Bread Pudding

Bag of sliced bread about to hit the trash? Hold up...



This is one of my favorite desserts to make - simple, comforting and very very easy to make.

serves 3
6 slices of hearty white bread (I recommend Arnold's or Pepperidge Farm)
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of butter, extra for buttering ramekins
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup granulated sugar
cinnamon

It's not essential but if you remember, leave out the slices of bread overnight or even in the morning. I usually use Pepperidge Farm white bread but I've recently discovered the Arnold brand - it's a little thicker and works very well. I used about 6 slices of bread, torn into 1 1/2" pieces. Cut up 3 tablespoons of butter into small cubes and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 F.



Mix 2 eggs and about 1/4 cup of white sugar with a hand blender. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Slowly add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and 1/2 cup of milk.



Pour half of the mixture over the torn pieces of bread, carefully toss as you pour so the liquid is evenly distributed. You don't want to soak the bread, just a little moist.



Butter the ramekins (I had three) and begin to layer bread, sprinkle some cinnamon and add as many raisins as you want. You can leave the raisins out. Top off with one or two butter cubes. Add another layer of bread, cinnamon, raisins if using and butter. Top with a layer of bread (it's better if the pieces are more dry than wet) and a couple of butter cubes. Pour pudding mixture over the whole thing - don't be shy with the amount.



Bake for about 40 minutes. It puffs up nicely then unfortunately slowly depuffs.



You can serve this warm or cold (so good the next day). I prefer it cold from the fridge. It doesn't really need a topping, but if you feel inclined to do so - a little fresh whipped cream or a drizzle of warm cream would do the trick!

There are so many variations with this recipe - you can use honey as the sweetener, add instant chai mix or instant espresso powder to the pudding mixture. The possibilities are endless.

Baked Pancake with Nutella

I LOVE Nutella. I really don't need anything else except the jar and my finger... I'm just sayin'.



Unfortunately I don't remember where this recipe comes from.

You'll need:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 large eggs
1/4 cup and 2 tbs granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 tbs unsalted butter
confectioners/powdered sugar for dusting

sauce:
1/2 cup of Nutella
5 tbs of whole milk or heavy cream

Place a 12-inch ovenproof heavy skillet in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 450 F degrees.



1. Whisk flour, eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt and milk together in a bowl.

2. Pull the skillet out and add the butter. Turn the butter around the pan until golden. Then pour the batter and bake until puffed and set (about 20 to 25 mins).



3. Make the sauce by mixing the milk and Nutella together.



4. Cool pancake on a rack for about 5 minutes.



5. Dust with powdered sugar and drizzle Nutella sauce. Strawberries or other berries optional.

OR... you can skip all this and just use the finger :)

Openface Stuffed Eggplants

I love eggplant, they make my mouth itchy but I don't care - I love them anyway.

I was gonna simply roast them in the oven and sprinkle some crushed red pepper infused olive oil on top but I also had some ground beef defrosting so I figured why don't I just try making my version of a Filipino dish that I haven't had in a long time.


You'll need:
1 onion chopped
1 small potato chopped
2 cloves of garlic crushed
1 riped tomato chopped
a small kiddie-box of raisins (optional, but I wouldn't have this any other way)
1 lb of ground beef
salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and olive oil
2 smallish whole eggplants

step 1. Roast eggplant. You can wrap each one in foil and stick it in the oven (350-400 F) and cook until tender. For some reason this was taking forever today so I opted for the stove-top roasting. So I had them in the oven for about 35 minutes and other than the skin browning, I wasn't seeing much action so I gave this a try...

I roasted them for about 10-15 minutes, turning as often as possible. It's ok to burn the skin, actually you should fully char the skin. You don't want the flame to be too high, because you want to get the meat tender and if you're flame is too high then the outside will burn too much before the inside fully cooks through. warning: You have to be 100% sure that the meat is tender. Undercooked eggplant is chewy, bitter and will basically spoil the whole dish.

Set aside and allow to cool off.

step 2. In the meantime, cover the bottom of your pan with olive oil and add garlic, onions and potatoes. Season with salt. Cook until slightly golden (you may need to add some more olive oil) then add tomatoes.

Cook until tomatoes start to fall apart and then add meat.

Chop up into small pieces with your cooking utensil. Season some more. Add two pinches of smoked paprika.

Cook until the excess liquid evaporates then add raisins and mix for 30 seconds and remove from heat. If you don't like raisins, try adding dried apricots. I think it really needs the sweetness factor - leave out at your own risk :)

Cut the eggplants in half and using a teaspoon, try to scoop out/loosen up as much of the eggplant meat as possible. You don't have to transfer out the meat, just loosen it up. Now scoop in some of the meat mixture on top of the eggplant. Drizzle some olive oil on top and you're done.

