If You're Craving Carbs, Turn to Stuffing for a Creative and Fun Side Dish

FOOD FIGHTS SWEEPING AMERICA, TEARING FAMILIES APART

There's a bizarre epidemic sweeping the States, spreading from kitchen to kitchen that has public officials concerned. Food fights are breaking out at dinner tables everywhere as husbands and children are taking a stand and demanding an end to boring potato side dishes.

Although mashed potatoes are the weapon of choice, some cooks have been the victim of more dangerous food fight weapons. "My husband threw a hot baked potato at me," describes Henrietta Jones of Albuquerque, "but because of all my zumba classes, I've got quick reflexes and ducked just in time. But it made a nasty grease stain on our wallpaper."

Public officials are concerned and encouraging husbands and children to put down their potatoes and return peacefully to the table. But anonymously, some admit to wanting to join the crusade. One police officer from Des Moisnes confesses, "My wife has been serving me potatoes since the night of our wedding. Mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, and when she's feeling a little wild, potatoes au gratin. I love my wife, but if I see another potato, I just don't know how I'll keep from exploding. There's only so much a man can take."

Kids are known for their honesty and telling the story straight. Teen idol Justine Bieberette gave a special press conference yesterday to tell the world how she felt about potatoes. "They're boring. They bore me and put me to sleep. I don't want to ever see another potato on my dinner plate again."

This potato revolution is one of the most successful grass roots movements America has seen since the 1960s. People of all ages and economic backgrounds are uniting to call for a food revolution, to inspire America to un-boring their sides. Seems like this is the dawn of a new un-potato era.

The story above is a satirical post sponsored by Kraft's Un-Potato Stove Top Stuffing campaign. If you have a boring potato story of your own, you can submit it for a chance to win a $100 American Express gift card. Full contest details are posted at Technorati Follow along on Twitter too with #unpotatofest. I have received compensation for participation in the “Un-Potato” campaign from Kraft Foods. 

When I want to put a carbohydrate on the table for dinner, I've recently been turning to stuffing. Don't get me wrong, I love potatoes, whether they're sauteed in duck fat or mashed with butter and heavy cream, but it's fun to mix things up and varied at dinner. Stuffing is a surprisingly versatile side that cooks up much faster than a batch of Idaho potatoes. It's is like a blank canvas with great texture, just waiting for the flavor of the day. I love to throw in dried fruits, apples, and pears to do a little sweet and sour side. To get my family really excited, I often throw in a little bacon. Nothing gets the kids more eager to set the table than the smell of bacon wafting through the house.

Now I'm not a big fan of Jessica Seinfeld's hide the vegetables and trick your children philosophy, but I don't turn my nose up at all tricks. I've used stuffing to introduce new vegetables in our weekly rotation: slivers of Brussel Sprouts, julienned zucchini, or small dice of sweet potato go down easy when they're nestled with pillowy stuffing.

I usually make the whole box as a casserole, but I just learned that Stove Top has just come out with a larger canister version to make smaller quantities in the microwave. I'll be adding that to my pantry with my next grocery run. Below is my current favorite combination, I can't wait to hear how you play around with your stuffing. 

Bacon, Apple and Cranberry Cornbread Stuffing
Ingredients:
1 package of Stove Top Cornbread Stuffing
4 strips of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 apples, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 cup of dried cranberries

1. Prepare the stuffing according to package directions. 
2. In a large frying pan, cook the bacon over medium heat. When the bacon is lightly browned, add the apples and cranberries. Saute for  2 to 3 minutes, until the apples begin to soften, and add 3/4 cups of chicken stock. Scrape up the bottom to get all the browned bacon bits.
3. Pour the bacon, stock, and fruit into the cooked and fluffed stuffing. Mix well together. 
4. Place the mixture in an oven proof dish with a cover. Cover and cook at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.
5. Enjoy immediately on turkey or chicken.

This post was sponsored by Kraft as part of their Un-Potato Stove Top Stuffing campaign. If you have a boring potato story of your own, you can submit it for a chance to win a $100 American Express gift card. Full contest details are posted at Technorati.

Nutella Hot Chocolate

Nutella and hot milk together in a cup. This is happiness.

Snow goes hand in hand with hot chocolate. That goes without saying. When the kids come trooping back into the house, peeling off their snow-covered clothes, they expect me to greet them with steaming mugs of hot chocolate. And while it would be easier to just use the instant, just add water stuff, or reach for the can of Nesquik, I sometimes whip up a batch of homemade Nutella hot chocolate. The extra effort is well worth their red-cheeked thank yous.

Nutella hot chocolate is as good as it sounds: rich, creamy chocolate taste with just a hint of hazelnuts. It's also very easy to whip up. Not as easy as ripping open a pouch of Swiss Miss and adding hot water, but pretty close to it. Just heat up some milk, throw in three ingredients and wait for the standing ovation. They might even be grateful enough to pick up their own snow clothes without nagging.

I've even seen some recipes that call for mixing just Nutella and and hot milk, but I like adding a little cocoa to boost the chocolate flavor and a little sugar to round out the flavor. Hot chocolate should be a rich treat, and this little dessert in a cup is a snack you won't soon forget.

Nutella Hot Chocolate
Ingredients:
1 Cup of 1% or 2% Milk
3 tablespoons of Nutella
1 Tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1. Heat the milk in a medium saucepan on medium heat.
2. Add the cocoa and brown sugar. Stir until blended.
3. Spoon in the Nutella, one tablespoon at a time, resisting the urge to feed yourself a spoonful in between. You may need a second spoon to scrape the Nutella off. 
4. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture just begins to boil and the Nutella is fully disolved.
5. Serve immediately with a big fluffy marshmallow on top. As it cools, the Nutella taste will become more pronounced.

Happy World Nutella Day! The lovely Ms Adventures in Italy and
Bleeding Espresso have compiled recipes from around the world, all celebrating our love of Nutella. Head on over to drool, without gaining any weight.

Gruyere Popovers Are the Ideal Weapon for this Artic Winter

Popovers Warm from the Oven Fill the House with the Most Amazing Smell.

It's cold in Chicago nowadays. Like, really cold. 10 degrees below zero when we wake up cold. Our driveway is an ice rink cold. Walking around without a hat is not an option cold. The only way to fight back with all that ice and snow is with baking and filling the house with the sweet and savory smells of warmth.

On a bitter winter night, when I want to make an average meal something really memorable, I whip up a batch of popovers. These little puffs of cheesy bread just melt in your mouth. They're the ideal complement to a pork roast that's been braising in cider all day long in your slow cooker.

