas thing?  Screw you man, we have very little to look forward to in the Delta, don’t take away Christmas.  Besides, It’s a Wonderful Life is a fantastic movie no matter the season, thank you very much.

In celebration of our wonderful day off, I decided to make pumpkin pancakes with apple cider syrup.  Oh…My…God…I need to make these again.  I’m thinking maybe for my mom and sis when I’m home for Thanksgiving.  Or maybe the next time I have folks over for brunch.  Sooo good.  The pancakes have just the right amount of pumpkin flavor so that it’s not overwhelming, but definitely noticeable.  They aren’t too sweet, but the syrup definitely takes care of any additional sweetness you could desire.  So good.  Just make sure you use a good non-stick pan (because who actually has a griddle?), I was using our random old pan first because it’s the biggest, but that was definitely a bad call.  It made my first few pancakes very ugly which was obviously so unacceptable that I had to switch pans.  ANYWAY, make these.  You will definitely thank me.

Ingredients (makes about 10 pancakes):

1 cup  flour

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs

1 cup milk

3/4 cup cooked or canned pumpkin

2 tbsp vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, pumpkin and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.

2. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a hot greased griddle or nonstick pan.  Turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes. Cook until second side is golden brown. Serve with the syrup.

Broccoli and Mushroom Quiche

I’ve had some good ideas in my time.  Recently, for instance, I stumbled upon the fact that eating pomegranate seeds while eating a Reeses peanut butter cup is the most amazing thing in the world (thank me after you try it).  Possibly the best idea I’ve ever had in my life, however, came to fruition yesterday: brunch.  Now, obviously I did not come up with the idea of brunch.  I’d both be incredibly old and (since it’s such a fabulous meal) decently rich if I had.  No, I simply came up with the idea that as teachers we need something to look forward to all week…and brunch (which may or may not have included mimosas) would be the perfect thing!  So this Saturday I had some of the other TFAers who work at my school over for brunch.  Best idea I’ve ever had.  Everyone brought something (mostly from Walmart, but hey, not everyone’s a cook) to share and we ate and drank mimosas and tea (in my new tea set!) and just had an all-around good time.

Being me and needing to make something special and delicious, I decided to make a quiche!  Definitely an impressive brunch item, especially when lots of delicious veggies are involved.  The secret about quiches though, is that they’re actually really easy.  They look fancy and they take a bit of time, but most of that’s time spent in the oven.  The actual work you have to do is pretty minimal and it’s easy too.  This recipe’s for a veggie quiche mainly because I had vegetarians over and wanted to make sure they could eat the quiche too, but this is really just a great basic quiche recipe.  Substitute the veggies in for different vegetables if you want or get rid of the green stuff all together and go with bacon or ham!  Quiches are very adaptable.

Ingredients:

1 (9 inch) pie crust

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1 tbsp flour

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup broccoli, chopped

1/4 cup shredded swiss cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.  Line pie pan with pie crust, and place a double layer of tin foil over the crust (it always seems like I never have tin foil, so I usually end up skipping this step and just baking the crust for about 10 minutes on its own.  This works fine, but the crust ends up puffing up quite a bit, so if you have the tin foil, definitely put in the extra effort here). Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes, and then remove foil. Continue baking until crust begins to set, about 5 to 7 minutes; remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F

2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs with milk and flour. Stir in onion, mushrooms, broccoli, and swiss cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Pour mixture into hot crust.

3. Bake quiche at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes to one hour. The quiche is done when knife inserted in center comes out clean. You can cover the edges of the crust with foil if it starts to brown too quickly, but I usually don’t find that a problem.