My sister, my friend, my wingman (girl) 'till the end
A few lyrics from an old Diana Ross song "when we grow up"
Who doesn’t like pancakes?
I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hopefully we will not be wearing these mask too much longer because I would like to meet all the people I’ve been seeing I Lollitop Sweet Shop without mask. Who can remember a pair of eyes and put with a name anyway.
A couple of summers ago when we had a whole summer of celebrating our 50th anniversary which started with all our kids in Turks and Caicos and then in August, we went to Niagra on the Lake (just the two of us) then Montreal and the Quebec City and made our way back through part of Vermont and upper New York.
While in Montreal for a few nights we had dinner one night at LeBremner which we passed up a couple of times trying to locate it before realizing that it is below street level and also had an alley entrance. It was dark and cave like inside and I knew we were going to have a fantastic dinner because I had research where to eat (I always do that) in all the cities where we would be staying. Anyway, long story short, everyone that had eaten there and written a review said you HAVE to have their pancakes for dessert and, of course, I have the chef’s recipe for those pancakes. I may keep that to myself just incase Round Top Brewing might sometime decide to serve pancakes for dessert.
Fry bread or naan, you decide.
(Note: by the time this recipe post we will have moved to Round Top, Texas. Luckily I planned a few post ahead not knowing where we were going to be living while building a house. Hope to continue my food journey in Round Top with old and new friends to have to dinner.)
There’s nothing better than some hot homemade bread and it seems like a lot of people started experimenting with bread baking during the pandemic. Whether it is a biscuit, a fruited quick bread, homemade French/Italian loaves, a pan of cornbread or hot naan right off the griddle, if it’s fresh out of the oven/griddle then you are in for a treat.
Indian fry bread is very similar to naan except it doesn’t have the yogurt in the ingredients. I decided to try and fry some of these just to see what I liked the best and the “fried” ones won. But, on the other hand, the griddle ones were brushed with melted butter on both sides and then shook in a bag of cinnamon sugar and were delicious too. Continue Reading…
Hot out of the oven Parmesan Parsley Biscuits!
Pass the butter please. You can’t possibly not have some butter with a hot biscuit right out of the oven.
I made these biscuits one craft circle morning for my table ladies. There are about 12-14 of us at the “projects” table. Normally, I take something to share with the whole group of 60-80 ladies but this day I made my Pumpkin Tomato Soup for my group’s lunch and these biscuits all came our way. I wished they could have been hot out of the oven (the best way to eat any biscuit) but I had to bake them right before I left that morning; still good though.
Who doesn’t love a good French toast?
This isn’t just any French toast… take an up close look and your mouth will be watering.
I love chocolate malted milkshakes, I like malt in ice cream, I like it in malted milk balls and malt is delicious in this Malted Custard French Toast.
Recently I finally got some things fixed on my blog and going through some of my drafts I had started about different things I had tried or seen on menus in our travels. Well, this Malted French Toast had my mouth watering and when I clicked on the file, there was nothing there. I check all my notes on other devices and could not see where I had seen this recipe. I just knew it had been in my head for a few years and this particular Sunday morning I had to make it for my husband even though he had just had a bowl of cereal.
Very seldom does he turn down a chance to try something knew. I told him he only had to eat a couple of bites but he ended up finishing everything on the plate plus some extra bacon and sausage.
Happy New Year to everyone! I have a short list of New Year’s Resolutions and that is to keep mall walking 5-6 times a week and hopefully add going to the gym a couple of days on top of that. Also and to try new biscuit recipes.
How many different ways can you possibly make a biscuit? Probably a lot more than I have baked. I love making biscuits and I can almost make them as fast as cracking open one of those tubes from the grocery. I always cringe when I pop those things open. I seldom buy canned biscuits but when I do and you take that wrapper off and you whack it on the counter I’m always jumping like I’d just exploded a M80 firecracker or something.
My mother use to make the best biscuits and her’s were thin. I’m sure I said this before but we liked the tops and bottoms because they were crunchy so she would hit them on the counter a few times so they would fall and then not rise as much. These days I like big biscuits but still like a crispy bottom and I finally learned how she got them that way. My mother always used melted bacon fat on the sheet pan and she would take the biscuit and put it on the pan (before baking) and let it touch the fat then flip it over leaving the tops of the biscuits with bacon fat on top too; no brushing with milk/cream/butter. So if you save your bacon fat like I do, use that instead of the milk or butter for brushing the tops of the unbaked biscuits. If you want you can always brush the baked biscuits with some melted butter when they come out of the oven. I brushed these with butter before baking because I didn’t want bacon taste to the biscuit since I was filling with country ham.