This recipe whips up in less than five minutes with just a quick pulses of your blender. The toughest part is keeping the oven door for the full twenty-two minutes they take to bake. The penalty for peeking is pretty dire. These babies will fall and you'll be having warm cheesy pancakes instead of light and fluffy popovers.

Plunging a knife into the popovers is scary, but it will keep them beautiful and tasty.

Gruyere Popovers
Makes 16 popovers
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 22 minutes
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup of grated Gruyere cheese (I love the sharp nuttiness of gruyere but if you can't find it at your local grocer, substitute Swiss cheese)
3/4 cups of skim milk
3/4 cups of heavy cream (alternatively, you can use 1 1/2 cups of whole milk)
4 Tablespoons of salted butter, melted
1 Tablespoon of Dijon Mustard
1 1/3 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
a little extra butter or pan spray for the pans

1. Take two muffin tins (or popover tins if you have them. I don't and am very happy with these.) and grease them, then place them in your cold oven on the middle shelf.
2. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. IN a blender, combine your eggs, milk, heavy cream, mustard, and melted butter. Pulse a few times to blend and break up the eggs.
4. Add the flour, salt, and gruyere and pulse until just blended.
5. Once your oven has reached its temperature, remove the pans and fill each muffin hole 3/4 of the way, moving as quickly as you can.
6. Return the filled pans to the oven and cook until puffy and golden, between 22 and 25 minutes.
7. Remove the popovers from the oven, pierce each in the middle to let the steam escape and pop them out of their holes with the tip of a knife. Serve them while they are still steaming.
8. Leftover popovers can be kept in a sealed container on the counter for a few days. With 10-15 seconds in the microwave, they make a fantastic stew sandwich for lunch.

Ebelskiver Pancakes, Little Puffs of Deliciousness

I have a few fashion loving friends who get this fiendish gleam in their eyes when they're talking clothes. To them, the names of the designers on Gilt.com actually mean something. I don't like to look like too much of a soccer mom, but I'll only get behind a fashion trend if it's comfortable (jeggings anyone?). But when it comes to cooking stores, that's when I get that dangerous glint in my eyes. Those burnished copper pots and shiny appliances are pretty much impossible to resist. I've been known to fall into a frenzy and emerge with items that are most definitely not necessities.

Last year, I fell for an ebelskiver pan. It's a nonstick pan with seven shallow rounded wells for making Norwegian pancakes. This being Williams Sonoma, it came with a very convenient ebelskiver pancake mix which we made immediately that weekend.

The pancakes were a revelation, completely validating my impulsive purchase. They were light and puffy, little sweet clouds that melted in the mouth. We filled them with Nutella and various jams. And we repeated the breakfast for the next few weekends, all with the same happy food coma joyful weekend family nap outcome.

But soon the pancake mix ran out, and the pan began to gather dust in the cabinet. It seemed foolish to trek out to Williams Sonoma to acquire another $10 jar of pancake mix. Then, thanks to the magic of Google, I learned that the ebelskiver recipe (also known as aebelskiver) is very easy and just as marvelous as the mix version.

There are some recipes that call for whipping up egg whites, but I would never take the time to do that on a Saturday morning. The recipe below is something you can easily assemble before you've had your first cup of coffee. But you'll need an Ebelskiver pan to make it, that is, if you dare to enter the dangerous realm of kitchen equipment retail.

Aebelskivers/Ebelskivers... Delicious Pancake Puffs
Yield: Makes 12 or 13 pancake puffs
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 Cup 2% milk
2 tablespoons melted butter

1. In a bowl, mix flour with sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, beat egg to blend with milk, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons butter. Add liquids to dry ingredients and stir until just evenly moistened. Don't overstir, I can't stress this enough, or your puffs will be mini-boulders.
2. Place an aebleskiver pan over medium-low heat. When pan is hot enough to make a drop of water sizzle, brush pancake cups lightly with vegetable oil and fill each to slightly below the rim with batter.
3. In 1 to 2 minutes, thin crusts will form on bottoms of balls. Peek under with the tip of a knife to make sure. The center of the pancake will still be very wet. Pierce the crust with a slender wood skewer and gently pull shell to rotate the pancake ball until about half the cooked portion is above the cup rim and uncooked batter flows down into cup. 
4. Cook until crust on bottom of ball is again firm enough to pierce, about another minute, then rotate ball with skewer until the ridge formed as the pancake first cooked is on top. 
5. Cook, turning occasionally with skewer, until balls are evenly browned and no longer moist in the center, another 4 to 5 minutes. Check by piercing center of last pancake ball added to pan with skewer to see if it comes out clean, or by breaking the ball open slightly. If you're worried your balls are turning too brown, turn the heat down immediately. Better be safe than sorry and cook them a little longer than have them get burned.
6. Lift cooked balls from pan. Make a little hole in the middle and fill with the topping of your choice (Nutella, apple sauce, jams, lemon curd). Alternatively, you can just dip them in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar. Serve hot. 
7. Repeat to cook remaining batter.

Beef Bourguignon Stew, Equally Delicious in the Crock Pot or the Stove Top

Beef Bourguignon is so satisfying on a cold winter night.

Do you have a dish that you can make with your eyes closed? That your hands know by rote? For me, that dish is Beef Bourguignon. It was one of the first dishes my mother taught me how to make. I started by peeling the carrots, and eventually graduated to browning the meat. It's a classic beef stew that I make when I'm having friends over for dinner or just for my family on uninspired mid-week nights. Beef Bourguignon is easy, cheap, and incredibly delicious.

You don't need a long list of ingredients to whip up this French stew. If you have a $7 to $10 bottle of Bourgogne or Pinot Noir (never use the cooking wine they sell at the supermarket - if you wouldn't want to drink it, you shouldn't cook with it), and a couple of pounds of beef chuck, you're pretty much all set and halfway to filling your kitchen with the delicious aroma of this quintessential beef stew.

On lazy Sunday afternoons, I make the stew in the same big blue cast iron I've been using since college. But on weekdays, I turn to my slow cooker to work its magic while I'm running around car pooling. Either way the end result is the same: a satisfying dinner of melt in your mouth beef stew.

