Me

I'm a 30 year old stay at home mom of two beautiful boys! I love cooking, crafting, movies, playing with my boos, pop culture, and tons of other stuff! I fancy myself a bit of a foodie and have been trying to incorporate lots of fresh, seasonal, local organic foods into my cooking. Hopefully this blog will serve as a forum for me to try new recipes and share them with anyone who might be interested!!!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Baked french toast

I've been seeing a lot of recipes for "baked french toast" on Pinterest lately. Upon further examination of these recipes I've concluded that they're nothing more than bread pudding. More dessert than something you'd serve for breakfast! Usually an overly sweet custard poured over torn hunks of bread. My idea of french toast is not sweet until you add maple syrup to it. So, in my usual fashion, I've decided to try to come up with a recipe that tastes true to actual french toast. I do see the need to add some sugar to the custard mix for browning, but most recipes I saw called for anywhere between 3/4 and 1cup of sugar. I decided to significantly decrease this to 1/4 of a cup of sugar. Other recipes called for a crumb topping, which i thought was unnecessary and, again, is more like dessert. I like the idea of adding some nuts, and ultimately decided on pecans. I just mixed them right in with the cut up bread. Overall I'm pretty happy with how this came out!!! I served it with maple syrup and bacon on the side. Enjoy!!!
Baked french toast
About 12-16 ounces of any bread you've got lying around (I used 3 croissants and 2 pieces of hearty white bread), diced into about 1inch pieces
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cup milk (I used whole)
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
2 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Pre heat the oven to 350°F
Cut up your bread and place in a greased 8x8 Pyrex dish. Toss the nuts with the bread. Beat your eggs and add the milk to the eggs. Mix thoroughly then add your pinch of salt, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour the custard mixture over the bread and press down. Cover and let sit overnight or at least 4 hours before baking. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes- 1 hour, until a butter knife inserted comes out clean. The nutritional infoif it serves 6 (you could easily serve 9!):
Per Serving: 294 calories, 37g carbs, 12g fat, 10g protien
before...
after!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The BEST pecan pie!!! This is no joke!

With the official holiday season among us, I've been seeing pecan pie recipes EVERYWHERE! I was always very intimidated by the thought of making pecan pie at home (though I'm not sure why) but a few Thanksgivings ago I decided to conquer my fear and give it a shot. My go to cookbook is the New Best Recipe by America's test kitchen. It's, by far, the greatest cookbook I've ever used! They test every recipe until it's perfect. I get requests for this pecan pie from all my husband's friends. I wanted to post the recipe here because you do have to either buy the book (which you should! It's seriously the best cook book out there!!!) or pay for a subscription to Cooks Illustrated to get the recipe from their website.
1  9" pie shell, par baked to golden brown
6 tbsp butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup light corn syrup
3 eggs
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
Par bake the pie shell according to the instructions (I do mine at 400°F for about 12 minutes, until golden). As soon as the shell is done, reduce oven temp to 275°F.
Melt butter in a double boiler or a heat proof bowl over a pot of barely simmering water. Add brown sugar, salt, and vanilla. Stir until butter is absorbed. Off the heat, add the corn syrup and eggs. Return to heat and stir constantly, until it reaches a temperature of 130°F on an instant read thermometer. Stir in pecans. Remove from heat and pour into still warm pie shell. Bake at 275° until just set, approximately 55-60 minutes. Cool completely and serve!!!
P.s. if anyone does make it, please let me know what you thought!! :)