You can serve this with a nice crispy refreshing iceberg lettuce salad with some yogurt-based dressing (try greek-style yogurt + fresh lemon juice + garlic + fresh mint). YUMM.

Apricot Brown Sugar Roast

This meal was inspired by a slow cook recipe I spotted over at Karina's Kitchen (awesome blog by the way). I don't own a slow cooker so I made this the old fashion way.


I pretty much followed the recipe as far as the ingredients were concerned. Although I didn't have pomegranate juice, so I substituted a half carton of beef stock that I had sitting in the fridge. The brown sugar + apricot preserve combo is a perfect match to the natural sweetness of pork. And the balsamic vinegar + spices - fresh rosemary sprigs, oregano, paprika, cinnamon and thyme cut the sweetness so it wasn't like you were having dessert for dinner. I'll definitely be making this one again but next time I'll try it with the pomegranate juice.



I first browned the loin in olive oil then added the onions, garlic and rosemary midway to try and infuse the loin early on the process (didn't want to add the garlic too early on, because I didn't want to burn it).


I then added the mushrooms and cooked it for a few more minutes then added the stock to prevent the garlic from getting burned.


I Mixed the apricot preserve + spices + salt/pepper and balsamic and poured it over the meat. I also added some more of the preserve as a top coat.



Put the whole thing in the oven for about 2+ hours (300F) until the meat was super tender and can easily fall off using a fork.


I added the brown sugar one hour into it, I'm sure you could add the sugar when you add the apricot mix, but I don't know, I was hesitant because I wanted to taste the sweetness level and control it as much as possible.


It was so good served over rice. Leftovers perfect for sandwiches!

Cottage Pie

I think I've posted this recipe a quadrillion times. It's one of our all-time favorite dish - typically it's made with lamb (Shepard's Pie), but since I don't eat Lamb we usually have this version. I've tried loads of recipes for this and found that this one was the best.

This is a pretty simple dish to make, as long as you're fairly organized and do things in a certain order. It's also one of those dishes where you need to trust your own senses and season accordingly.

This recipe was based off of Tea and Sympathy's recipe but I didn't really follow the measurements to a T. Always go with your gut!

You'll need:
~4 potatoes peeled and coarsely cut into chunks
a big can of peeled whole tomatoes
about a cup of beef broth
1 pound of ground beef (the leaner the better)
1 tsp of Oregano
2 bay leaves
1 tbs of Worcestershire sauce or more depending on how you like it
one small onion finely chopped
one medium carrot finely chopped
one cup of peas (fresh or frozen)
about 1/2-1 cup of milk or cream
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
salt + pepper to taste

Prep:
1. Cut all the veggies as noted above.
2. Boil water for potatoes and add salt to the water.
3. Preheat oven to 350F.
4. Take out a square glass or ceramic baking thingy.
5. Gather the rest of the ingredients so it's all within arms reach.
6. Crush the tomatoes and set aside.
7. Transfer carrots and peas into a semi shallow pan and add a little bit of water so that it helps steam the veggies. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the carrots are tender. Drain and set aside.


Mash Potatoes (Topping)
Start by boiling the potatoes for the mash. Boil until fork tender. About 15 minutes. Drain. Then start mashing with a masher or with a fork. Add butter tablespoon at a time, and season with salt and pepper. Once you've added all of the butter, slowly pour in milk/cream. The amount you put depends on how you like your mash. I like mine sort of thick and fluffy. Make sure the seasoning is right. Set aside.


Filling:
Sauté onions (a couple of carrots made their way into the pan!) in olive oil, once translucent add meat and chop up so that there aren't any big chunks of meat. Season with salt. Brown the meat.

Add crushed tomatoes, beef broth, oregano and bay leaves. Mix and allow to boil then simmer for about one hour.


You want it to go from soupy to a nice thick meat sauce - sort of like hamburger helper (you're lucky if you don't know what that is).


Be careful to mix every now and then, so the bottom doesn't end up burning.

Once the sauce/filling is nice and thick, no longer soupy - add the carrots and peas. Mix. At this point, you want to remove the bay leaves and also test the flavors. Do you need more Worcestershire sauce? More salt? Pepper?


Assemble:
Transfer the meat filling into your glass/ceramic container and carefully transfer the mashed potatoes on top using the back of a spoon.


Cook for approximately 40-45 minutes. You might want to set the timer for 30 minutes and check it out to see how it's doing. You want the top to have a nice golden brown.

This is sooooo good.