Beef Bourguignon Stew
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 3 hours
Ingredients:
2 pounds of beef chuck, cut into 1 1/2 inch medallions
1 bottle of full-bodied yet fruity red wine such as Bourgogne or Pinot Noir
1 bunch of carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
1 white onion, minced
1 1/2 cups of white mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1/4 cup of cognac
2 tablespoons of flour
2 tablespoons of butter
1 Bay Leaf
salt and pepper to taste

1. Regardless of whether you'll be using a crock pot or cooking this on the stovetop, the recipe begins the same way. Heat a cast-iron saucepan or large stockpot over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and melt. Add a layer of beef pieces and brown for 2-3 minutes on each side. Set aside on a plate and repeat the process with the rest of the meat. The browning is a key part of the recipe as it imparts a caramelized taste and creates yummy brown bits on the bottom of the pan that begin the sauce. 
2. When you're done browning all the meat, put all the meat pieces back in the pot and sprinkle with the flour. Stir vigorously to have the flour mix with the pan juices. Take the meat back out and set aside.
3. Add the remaining butter to the pan and toss in the minced onion. Saute over medium heat until translucent. Add the carrots, the mushrooms and the browned meat and the tomato paste. Toss it all together with a wooden spoon.
4. Now pour in the wine and the cognac, scraping up the bottom of the pan with the wooden spoon to add all the onion and beef browning to the wine. Bring it all to a vigorous boil for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently. 
5. You are now ready for the slow cooking (pour mijoter) in either your crock pot or on the stove top. If using a crock pot, transfer the contents of your stockpot to the crock pot. If you'll be cooking your stew in the same container, then just bring the heat down to low, to a light simmer, and cook for 3 hours, until the meat is tender. Same timeframe in the crockpot, on high setting. 
6. Three hours of slow cooking later, the meat should fall apart easily with poked with a fork.
7. Serve with rice or egg noodles.
8. A note on the mushrooms. In the recipe above, to keep things simple, I threw them in with the carrots. However, traditionalists will tell you to blanch the mushrooms and throw them in during the last 10 minutes of cooking so they retain their shape and texture. It depends on how you like your mushrooms and how easy you want to make your life.

Duck Fat and Potatoes, a Marriage Made in Heaven

Stole this gorgeous pic from Laughing Duck Gardens as my duck fat disappeared before I could shoot it.

In the month of resolutions and diet talk, I'm going to buck the trend to talk about a fat. And not just any fat. I'm going to talk about duck fat, a decadent, moan inducing substance when coupled with potatoes. Surprisingly, duck fat is supposed to have health benefits comparable to olive oil, but that's not why I want to dedicate my first 2011 food post to it. I just want to write about it becomes duck fat brings me to a foodgasmic state every time I use it in the kitchen.

If singers and poets wrote about great food pairings instead of great couples, there would be many songs about duck fat and potatoes, a union so perfect that it makes me want to sing, moan, and cry all at once. Duck fat makes sauteed potatoes richer and silkier at the same time, making a fairly mundane dish into a moan-inducing one. Every potato has a delicate crust that yields to a soft slightly sweet center.

If you happen to run across a container of duck fat in a fancy food shop, grab it immediately! A container will not cost you more than $5, marginally more than a package of butter, but ever so much more satisfying. It will keep for over a month in the fridge. It never hurts to ask either. The butcher at Fox and Obel was more than happy to ladle me a half a pint of duck fat a few weeks ago. It looks like Crisco, white, thick, and glistening with promise.

If your local food shop is not the type to stock duck fat, there are plenty of online sources:

• D'Artagnan sells a 7 oz container for $5.99 with a wonderful challenge on the label, "Finally the "butter" that will make a real chef out of you." Throw in some of their truffle butter and even a can of foie gras and you know you'll have good times ahead to keep you going through winter.
• Amazon sells 6 1.5 ounce packs for $10.95 or 2 12-oz buckets for $18.18. I wouldn't bother with the 1.5 ounce packs as you'll probably go through all of them in one sitting.
• And if you really want to get creative and start playing around with deep frying in fat, Schiltz Foods sells big buckets of goose fat for under $10.

Duck Fat Pan Fried Potatoes
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients: 
8 Large Yukon Gold Potatoes, Peeled and Diced
1/4 cup of duck fat, with a little extra just in case
1/2 cup of fresh parsley, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, diced

1. Peel and dice the potatoes, placing them in a bowl of cold water as you're working to keep them from getting oxidizing. Then place the potatoes in a large pot of water and parboil them for five minutes. Begin counting the time from the moment the pot is boiling. You don't want the potatoes to be fully cooked or they'll fall apart when pan frying.
2. Chop the parsley and garlic. Toss together in a little bowl. Set aside.
3. Take out a large frying pan, or two if you need more space. You are going to want your potatoes to be all in one layer as crowding the pan will keep them from browning. Set the pan to medium high heat and add 3 tablespoons of duck fat to the pan. 
4. Once the fat is melted, add the potatoes, arranging them in one layer on the pan. Once they are settled, resist the temptation to fuss with them. This always brings my husband and I close to divorce every time. He just wants to be manly and assert his ownership of the potatoes. But you just need to let them brown on one side without interruption, about 3-4 minutes. 
5. You may want to add another tablespoon or two of fat at this point if the potatoes are beginning to stick to the bottom. Stir the potatoes gently to get the other side browned, another 2-3 minutes.
6. Pour the potatoes in a large bowl, sprinkle with the chopped parsley and garlic mixture. Sprinkle a little coarse salt on top. Serve immediately.

Oreo Truffles Even a Kid Will Love

Do you remember the first time you bit into a truffle as a child? Those perfect little balls dusted with golden cocoa in their fancy gift boxes just looked so irresistible. Each time the soft chocolate yielded to my baby teeth, my taste buds were assaulted by the intense flavor of pure cocoa, and I cried out in betrayal and disappointment. But every year, I tried again, lured in by the beauty of truffles.

Now that I'm a grown-up (most of the time), I love the rich bitterness of chocolate truffles, but I still appreciate the kind of chocolate that wouldn't make a little kid cry. These Oreo Balls are the truffles I wish I'd reached for as a child. They're also the type of treat that will be the talk of your cookie exchange and the perfect little something to give to your neighbors.

They're incredibly easy to make as they require no baking. It's a recipe I love to make with my kids, part of our Christmas tradition. Crushing the Oreos to smithereens is a great way to use up a little of that trapped boy energy on a cold winter day.

