16 April 2009

Cookbook Spotlight: Fried Matzoh from Gale Gand's Brunch

This month, Stephanie invited me to join an event called Cookbook Spotlight, where foodbloggers get a review copy of a new cookbook and are asked to make and review one recipe from the book. This round the book was Gale Gand's Brunch, and I was thrilled because brunch is certainly a meal I love. I've been getting more into breakfast foods lately, and this book has plenty of them, from pancakes to eggs to more ambitious offerings. Most of the recipes are fairly simple, and the one I chose especially so. From the photo here, you can see why she didn't include one with the recipe - matzoh brei is quite tasty when it's Passover and you have to eat matzoh, but it isn't all that visually appealing. It's also not a recipe that can be varied all that much, but Gand's version was perfectly tasty. I didn't have the maple syrup she suggests, so I used some organic cherry applesauce as an accompaniment. If you're not familiar with matzoh brei, it's like a combination between omlette and pancakes, but not too eggy. Salt it well and serve it with something sweet. You can find the recipe on page seventy two.

05 April 2009

Mocha Coffee Cake for a Sunday Breakfast

Joy the Baker recently asked her readers to make breakfast on a particular weekend. That Sunday, I made her mocha coffee cake. One thing I love about Joy is that she blogs as if she is a friend of every one of her readers, so when she says "hey, why don't we all make breakfast?" I say "okay!" And it did make my weekend happier, if a little more hectic for the time it took to put the coffee cake together. It's not what I normally think of when I think of coffee cake - no crumble topping, for example. I like the three marbled flavours (espresso, chocolate, and vanilla). I was a little impatient with the glaze, though, and didn't wait for the espresso I was using to fully cool before whisking in the sugar, which make it a little thinner than it necessarily should have been. Nonetheless, I liked to effect that came from soaking the dense cake in a coffee-flavoured glaze. One warning is that this should probably be served right away. It's a fairly big cake for one person, and it dries out quickly. If you want to make it and are worried about this problem, you could always have a little extra glaze to add for later portions.

03 April 2009

Excuse me a moment for a non-food, personal note...

THE IOWA SUPREME COURT IS GIVING US SAME-SEX MARRIAGE!!!!!

(I know some of you may disagree on this point, but it's my blog and it's my state so I have to say it. Back to our regularly scheduled foodie program soon.)