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Vanilla Cinnamon French Toast

Vanilla Cinnamon French Toast with Star Fruit

For breakfast me and mom made french toast together.We both made different types of french toast . I made Vanilla Cinnamon french toast. We wanted to do something together so mom went to the store and got the stuff to make it . Mom just HAD to buy me a star fruit. I begged her for about 5 minutes till she said yes. And now star fruit is my new favorite fruit there is!

Here is how I made it:

Milk 1 cup “psst … we used half and half!”

1 egg

1 dash of Vanilla extract

1 pinch of cinnamon (read more)

Christmas Breakfast. Bacon and Gruyere Stuffed French Toast

Sweet and Savoury are achieved with the combination of bacon, gruyere and maple syrup.

When my youngest daughter, Coda and I set out to find a breakfast recipe to make for Sunday morning, we wanted to make something special to enjoy our one on one time together. As you saw a couple weeks ago in Coda’s post, she went a more traditional route with the French Toast recipe but added her own bohemian flair with her star fruit garnish. My recipe had the experimentation with the flavors and the unexpected addition of cheese. Cheese on French toast you might be asking yourself? Try it you may be pleasantly surprised. Look out Monte Christo! Maybe I should have titled this post as “Monte Cristo has a tough little brother!” (read more)

The Late Autumnal Garden 2013

Beautiful Fall Foliage from our Raspberry Bush

Our Raspberry in full fall color

With the gorgeous mild weather we have been having, I was inspired to work out in the garden for some fall clean up. Much to my surprise my raspberry bush is giving us quite the show with it’s beautiful rust and burgundy foliage. I still have some mums, sage, carrots and beets in the garden.

I was able to memorialize our vivid and robust Swiss Chard from my last harvest. Next year I will include some of the recipes I experimented with.

Swiss Chard Harvested from the Garden

Here are a few more shots of the last of our 2013 garden.

(read more)

Caramel Apple has a Sexy Sister!

Caramel Apple has a sexy sister

With the excessive prodding by my youngest daughter Coda to pleeeease make caramel apples, I finally caved. In my mind it was going to be a sticky mess of gooey caramel to clean off of every surface in my kitchen. And since I don’t have a dishwasher (Gasp!) clean up is a consideration always. Coda has a way of linking cooking to quality time with Mom (where did she develop that notion?) so I did agree to give it a go. As usual I was also wanting to get creative and experimental with the traditional recipe. When shopping for all of the ingredients, I came upon these precious tiny pears, and thought they too might make a lovely companion to melted caramel. So begun the creation of caramel apple’s sexy sister! We also had various toppings that we experimented with such as sprinkles, chopped pecans, and to get a little risque, chopped smoked almonds. My good friend Cat has a recipe to make the caramel, but for a weeknight project, we used wrapped candies for these. I will be making her caramel recipe and sharing another treat in a later post. (read more)

Sweet Potato Hash with Bacon and Eggs

A healthy and tasty Alternative to hash browns, sweet potato hash.

Sunday morning breakfast usually involves cooking a more elaborate meal than any other day of the week for me. I was wandering through the kitchen for inspiration from the ingredients that were already there when I remembered that I had these sweet potatoes on hand. Left over from a meal that was planned earlier this week for dinner that never got made, I decided that sweet potato hash would be the bomb. And indeed it was! With the addition of bacon for my honey, because he loves bacon, and a little maple and of course my latest obsession of alder wood smoked salt, the hash was a little sweet and a touch smokey too. (read more)

Pork Chops with Maple Apple Cream Sauce

We had these roasted root veggies from the garden with our pork chops

Fall is finally here in Colorado! That subtle shift in the air, that familiar crisp, coolness. I get fall fever pretty bad, wanting all that it brings, comfort food being at the top of the list. The garden is finally popping out the root vegetables that I planted from seed this spring. This was my first ever crop of carrots and beets! Very exciting for a nerdy gardener and cooking geek like myself.

I wanted to accompany our roasted root veggies with one of my sweetheart’s favorite foods, pork chops! Soon pork chops will be needing their own category on the blog! I did a twist on one of my old stand bys with the apples this time, creating an apple cream sauce. It is actually a pretty light sauce with the addition of apple juice to the cream, oh, and maple syrup of course! I found some fancy alder wood smoked sea salt at the grocery store that gives the most subtle, yet distinct smokiness. Here is what I did: (read more)