Chocolate Oreo Balls
Makes 3 dozen balls
1 16.6 oz package Oreo Cookies (Do not use double stuffed! Save those for eating)
1 8 oz brick of cream cheese
3 4 oz bars of semi-sweet chocolate (340 grams)
Any sprinkles or decorations you want to add

1. Pour the Oreos in a bowl and crush with a meat cleaver. Alternatively, you could put them in two ziplock bags (one inside the other) and tell your kids to go nuts on them. Once the Oreos are in coarse chunks, place them in the food processor and pulse them a few times.
2. Add the cream cheese to food processor and pulse until well blended. This is tough work for your mixer, and should make you pause and appreciate the conveniences of modern life! You will have to open the lid and move the contents around many times until you get the right consistency. You'll know when you're done. The mixture will be glistening, dark, and smooth.
3. Roll mixture into small balls and place on wax paper on a cookie sheet.
4. Chill in fridge for ½ hour.
5. Melt chocolate bars in double boiler until smooth and beautiful.
6. Dip oreo balls in chocolate. This can be messy if you don't use a spoon. Resist the temptation to use your fingers or you will have unappetizing fingerprints on your Oreo balls. I prefer to dump the balls one by one in the melted chocolate and scoop them out with a spoon onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet.
7. Decorate the balls with sprinkles if desired. I prefer a smoother coating.
8. Chill again in the fridge for 30 minutes.
9. Keep in the fridge until ready to serve. Dust with cocoa or powdered sugar before serving.

Bacon, Apple, and Cranberry Cornbread Stuffing: the Rebel's Choice

I have a deep question for you to ponder today. Why is bacon not a more popular Thanksgiving stuffing ingredient?

I've had stuffings with scallops, and others with water chestnuts. I've also had many made with sausage, which are delicious. But until a few nights ago, I'd never had a stuffing made with bacon.

When I realized this on Monday night, I had to act immediately. Bacon is high on my food pyramid, and I just couldn't believe that I'd never coupled it with bread enriched with turkey drippings. To add a little more flavor, and not get too crazy with the bacon, I threw in some dried cranberries and diced apple. The stuffing was freaking unbelievable.

To take the picture above, I had to scrape the bottom of the covered dish for scraps and beat my husband back with a wooden spoon to keep him from eating it.

So this Thanksgiving, I invite you to rectify this great injustice. Reach for the bacon for your stuffings. Go ahead, join me. If bacon is the hot new chocolate flavor, odds are pretty good that bacon stuffing will be the hot new trend of 2010 Thanksgiving. Here's your opportunity to be a trendsetter and have a delicious stuffing.

Bacon, Apple and Cranberry Cornbread Stuffing
Ingredients:
1 package of Stove Top Cornbread Stuffing
4 strips of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 apples, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 cup of dried cranberries

1. Prepare the stuffing according to package directions. 
2. In a large frying pan, cook the bacon over medium heat. When the bacon is lightly browned, add the apples and cranberries. Saute for  2 to 3 minutes, until the apples begin to soften, and add 3/4 cups of chicken stock. Scrape up the bottom to get all the browned bacon bits.
3. Pour the bacon, stock, and fruit into the cooked and fluffed stuffing. Mix well together. 
4. Place the mixture in an oven proof dish with a cover. Cover and cook at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.
5. Enjoy immediately on turkey or chicken.

a Chocolaty Twist on Pecan Pie

The only way to deal with a long, frustrating day replacing credit cards, car windows, and cell phones, is with chocolate. Lots of warm, ooey, gooey, melt in your mouth chocolate. As that first forkful melts on my tongue,  the stress of the day finally begins to recede, my shoulders loosen, and the angry old woman crease I didn't realize I had worn all day between my eyes relaxes.

No doubt about it. Chocolate is a miraculous substance.

In honor of Thanksgiving, my chocolate today was in the form of pecan pie. Although I'm usually a pecan pie traditionalist, tonight, the mixture of pecan and milk chocolate was just the amount of comfort I needed. The flavors melded together like a warm chenille bathrobe on a cold winter morning. Topped with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream, that slice of pie was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

I'm not sure if this pie deserves to share the spotlight of the dessert table this Thanksgiving, but here is the recipe whether you need it for a bad day, or just to share with family on Thursday.

Pecan Pie
Crust:
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking powder
8 tbsps (1 stick) of butter
2 to 3 tbsps cold water

Filling:
5 tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened
¾ cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup light corn syrup
2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup of coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup of milk chocolate chips

1. Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse 2 or 3 times quickly to mix. 
2. Cut the butter into 1 tbsp pieces and add to food processor. Pulse over and over again very quickly until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal. You should not be able to see any more large pieces of butter. 
3. Scatter 1 tablespoon of tap water on the butter and flour mixture and pulse 5 to 6 times. The dough should begin to hold together. If the mixture still appears dry and crumbly, add more water, 1 teaspoon at a time.
4. Remove the dough from the food processor. In your hands, roll it into a uniform ball. Place it on a piece of plastic wrap. Press it down into a 6-inch disk and cover with another piece of plastic wrap.
5. Refrigerate the dough until firm, or until you are ready to use it, at least 1 hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 375° F.
7. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to fit a 9-inch glass pie dish. Decorate the edges by folding and cutting the excess dough.
8. In a medium sized bowl, cream the butter and the sugar. Add the eggs, corn syrup, vanilla and salt, one at a time, beating well with each addition. 
9. Stir in half the pecans and all the chocolate chips. Carefully pour the filling into the prepared crust. Sprinkle the remaining pecans evenly over the filling. 
10. Bake for approximately 50-60 minutes or until the filling is fairly set. Filling will firm up as it cools.
11. Give the pie 30 minutes to an hour to cool and firm up before serving. Don't forget the vanilla ice cream!

Carrot Souffle: my Favorite Thanksgiving Side

This Carrot Souffle commands center stage.

At the Thanksgiving table, the turkey is the unquestioned star. When my mother in law takes it out of the oven with its gleaming caramel skin, a hush falls over the large crowd gathered in the kitchen. And I don't begrudge the turkey its time to shine, but I also believe that vegetables should get a standing ovation too. And when I serve this side, it is always greeted with applause.

I've been making this carrot souffle for years. Now my relatives greet it like an old friend on Thanksgiving, and get requests for a repeat performance at Christmas dinner. This is a sweet side, not something you would serve during a regular dinner, unless you wanted to sell your picky eaters on the virtues of vegetables, but it's perfect for the rich spread of Thanksgiving.

