I saw these Baked Eggs on the Food Network today and they look SO. GOOD. Let me break it down for you:
Baked eggs, in all their perfect runny healthy goodness
Melted gooey cheese on top of the eggs
Sweet yet salty meaty thing on top of the cheese
All enveloped in salty crispy potato hash
Are we on the same page now? I MUST make these.
What a great dish to serve for a brunch! You can make them ahead, pull them out of the oven at the right time, and serve easily while you get to sit down with your guests. Put out a bunch of accoutrements so your guests can ladle on whatever they like: bacon bits, sour cream, salsa, extra cheeses of different kinds, green onion, ketchup, olives and olive tapenade. So fun and so YUM.
My sister gave me a real Belgian waffle maker for my birthday – it flips over and everything! – and I immediately made a feast of 7-Grain waffles and chocolate waffles, with bananas and strawberries, maple syrup, and whipped cream to plop on top. The family all went a little nuts over them and we ate so much we all had to have a bit of a lie-down afterwards to recover.
Eh. They were worth it.
For a party, it would be SO fun to make chocolate waffles – or pancakes, if you don’t have a waffle maker (see this healthier recipe here, or this classic recipe here) – and lay out a buffet spread like an ice cream sundae bar. Nutella, caramel drizzle, hot fudge sauce, nuts, sprinkles (yeah, that’s right: they’re sprinkles, not jimmies), strawberries, raspberries, bananas, and cherries for on top.
It works as a brunch bar with some side proteins like eggs and sausages, OR as a dessert bar with vanilla ice cream.
Just warn your guests that they’re going to have to be ready for joyous gluttony, a feast of gorgeous choices, and a good workout the next day to make up for it!
I know, it seems like you shouldn’t need a how-to for drinking on an airplane. Still: this article is amusing and semi-educational for those of us often stuck in the middle seat because we booked a last minute flight and then we got on the plane and realize we forgot any reading material or headphones….not that that’s ever happened to me.
We generally order two bottles of liquor. We won’t necessarily start drinking the booze right away. We might not drink them at all. But we have them. Some people need an inflatable pillow around their necks. Some people need a word search book. Some people need Xanax and Coldplay. We need two tiny bottles of single malt Scotch nestled in the seat-back pocket.
(Or maybe gin. Really, the only time we drink gin and tonics is on an airplane. We’re not sure why. And why don’t airlines stock tequila? Seems strange to us. You can get amaretto on an American Airlines flight, but no tequila. You can get bloody mary mix. You can get cranapple. Rule: In the hierarchy of necessary beverages, tequila beats cranapple. Anyway, thank you Frontier, JetBlue, US Airways, and Virgin, all of which stock passable tequila.)
So, usually we will order the two bottles of Scotch and a cup of ice. (Not “rocks.” Seems odd to call ice “rocks” on a plane.) Sometimes we drink it neat. But if we have the sense that we won’t be getting service again any time soon, we pour the booze over the ice, so it lasts.
Wedding planner extraordinaire Mindy Weiss made this short video of home entertaining ideas. I particularly enjoy how extremely over-produced it is – Mindy waking up in her jammies in full hair and makeup? Really? – but still, fun to watch and get a few ideas from an expert!
Have I mentioned that I’ve also been mostly off sweets since January? I decided that I was tired of having that craving for sweet desserts and, as I am definitely an Abstainer rather than a Moderator (information that has given me tremendous peace of mind – thank you Gretchen Rubin!), I had to quit cold turkey. Wintertime raspberries that are $5 per pint don’t seem so expensive when you’re fighting buying five cupcakes on the way home, so I made sure I had lots of fruit in the house every day so I could have something sweet after dinner. If I went out for dinner, I’d get a special glass of port or a nice cheese when everyone else got dessert so that I didn’t feel like I was missing out. That worked. After about a month I felt the craving was pretty under control, and after two months I stopped wanted sugary things – for the most part.
I love losing the cravings for sweets and not feeling beholden to the desire for sugar. However, I take short breaks from my sweet fast during which I can have whatever I like, and one of those breaks is now. This way, I don’t feel like I’m deprived forever. I know a break is coming up, and I know I can make it until then, when I can have whatever I like.
So on my first full day on vacation, when I had absolutely nothing I had to do, nowhere I had to be, and nothing I had to learn or turn in, I decided to go back to the beginning and make Brown Butter Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies (recipe here).
God, I love these cookies. SO good. Just so good. I came away awfully proud of myself for making them the signature sweet of BB&B. One batch made 22 cookies, and I once again ate nothing else for dinner. Which I feel fine about, since I’ll go off sweets again next week! Until then, I’m eating as much my tummy can handle.
It’s been an absolutely chock-full year. I literally have not cooked anything more complicated than boxed mac and cheese since March, which has felt like I’m missing a part of myself. But, it had to be done. I had to devote myself to finishing law school and studying for the bar – both of which are now OVER!
I’m so excited to get this BB&B part of my life back. There hasn’t been any balance in my life for quite a few months, and feeling that balance come back is like a giant aaaaaaaaaaahhhh sigh of contentment. It feels good.
And, coincidentally, yesterday was my birthday. My mom made me a gooey decadent chocolate birthday cake, which is so good that the recipe might have to stay a family secret. It was such a wonderful birthday, filled with love and great meals and lots of champagne – exactly how every birthday should be!
With lots more change and several life decisions coming up about where to live and where to work, it feels good to return to this website, which in so many ways gives me a creative outlet. I hope you all will forgive my long absence; believe that I didn’t want to leave!; and start coming back regularly again for dinner party menus, cocktail recipes, entertaining ideas, and of course many other recipes for all sorts of yummy noshes. I’m so excited to get started again and to have the time to cook!
Sorry guys – I have been incredibly negligent due to my non-cooking life becoming completely overwhelming. Finals, graduation, moving, a wonderful vacation, my wonderful grandfather passing away, and straight into studying for the dreaded bar exam and finding out why it’s so dreaded. To state the obvious, you really really have to know a LOT of stuff.
I literally have hardly cooked in months. I miss it.
Now that I’m semi-settled in one place for a few months, I’ll be posting more. For instance, right now I have some morel mushrooms on my counter that I can’t wait to sauté in butter and taste. You’re going to laugh when you read what I’m eating them with, though – let’s say for now that this blog is going to become a lot less gourmet and a lot more Sandra Lee semi-homemade style. Which I kind of love, actually. Everyone needs shortcuts every now and then – or oftener than that ;)