Great little breakfast treat.
In my search for a cake to bake in my German pan (Gugelhupf – bundt) I came across a girl from Germany that posted a delicious looking cake. After translating some of her things so I could read the recipe I came across her blogroll and some of the blogs she follows which is where I happened upon Moey’s Kitchen blog.
I’m not sure if my translator worked word for work but I THINK she lives in Cologne, Germany with her husband and a cat in a city on the Rhine. Now doesn’t that sound wonderful and when I read about her trips to weekly markets, vegetable stalls and Turkish green groceries, French cheese vendors, regional butchers it makes me want to hop on a plane and knock on her day and say “What’s for lunch Moey?”
I’ve found my newest obsession now is to translate a few German blogs I’ve fallen for and then what’s next? I can move on to French, Swedish or just about anyplace my little nibble fingers will take me.
Now on to this French toast recipe. Moey gave me the idea of doing French toast in a muffin pan. Now why didn’t I think of that since my French toast making days goes back “decades”. These were absolutely beautiful and cutting the bread into cubes gives all those little crunchy edges to nibble on after it comes out of the oven. I added blueberries to her recipe and also some maple syrup with the milk/egg mixture. I also drizzled on some melted butter before baking.
My grandfather would have loved these!
Growing up we always lived right next-door to our grandparents and we ate a lot of snacks/meals at their house. My grandfather had some quirky eating preferences. He liked to have his dessert along with his meal, he would crumble his cornbread in a big glass of Bulgarian buttermilk, and he loved to mix molasses with the butter to put on hot biscuits right out of the oven. And, to this day I can picture him doing those things.
I never thought I would like molasses and back then I’m sure I would have turned up my nose at the thought of molasses mixed with butter. But, when I saw this recipe in Garden and Gun magazine from Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee, I knew I was going to have to try and make these biscuits. I’ll probably never get to Blackberry Farm but at least I can try their biscuits. You have to take a look at their website; over the top luxury that looks fantastic.
How do you think those pioneer women made biscuits? I can picture them standing over a old wooden table with a floured covered apron on dusting the table with flour and cutting out the biscuits. Then I started wondering what they use for baking powder. Baking powder was discovered in 1843, not sure what they would have done before then. Maybe they didn’t even have biscuit cutters maybe they had to form the little balls of dough in your hands and pat them out flat. However they did them I’m sure they were delicious with some fresh churned butter.
What a beautiful way to start a weekend.
Back in 2012 I posted my Bacon Belgium Waffles and told you about how my mother always use to put one slice of raw bacon across the batter after she had pour it into the waffle iron; and oh what a waffle that made. Once you have tried the bacon in the waffle, you will never want a waffle without bacon.
So, I have this new Paderno Spiralizer machine and was thinking about trying a different version on that waffle. Here’s how the morning progressed. My husband was up early and had already had a bowl of oatmeal so I had to convinced to try my waffle. After spiraling the sweet potato, which took all of about 2 minutes, I proceeded to try and cook them in the waffle iron (see pic below) but when I piled them onto the cooked waffle, they were pretty sad and pathetic looking.
My next step was to try deep frying them which only took about 5 minutes and I had a crunchy pile of coiled sweet potato fries which went on top of the bacon waffle, lathered in butter and surround with some pure maple syrup. Now, this was ready for him to eat and it got a thumbs up.
Then I started thinking of other breakfast ideas where I might use this new gadget of mine. How about some eggs benedict and you make a big pile of white potato curls and pile them high over the bendict or some scrambled eggs on top of a big plate of crunchy curly potatoes. I guess you are getting the idea that I love this new gadget that I got from Amazon.
Voted one of the best biscuits in the U.S.
How many times while we are traveling do we eat at a great restaurant and then soon forget about it? Well, I never do. I have talked about Loveless Cafe several times here and this is one restaurant that we actually made it back to again and for the second time enjoyed their wonderful biscuits for breakfast. I always knew if we got back to Nashville we would eat at Loveless again, and we did on our way back from Asheville last summer. Loveless Cafe’s Biscuits have been voted one of the best restaurant biscuits in the U.S. and of course they aren’t going to share their recipe.
For over 60 years guests have been sharing meals with family and friends at Loveless Cafe. LC is located in southwest Nashville at 8400 Highway 100 and has been serving meals since 1951. It use to be a 50’s style Motel and still has that sign by the roadside. You can’t miss it and if you pass it by, you will be sorry.