Carrot Souffle
Active Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients
2 lbs fresh carrots boiled until soft (can use baby carrots)
6 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
6 TBSPs flour
2 TSP vanilla extract
2 sticks melted unsalted butter
Dash of Nutmeg
For the topping:
12 TBSPs dark brown sugar
8 TBSPs melted butter
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup crushed corn flakes (feel free to make more if you want more crunchies)

1. Put cooked carrots and eggs into large food processor and puree until smooth. 
2. Add the sugar, flour, vanilla, and melted butter. Process until smooth. Be careful, in my food processor, this brings the mixture completely to the top and sometimes a little seeps out.
3. Bake in greased 9”x13” pyrex pan at 350°F for 40 minutes.
4. Mix the topping ingredients together. Put the topping mixture over top of baked soufflé. If you're traveling to Thanksgiving, or preparing this dish ahead of time, stop here. Just cover it with some foil and put it in the fridge. 
5. To finish the dish and get it ready to serve, bake it for another 5 to 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. You can literally do this as the turkey is being cut, but don't forget it as we did one year, or you'll end up with a burnt topping, and many sad Thanksgiving guests.
6. Serve hot. Leftovers will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days and can be reheated in the microwave.

Caramelized Pecan Squash Bites: the Perfect Thanksgiving Appetizer

Caramelized Pecan Squash Bites before Thanksgiving Dinner

When most people think of Thanksgiving, they picture a golden turkey or mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes. but those aren't my favorite Thanksgiving dishes. When I head to my Mother in Law's Thanksgiving dinner, my mouth is watering for her pre-dinner appetizers: her mushroom roll-ups, pigs in blanket, and potato knishes that everyone nibbles on before sitting down to the serious business of eating. We always spend an hour or two just mingling, catching up, reconnecting and seeing what everyone's been up to for the last year. That can take a while as our Thanksgiving party is usually around 40 people.

It might be the conversation more than the finger foods, but those little bites have come to define Thanksgiving for me over the years, especially as there are never any appetizer leftovers. They're here, they're hot, and they're gone until next year.

Assembling the Caramelized Pecan Squash Bites is easy, even fun.

Last week, I made an appetizer that will be a perfect addition to our Thanksgiving gathering: Caramelized Pecan Roasted Squash Bites. The lightly crunchy shell yields to a rich, sweet filling. It's impossible to limit yourself to just one. And I'll probably have to make them again come Christmas time, just to show off my latest party trick.

I made a few variations on the roasted squash and nut base by topping some with a chunk of blue cheese and others with a little prosciutto. The kids loved the sweet plain squash bites and the adults loved the subtle complexity of the blue cheese and the prosciutto ones.

The filling can be made ahead of time and kept either in the refrigerator or the freezer to cut down on your Thanksgiving Day prep. For the dough, I used store-bought wonton wrappers. They were easy to work with and required no dough prep on my part, a great way to cut down on the Thanksgiving Day cooking.

I wrapped the sweet filling in wonton wrappers and pan fried them in batches in a little butter. The wontons can either be assembled ahead of time and kept in an airtight container, or assembled right there before you fry them. They take seconds to assemble. Just fill, wet one side, and press closed like an Asian ravioli. I put my 4 year old to work to assemble them and she had a blast.

Butter working its magic once again with these Caramelized Pecan Squash Bites.

Caramelized Pecan Squash Bites
Servings: 30 bites
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes (including roasting squash)
Ingredients:
For the Filling:
2 butternut squash, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/4 cup of olive oil
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
salt, pepper
3/4 cups of chopped pecans
3 tablespoons of salted butter
1/4 cups of brown sugar
For the Bites
1 package of wonton wrappers
3 slices of prosciutto (optional)
1/4 cups of crumbled blue cheese (optional)
a little bowl of water
3 tablespoons of salted butter

TO MAKE THE FILLING:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cut the squash into evenly sized cubes, about 1 1/2 inches in width, removing any tough outer skin and seeds.
3. Mix the squash pieces with the olive oil and maple syrup. Season with salt and pepper. Roast for an hour, or until soft, but not burnt. Remove from oven and set aside.
4. In a medium frying pan, melt the butter on medium heat. Add the brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the pecans and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently until lightly caramelized and toasted.
5. Put the squash pieces and the pecans in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse into blended into a puree that still has small chunks of pecans. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate until you are ready to assemble the bites.

TO MAKE THE BITES:

1. Remove the wonton wrappers from the package and spread in a single layer on a cutting board.
2. Place a small mound of filling in the middle of each wonton wrapper.
3. Optional - top some or all of the filling mounds with either blue cheese or prosciutto.
4. Moisten two edges of the wonton wrapper with a little water. 
5. Fold the wonton wrapper in a half, in a triangle shape, by putting a dry edge onto a wet edge and squeezing shut. It's important to not put too much filling or it will ooze out and prevent the wonton from sealing properly.
6. Melt 2-3 tablespoons of butter in a large frying pan. Add the wonton raviolis in the pan in a single layer, in batches so as to not crowd the pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, until crispy and light brown. Serve immediately.
7. NOTE: I also tried to boil the wontons to make a quick and easy homemade ravioli dish. They held up and cooked without coming undone, but they looked horrible and tasted chewy. I don't even want to show you a picture. I should have tried to steam them as well, but the pan fried version was just too good and I simply had to eat them all without further experimenting.

a Few Thanksgiving Prep Tips from Melissa d'Arabian, host of Food Network's 10 Dollar Dinners

One of the Food Network stars I most relate to is Melissa d'Arabian, host of the 10 Dollar Dinner Show. Although I always get some great budget saving tips from watching her show, that's not why I'm a fan. I love that her husband is French, and the fact that her exposure to European cooking shines through in her easy, yet sophisticated recipes. I'm also inspired by the fact that she has 4 daughters, and a successful cooking show in its second season.

I participated in a group conference call with Melissa yesterday to talk turkey and share strategies for Thanksgiving Dinner. I walked away with some useful tips and an even greater appreciation for this easy-going, energetic, and very intelligent foodie mom.

Melissa's has two Thanksgiving-themed airing this weekend on the Food Network: her regular Ten Dollar Dinner show and a special Dear Food Network show where she and other Food Network stars will answer viewer Thanksgiving questions.

Here are a few of the tips Melissa shared in answer to our questions.

