Tag: breakfast

Chili crisp, and an eggnog gingerbread french toast bake for Christmas!

Post author By Allison
Post date December 23, 2018
1 Comment on Chili crisp, and an eggnog gingerbread french toast bake for Christmas!

Missed the stream? Watch it on Twitch!

I first tried chili crisp a few weeks ago, when a friend brought a jar to our Asian Dumplings Cookbook Club potluck at the beginning of December. Son was instantly hooked, and has been asking me to make a batch ever since.

It takes a while to make (and beware the chilis – I was coughing and sneezing like crazy whenever I had to handle them!) but oh, if you are a fan of spice, it is so worth it.

Being a spice wimp myself, I can barely take one nibble before I’m running for a mouthful of eggnog gingerbread french toast bake, but still – it is so good!

Speaking of the eggnog gingerbread french toast bake… I expected it to be tasty, but it turned out even better than I had hoped. It’s essentially a bread pudding, with a coffeecake-style crumble topping. You soak bread (I used brioche) with eggnog, eggs, and gingerbread spices, top it with the crumble which has even more gingerbread spice, then drizzle it with a warm eggnog-maple syrup once it’s out of the oven.

It’s heaven.

I did my own little eggnog taste-test as well. We tried Broguiere’s eggnog and Organic Valley eggnog – and our overwhelming favorite was Organic Valley. It’s creamier, and doesn’t have quite as much of an overwhelming nutmeg flavor (although Broguiere’s was still tasty!). So we used the Broguiere’s in the french toast bake, and used the Organic Valley for the syrup, which was perfect.

I’m planning on bringing the eggnog gingerbread french toast bake to my family’s Christmas celebration – here’s hoping they like it as much as we did!

Today’s Question of the Day: What are your Christmas food traditions? What food are you having for Christmas this year?

Visit my Twitch stream to catch up on past streams, and hang out when I’m streaming! Want to know when I’m in the kitchen? Hit the follow button (the heart up top) so you’ll get notifications when I’m live – it’s always free to follow! Or you can follow me on Instagram or Twitter, where I usually post when I’m starting the stream.

Tags bread pudding, breakfast, chili crisp, christmas, condiment, eggnog, french toast, gingerbread, sweet, Twitch

Twitch Streaming

Berry bran muffins

Post author By Allison
Post date April 24, 2018

Missed the stream? Watch it on Twitch!

This was one of those “everything that could go wrong, will” kind of streams.

Somebody… not naming any names… kept us both awake super late because he (again, not naming any names) got sucked into watching God of War streams on Twitch and wouldn’t stop talking to the other member of the couple about it. So we got to bed around 4am.

So of course we woke up late, had trouble getting our butts in gear because we were tired, and then started way too late.

I had originally planned to make this fruit salad. And then I looked in my fridge right after Son clicked “Start Stream” in OBS (the stream management program we use), and discovered that my greek yogurt had gone bad.

Crap.

So I ran back to my computer and scrambled for a replacement… and finally found a custard recipe that looked like it would be a good replacement.

Okay. Everything else should be fine, right?

A few days before, Son asked me to make some extra fun components for his plating “art” portion of the stream. We were browsing through Payard Desserts and he saw some things he wanted me to try. So before the stream I candied some mint (which actually turned out fine). I also attempted to make something called arlettes – pretty much mini elephant ears/half-sized pamiers. Those went… poorly. So I threw the actual instructions out the window which involved rolling out slices of refrigerated rolls of puff pastry, and just baked the slices as is. (Which worked fine, but… still not how they were supposed to go.)

What should have been a two- to three-hour stream turned into a five hour stream.

But! We made muffins and they were delicious! It’s berry season, and I’ve been trying to find some healthier breakfasty things, so bran muffins it was. I found this recipe for bran muffins on Smitten Kitchen, and in it she also linked to an older recipe for sour cream bran muffins on her blog that she said was a lighter version more suited to bran newbies.

For the first recipe, I used a mix of fresh berries – two raspberries, one raspberry, half a blackberry, and a few pieces of diced strawberry in each muffin. I also topped half of the muffins with a few pieces of semi-sweet chocolate, which let me tell you, was an excellent decision that I highly recommend. Thanks to the liquid from the berries, this actually turned out to be a very moist, tender muffin – not the dry, dense texture you might expect from a bran muffin. They were delicious, and of the two, my favorite.

The sour cream bran muffin recipe called for dried fruit, so I used dried cranberries. Like the first muffins, I also topped half of these with chocolate pieces, which again was a wonderful decision. These were not as tender as the first recipe, but were still delicious. Thanks to the cranberries and cinnamon in the recipe, these taste like Christmas to me. Definitely more of a fall flavor, but I’ll happily eat these year-round!

Today’s Question of the Day: What is your favorite type of muffin?

Tags arlette, berries, blackberry, blueberry, breakfast, mint, muffin, puff pastry, raspberry, strawberry, stream, Twitch

Twitch Streaming

Spinach, chorizo, and chickpea frittata

Post author By Allison
Post date April 18, 2018
1 Comment on Spinach, chorizo, and chickpea frittata

Missed the stream? Watch it on Twitch!

For the last five months, five days a week, I’ve been cooking something different every day for my Twitch stream. It’s been an amazing experience, and I’ve gotten to cook so many things that have been on my “to cook” list for years.

At first, we went all out. But after a while, I realized that the decadent lifestyle – roast duck, bolognese, ramen, etc. – just isn’t sustainable for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed all the crazy fun things I’ve gotten to make. (And no worries… it’s not stopping anytime soon!) But the start of streaming coincided perfectly with me entirely stopping working out (due to both how busy streaming kept me at first, and also an intentional break to let some injuries heal). Not great.

I’ve realized I (and my body) are happiest when I get a healthy, filling breakfast. I can eat random shit the rest of the time, but as long as I get a good breakfast, I’m good to go.

So that, and an overabundance of spinach in my fridge that needed to be used up, led to today’s menu – two healthy, filling, spinachy, and hopefully tasty breakfast options.

The first recipe is a chickpea, spinach, chorizo frittata. Not the easiest to make from scratch in the morning, but if you can manage it ahead of time (over the weekend, maybe?) it’s easy to reheat a wedge on a weekday morning. On its own I found it to be a little one-note (although definitely filling and fairly healthy), however with a dollop of your favorite salsa, it’s exxxxxcellent. 4 out of 5 stars, would make again.

As for the second recipe, which was a green shakshuka recipe… I’m gonna go ahead and chalk it up to use error. Even though it seems like something I would love, and I’ve made things from Jenny and Teri’s blog before that turned out great… I was very much not a fan of this dish, so I’m going to assume I took a wrong turn somewhere.

Regardless… the frittata was great! And we’ll try out a more traditional shakshuka recipe one of these days. Can’t win ’em all.

Today’s Question of the Day: What is your favorite savory breakfast? (Even better if it’s healthy – I need breakfast ideas!)

Tags breakfast, chickpea, chorizo, frittata, stream, Twitch