To me, there’s nothing better than a hot biscuit out of the oven with room temperature softened butter. Now, my husband would disagree because he loves to put either honey or molasses on his biscuits.
I changed a few ingredients in Mother’s Kitchen copycat recipe. For one, why use buttermilk powder when I can use 2 cups of buttermilk; and since I had some Lard in my pantry I used that in place of the vegetable shortening. Also, I decreased the sugar to 1/8 cup because I don’t think any biscuits needs to be sweet. This recipe sounds similar to the Angel Biscuits we use to make back in the 70’s. Whether it is or not, I think it measures up to Loveless Cafe’s biscuits.
There’s banana nut bread then there is this banana nut bread.
I’m sure you have been making banana nut bread about as long as I have. You may have your favorite recipe that was your mother’s, grandmother’s or your favorite aunt’s. But, I’m hoping you will try my recipe; or I should say my sister’s recipe from her husband’s Mamaw.
All recipes are made better with over ripe bananas. In our house it is hard to get an over ripe banana because my husband loves them any way and the darker the better. Over ripe bananas aren’t sold at my favorite market anymore because the produce guy told me the bakery gets them. I’m sure the bakery’s bread is not nearly as good as this recipe.
Recently, I planned on making banana nut bread for a friend (Janet) who had just had a knee replacement. So, I buy six perfect bananas and put them on the counter so they can ripen and then can be used to make the most delicious banana bread I have ever tasted. The next morning one banana mysteriously disappeared. I had forgotten to tell my husband not to touch them or put a DO NOT EAT sign on the bunch. The next day, again, one banana gone missing and they were just starting to get to the really dark stage I like for a banana intended for bread and then another banana gone. Finally I was left with three bananas to make a recipe that called for six bananas.
What’s a girl to do other than make 1/2 the recipe. Luckily for me and for my friend (one recipe normally makes 2 large loaves) I got 4 small pans from the half recipe. I kept one and gave my friend the other three. This bread is the best right out of the oven, warm with some room temperature salted butter smeared on it but is just as good cool or warmed in the microwave.
Not THAT kind of Southern Comfort!
Southern comfort? Is that rocking away on the front porch drinking a glass of sweet tea waiting for those grand kids to come so you can say “Come give me some sugar” (kisses – and that’s exactly what one of my grandmas use to say, and I would never say that) or is a good pimento cheese sandwich on white bread your southern comfort; and sitting on a stool in a drug store would make that so much better. Maybe a pan of good cornbread or grits or maybe just taking that dog for a long walk on a hot sweltering day is your idea Southern comfort and this recipe certainly isn’t made from the Southern Comfort we use to drink years ago.
Well, I’m fixin to give you a recipe that isn’t a recipe at all; so before you have a hissy fit and say what’s she talkin about, this can be any breakfast ingredient of your choice served in a bowl. It’s all in the presentation and if you are one of those people who don’t like their foods touching then you may not like this.
WARNING: This is a big hungry man breakfast. If it is too heavy for you for the summer, then save it for a cool autumn morning.
One rainy weekend morning I had my head in the refrigerator trying to come up with something yummy. I had seen a episode of Diner, Dives and Drive-Ins months earlier where Guy was in some diner eating a bowl full of gravy and other ingredients.
I decided for my bowl of Southern comfort goodness I was going to start with some browned frozen hash browns and then from there go with a homemade biscuit or two topped with peppered sausage gravy then some bacon “planking” the top with a perfectly poached egg to the side.
I just knew my husband was going to love this. I made him a large size and I ate my biscuit and gravy separate. Big pasta bowls were the perfect dish to serve this in for this rainy day breakfast.
I’m sure everyone knows how to make perfect gravy but to me the most important part of the gravy making is to stir the flour into the bacon fat (or sausage fat) to brown it a little. Doing this will guarantee that your gravy doesn’t have a raw flour taste. I’ve seen people put flour and milk in a jar and shake before adding to a pan. Believe me, this method will not give you good results and who wants to ruin a great breakfast by taking shortcuts.
I’m making just plain old buttermilk biscuits for my bowl. I also think a base of grits, then biscuit, egg, gravy would be yummy to try.
I had this post ready to go a long time ago and has been waiting in the wings for the right moment. I forgot about it and now that it’s summer already, I’m giving it to you anyway even though it may be a little more filling than you would want for this time of year. You get the idea anyway — for a lighter version, how about a little grits on the bottom topped with some sautéed spinach then a poached egg on top; or even a pile sweet potato hash browns topped with vegetable and egg would be yummy.