• Stay in Touch with your Pantry: The most expensive ingredient in your pantry is the one you throw away. You should always scan your pantry before you begin cooking to use up anything close to going bad. Pantry management is an important part of the cooking process.
• Loss Leaders: Melissa's MBA shone through in her explanation of the deep discounts some supermarkets give on turkey, cranberries, stuffing, and canned pumpkin in November. They discount these items so deeply that they often take a loss on selling them, all to get the customers in the store. Paying attention to prices and taking advantage of loss leaders before Thanksgiving and Christmas is a great way to keep costs down.
• Serve a Signature Drink: Keep your alcohol costs down and the festivity up by serving a signature cocktail to your guests. Make up a pitcher of cranberry mojitos and serve them to everyone. You can make an infused simple syrup by combining equal parts of water and sugar and flavoring it with orange zest, lemon zest, cinnamon, or vanilla beans. It's a great way to make fun, seasonal drinks and keep costs down.
• Stuffing is the Highlight: Stuffing is the most important dish on Melissa's Thanksgiving table. It's still a novelty to her French husband, and a must have at Thanksgiving. Melissa doesn't stuff her bird however because she thinks it dries the turkey out. Instead, she makes it on the stovetop and mixes it with plenty of turkey pan juices for moistness and flavor.
• Leftover Management: Our palates can only handle so much of one flavor profile at a time. When you have leftover meat, divide it in half. Then cut half into little pieces to be frozen and re-used in sautes or pastas. This is great for turkey and ham leftovers.

Just to get our taste buds re-engaged after a couple of days of Thanksgiving turkey, Melissa shared her recipe for Cranberry Salsa.

Cranberry Salsa
Recipes courtesy Melissa d'Arabian
Ingredients:
1/2 cup canned whole cranberry sauce
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 jalapeno, coarsely chopped
1/2 white onion coarsely chopped, covered and microwaved for 1 minute
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
1/2 cup Mexican-flavored canned tomatoes, drained and chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Place the cranberry sauce, cilantro, lime zest, lime juice, jalapeno pepper, onion, red pepper, green pepper, tomatoes, and salt, and pepper, to taste in a food processor and pulse until blended, but still chunky. 
2. Serve with Turkey Taquitos. Or delightfully plain and salty tortilla chips.

Sweet Potato and Date Chicken Tagine

I met my husband at work. I was young, just out of college, and was instantly smitten by this sophisticated New Yorker with his jazzy ties. We were friends at first, wasting countless work hours in whispered conversations in office cubicles, commiserating over our love lives, and talking about food.

Yes, food. I liked his ties, but I fell in love with his appetite and enthusiasm for food. We could talk for hours about great meals, favorite restaurants, and food memories. Our first dates were spent cooking for each other, timidly revealing our cooking repertoire.

Over a decade later, Steve and I are still equally passionate about each other, and about food. Our tastes have evolved, but they've evolved in sync. Chances are that if I see something in a cookbook that looks good to me, it will look good to him too. We're suckers for a sweet savory combination, like Cider Braised Pork Roast.

Last week, I made a chicken dish based on another recipe in the Dorie Greenspan Around my French Table Cookbook, Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes. I had never made it before, but I knew, before Steve walked in through the door, that it would be a winner. I used dates instead of prunes, and left out some of the spicier exotic ingredients in the recipe. The resulting dish was the perfect fall dinner, sweet, savory, and a rainbow of golden reds, browns, and yellows.


Not only was it delicious, but it was one of those throw it together and leave it alone to cook dishes, perfect to set up a romantic candlelight dinner.

Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Dates (adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Around my French Table cookbook)
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour and a half
Ingredients: 
1/4 cups of olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped finely
1/2 cup of water
salt
1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces
2 large pinches of saffron threads, crushed
1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 bay leaf
4 tablespoons of honey
1 cup of chicken broth (preferably homemade)
12 chopped and pitted dates
1 pound of sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch cubes

1. Pour two tablespoons of vegetable oil in the bottom of a dutch oven or cast iron casserole over medium-low heat. Now add the onion, stirring to coat it with oil, then add 1 tablespoon of water, season with a little salt, and cover the pot. Cook the onions gently for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are soft but not brown.
2. In a separate skillet, brown the chicken. Heat a tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat. Put the chicken in the pan, skin side down, and brown for 3-4 minutes on each side. Transfer it to a plate.
3. Once the onions are soft, add the saffron, honey, bay leaf, chicken broth, and the rest of the water. Throw in the dates, and then the chicken. Toss the sweet potatoes on top and bring the mixture to a boil.
4. Reduce the heat to medium, bringing the liquid to a low simmer. Cover and cook for 45 minutes to an hour. Resist the temptation to lift the lid before the 45 minute mark. The steam is what makes this dish so good. The dish is done once the sweet potatoes are soft.
5. Feel free to reduce the liquid once the chicken is cooked. Just remove the chicken and sweet potatoes and boil the liquid until it is a consistency to your liking. We left ours as is: my man likes a lot of sauce.
6. Serve immediately, but don't get rid of leftovers. This dish was even better the next day.

Jazzing Up School Lunches with Orzo

How much do you experiment with your kids' school lunches? We're pretty adventurous at the dinner table in our house, pushing the envelope with honey duck and Cornish game hens, but if you took a peek in my kids' lunchboxes, day after day, you'd get pretty bored.

Messing with the lunch my kids expect to find is a dangerous proposition. Whenever I've changed things up from cold cut sandwiches or breaded chicken bites, the kids are downright furious with me after school. They don't mind the repetition, in fact, they love the same lunch every day.

But I can't leave well enough alone. I'd like to see them eating healthier lunches, with less nitrates, and some veggies other than raw baby carrots. Ideally I'd love to see them excited to discover what they'll find in their lunchbox, and to have their friends be jealous of their lunches. A girl can dream, can't she?

So this week, I took the plunge with a little help from Orzo. Orzo is a great pasta to layer with flavors. And it's a great fit for a thermos - not too big, not too small. I tossed the warm orzo in a little olive oil and parmesan, added some cut up roasted chicken, and some steamed broccoli florets.

Then I headed to my closet to hide, afraid of their reaction. They might hate it so much that they use the cold orzo to make pasta snowballs.

Orzo with Roasted Chicken and Broccoli
Ingredients:
1 cup of orzo dried pasta
1/2 cup of cut up roasted chicken breast
3/4 cup of frozen broccoli florets
3 tablespoons of grated parmesan
3 tablespoons of olive oil

1. Boil water for pasta. Cook orzo according to package directions. (Mine were to cook it for 9 minutes).
2. Drain pasta. 
3. Add olive oil and toss until well coated.
4. Add chicken bites and broccoli. Mix thoroughly.
5. Toss parmesan. Taste. If needed add salt (and even pepper if your kids are much more adventurous than mine!)
6. Place in your child's thermos while still hot. Two to three hours later, it should still be warm.

Dorie Greenspan's 20 Minute Honey Duck

Do you ever make duck at home? Or is it the type of thing you would only ever think to order in a really fancy French restaurant?

Duck must have a bad rap in America. It's the only reason I can think of that more home cooks don't make duck at home. People must assume it is expensive, but a package with 2 boneless breasts is only $9.99. As duck is so rich, a little goes a long way, and two breasts is plenty of food for a dinner for two.

When I was living in Ohio, I was struck by the limited variety of meat available at most supermarkets. The meat case would be filled with row after row of plump pink boneless chicken breasts and packages of ground beef in various shapes and sizes. Finding pork and lamb was a serious challenge, and finding duck breasts was nothing short of a miracle. 

Whenever I find a package of frozen duck breasts, I pounce and stock up to fill my freezer. It's a great meat to have on hand for last minute dinners. In 20 minutes, you can be forking rich and tasty little morsels of duck into your mouth, with an amazing sauce that will be better than what you'd find at most neighborhood French restaurants. And if you want a real treat, save the duck fat from the pan to whip up some decadent pan fried potatoes.

This recipe for 20-minute honey duck is from the new Dorie Greenspan cookbook: Around my French Table which is filled with easy to make French home cooking recipes, more than enough comfort food to get you through this winter. I enjoyed Dorie's stories of her love affair with France almost more than the recipes; she describes the cooking of my childhood perfectly. I had the pleasure of having coffee with Dorie and a handful of other local Dorie fans two weeks ago, and she is even nicer in person than she seems on her blog.

This duck recipe really does take 15-20 minutes and it's so good, I guarantee that you will lick the plate. And with all the sweet flavors in these recipes, your kids will lick the plate too, and amaze your friends at the playground when they ask you to make duck again soon.


Dorie Greenspan's 20 Minute Honey Duck 
Ingredients:
4 small boneless duck breasts
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon of honey
juice of 1 lime
salt, pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. (No, not a typo - just to warm it).
2. Using the point of a sharp knife, score the duck skin in a crosshatch pattern, cutting deeply into the layer of fat but taking care not to nick the meat. Season both sides of the breast with salt and pepper.
3. Heat a dutch oven over medium-high heat. You could use a regular pan here, but the Dutch oven really helps with the spattering. When the pan is really hot and a drop of water dance and evaporate quickly, add the duck breasts, skin side down. Cook for 8 minutes, or until the skin is brown and crisp.
4. Turn the pieces over and cook for 3 minutes more for very rare breasts that will cook a little more in the oven. I know it sounds strange to cook a bird to medium-rare, but trust me on this, well done duck is very, very tough.
5. Lift the breasts out of the Dutch oven and place onto a sheet of aluminum foil. Seal them loosely in the foil and put in the oven to keep warm.
6. Pour off most of the fat from the pan (I used it as a base for the carrots you see in the picture) and put the pot over medium heat. When the fat is warm, stir in the balsamic, honey, and lime juice, along with any duck juices at the bottom of the aluminum foil. Cook, stirring constantly and vigorously with a wooden spoon for 1 minute. Return the breasts to the pot and turn once, cooking each side about 30 seconds. 
7. Slice the duck and drizzle the sauce on top. Serve immediately.

Quick and Easy Honey Carrots
Ingredients
1 bunch of carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slives (rondelles)
4 tablespoons of honey
salt, pepper

1. Put a frying pan on the burner at medium-high heat. When hot, pour the duck fat into a frying pan. If you don't have duck fat, then just use butter, about 2 tablespoons.
2.  Once the fat is melted, add the carrots and stir well to coat. Pour the honey on top.
3. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 to 7 minutes, until the carrots are becoming soft. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Serve immediately.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup: the Perfect Way to Celebrate Fall

Is it wrong to feel so alive as everything around me is dying? To dance with the leaves as they fall to the ground?  I can't help it. I love fall with its crimsons, its burnt siennas, and its sulfuric yellows. Just walking to school is like walking through a Monet painting, leaves crinkling under foot, the whole world bathed in a golden glow. There's such a frenzy to make the most of every day before the cold settles in.

As soon as I spot that first leaf flying through the air, I start craving butternut squash soup. I make it pretty much every week during that crisp fleece weather. And if I forget, Juliette is quick to remind me. She loves the sweet orange soup just as much as I do.

Yesterday we shared our first bowl of the season together, outside, sitting cross legged on a patchwork of leaves in our postage stamp backyard. Roasted butternut squash soup tastes like it looks, warm, sweet, and golden, it fills your belly and keeps that warm, happy feeling deep inside all day. But yesterday, it tasted even better than usual because we knew that this might be our last picnic of the season. Soon enough we'll be reaching for a big bowl of butternut squash soup to recover from the cold outside.

Roasted Butternut Squash Apple Soup
Ingredients:
2 butternut squashes, peeled and chopped into 2 inch pieces
4 cups of chicken stock, preferably homemade
4 carrots - diced coarsely, or 3/4 cups of mini carrots
1 small onion - diced coarsely
2 celery stalks - diced coarsely
2 apples - peeled and cut into coarse chunks
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of salted butter
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cut the butternut squash into large chunks and pour into a gallon ziplock bag. Pour in olive oil and maple syrup and rub well to cover each piece with the liquids. Open the bag and pour onto either two Pyrex dishes or on a cookie sheet that you covered with aluminum foil. Beware! Squash releases some sort of chemical that coats your hands. You'll need to scrub like a madman or wear gloves to get the film off.
3. Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour - until squash is soft when pierced with a fork.
4. Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add diced carrots, onions, and celery and cook over medium to low heat until soft, about 8 minutes.
5. Add roasted squash and apples chunks. Cover with enough stock to submerge the vegetables.
6. Bring to a simmer and cook for 40 minutes.
7. Puree soup with hand mixer.
8. Enjoy soup all week for lunch! Optional toppings include: oven dried prosciutto, croutons, blue cheese crumbs or slivers, creme fraiche. Or you can have it plain, as we did today, a virtually no-fat bowl of veggie goodness.

Bacon Crusted Pork Tenderloin to Woo Picky Food Snobs

Are your kids generally open to trying new things at the dinner table? At dinner time, my kids lose all trust in me, approaching the table with betrayal in their eyes, as if I'm trying to poison them, clearly still reeling from that sweet potato with turkey baby food jar I tried to feed them when they were toddlers.

I'm a huge fan of pork, specifically pork tenderloin, as a cheap, tasty and easy dinner solution. A pork tenderloin is cheaper than chicken breasts or steak, and requires a lot less fuss to get on the table. Just pop it into the oven with a little sauce or seasoning and 30 minutes or so later, dinner is ready.

CSA produce is clearly poison, right?

But my kids are not exactly sold on the concept of pork, the other white meat.

Last night, when they came to the table, and found the unfamiliar meat sitting on a platter, they frowned, moaned and complained, "What is that? What new yucky thing did you make for us tonight Mom? Why couldn't you make us a nice filet mignon or some sous vide lamb chops?" I kid you not. I couldn't make this stuff up. This is what my foodie snob kids request. Any day now they're going to add truffles and foie gras to their shopping list demands, along with Spongebob Mac & Cheese and Oreo Cakesters.

Carnivore Bella kissing a lamb chop made in the Sous Vide Demo unit.

I had anticipated their reaction, and I was ready to address it with the help of my other favorite pork product: bacon. Like some sort of picky food specialist, I coated the tenderloin with bacon, shallots, and breadcrumbs. Every bite was tender, juicy, and topped with a delicious bacon-y crunch. I was sorely tempted to lick the plate, just like my kids were doing.

With a little bacon help, I am nothing short of invincible.

In the picky eater war, Bacon Crusted Pork Tenderloins are almost like not playing fair.

Bacon Crusted Pork Tenderloin
Serves 4 to 6 
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes


Ingredients:
2 1 pound pork tenderloins
1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs
6 strips of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 shallots, chopped finely

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, begin sauteing the bacon. 30 seconds later, once the bacon has rendered a little fat, add the shallots. Saute until the shallots are soft and the bacon is lightly browned.
3. Remove from heat and toss in the bread crumbs, stirring thoroughly to absorb all the decadent bacon grease.
4. Roll the tenderloins in the seasoned bread crumbs, one at a time. Place them side by side in a large Pyrex pan. Scrape the remaining breadcrumbs on top.
5. Place in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes, until an internal meat thermometer reads 160 degrees. Begin testing at 20 minutes to make sure you don't overcook the tenderloin. There are few things more dry and chewy than an overcooked pork tenderloin.
6. Slice and serve, generously spooning the toasted bread crumbs on top.

Delicious and Easy Brunch Dishes for my Kelloggs Breakfast

Sweet and Crunchy French Toast was easy to make and delicious.

My online and offline worlds are colliding more and more frequently nowadays but I still often feel self-conscious inviting my "offline" friends into my online life. Everyone always ends up having a great time, but I still have a tough time sleeping the night before, worrying that I'm imposing on my friends and that they won't enjoy themselves. This week was no exception, if anything, my jitters were worse than ever because I'm the new kid in town.

On Monday, I invited some friends from school and some members of the Chicago Moms collaborative blog, to my house for brunch with their kids. The breakfast was sponsored by Kellogg's who sent a huge box of breakfast cereals (Corn Pops, Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and Frosted Mini Wheats) for me to serve my guests. Kelloggs also provided me with a stipend to purchase other breakfast items and compensated me for my time.

I supplemented the cereal bar with two easy to make brunch dishes: a Wake Up Casserole of eggs, cheese, and Canadian bacon and a Sweet and Crunchy French Toast platter. I got both recipes from the Kellogg's website and tweaked them a little. Both were delicious and instant additions to my brunch repertoire.

The purpose of the breakfast wasn't just to eat cereal and homemade dishes made with cereals, there was some actual work involved for my guests, which is what made me a nervous hostess. The event included a 30-minute discussion with the Kellogg's marketing team about breakfast challenges via Skype.

Turns out that I had no cause for worry. My friends were excited to pepper the Kellogg's team with questions about the sugar content of cereals, nutrition, new products and Kellogg's philanthropic initiatives. We ended up having a spirited and interesting discussion about the difficulties of keeping our kids fed, happy, and healthy. It was almost a group therapy session at times as we all admitted to occasionally giving our kids dry cereal as they walked to school just to get some breakfast in them, and realized as a group that dry cereal was actually a nutritious choice. After the call, more than one of my friends thanked me for the opportunity to talk directly to the Kellogg's team and get their questions and concerns answered.

Once the Skype connection closed, our breakfast went back to normal. We ate, drank some more coffee, and gossiped a little more while the girls played dress up and the boys played the Wii. Then, one by
one, my guests took their leave, saying they'd had a wonderful time, and asking for these recipes.


Sweet and Crunchy French Toast Casserole
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 3 hours
Servings: 8

Ingredients
8 1-inch-thick slices firm-textured, honey wheat bread (about 16 oz. total)
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated fat-free milk
7 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups Kellogg's Frosted Flakes® cereal
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3 cups fresh raspberries, blueberries, or sliced strawberries
1 cup maple syrup, warmed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Arrange bread in single overlapping layers in 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish.
3. In medium bowl whisk together milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Evenly pour over bread slices. Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours. Use spatula to turn bread slices once.
4. Bake, uncovered, at 375°F for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in small bowl combine KELLOGG'S FROSTED FLAKES cereal and butter. Evenly sprinkle over casserole. Bake, uncovered, at 375°F about 20 minutes more or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Let stand for 5 minutes.
5. Cut into 8 rectangles. Transfer to serving plates. Sprinkle with berries. Serve with syrup.

These light and cheesy casseroles tasted like a delicate souffle.

Wake Up Casserole
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 9 hours
Servings: 6

Ingredients
3 cups cubed dry French bread (3 oz.)
2 cups Kellogg's® Rice Krispies cereal
1 1/2 cups shredded Provolone or cheddar cheese (6 oz.), divided
1 cup diced Canadian-style bacon, diced
2 cups milk
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons chopped bottled roasted red sweet pepper
2 teaspoons Dijon-style mustard
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, toss together bread cubes, 1 cup KELLOGG'S Rice Krispies cereal, 1 cup cheese, and Canadian bacon. Divide among six 10-ounce individual casseroles or place all of the mixture in one 2-quart rectangular baking dish.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk milk, eggs, roasted red pepper, and mustard. Pour over bread mixture in casseroles or baking dish. Cover; refrigerate at least 8 hours or up to 24 hours.
3. Toss remaining 1 cup cereal with melted butter, crushing slightly; sprinkle cereal mixture and remaining cheese atop egg mixture. Bake at 350ºF, uncovered, 25 to 30 minutes for individual casseroles (40 minutes for 2-quart baking dish) or until evenly puffed and a knife inserted near center comes out clean. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.