French Toast with Graham Cracker Crust

So, there are, like No degrees outside right now. With the wind chill, it was zero yesterday, which means a complete absence of degrees. Gross. I've been trying to embrace the dress with tights and boots thing lately because it looks cute and about doubles my winter wardrobe. But all I can think when I see some poor girl dressed like that in weather like this is "liar!" Because it just is not warm enough for only tights, and pretending won't make it so. I need thermal underwear under my jeans right now, and fleece-lined everything. Fleece-lined underwear? That has potential...

So anyway, this weather makes me cranky because it makes me feel trapped and unmotivated. And it takes away my ability to wear tights as pants. It ruins all the fun. You know what might make you (and me) feel better about it? Bashing a few sheets of graham crackers in a ziplock bag with a rolling pin. Bashing is always fun. Then once you've dialed up your body heat by a few degrees, you can coat some french toast in said crumbs and feel awfully self satisfied.

The idea comes from one of those big breakfast books, but the recipe is standard french toast dredged in some graham cracker crumbs before cooking. Next time, I'd embellish it a little with a more interesting batter. You know, by adding things like citrus zest, cinnamon, vanilla. Definitely, in fact, that's what I'm going to give you, none of this standard, boring french toast business. Get ready.

French Toast with Graham Cracker Crust

Graham cracker crust idea from Maryana Vollstedt's The Big Breakfast Book

Day old bread of your choice (challah is one of my personal favorites)

Juice of 1 orange (you can use the zest, as well, but wash your orange first in that case!)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Dash cinnamon

3 eggs

3/4 cups milk

1 cup graham cracker crumbs, from about 3 full sheets of crackers

Butter or oil for frying

In a shallow bowl, whisk together the orange juice (and zest if using), the vanilla, the cinnamon, the eggs and the milk.

Use a food processor or place the graham crackers in a ziplock bag and bash them with a rolling pin until you've achieved graham cracker crumbs. Place the crumbs in a shallow bowl.

In a skillet, melt enough butter to coat the bottom on medium heat. Cut as many slices of bread as you'd like, dip into the batter on both sides, then into the graham cracker crumbs. Cook each side of the toast for a few minutes on each side. Serve with whatever floats your boat.

Spanish White Beans with Spinach

You know what, I get why posts like these don't draw as much...notice. I mean, it seems no one has ever gotten famous hawking beans. If you want to be popular, you should probably be using lots of butter, lots of sugar, chocolate wouldn't be out of place either. But, see, thing is. I don't bake all that much. I do things like make beans. Then I do things like eat them all myself because beans aren't a big draw in the real world, either.

But these beans are so flippin' good, that it feels like I'm being a little dishonest not trying to get R to eat any of them. Oh, I only made beans today, you wouldn't be interested. They're just beans. (They're not). You know, beans that are good for you. Health food, really. You wouldn't be interested. Heh.

But I bet you, my presumed reader, will be interested. The original recipe calls for sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained. But I didn't find those, so I used dry-packed sun dried tomatoes, somehow managing to stumble on The Best sun dried tomatoes Ever (the brand is Joseph Zavier Fine Foods, found at Gourmet Garage, but I couldn't find a website for you).

So anyway. Beans.

Spanish White Beans with Spinach

From Gourmet, November 2009

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped

6 tablespoons olive oil, divided

4 garlic cloves, passed through a press

1/2 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika (pimenton dulce)

2 19-oz cans cannelini beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup water

2 10-oz bags spinach (or failing that, try Boston Lettuce, which is what I did)

Warm 1/4 cup of the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook the onion and sun dried tomatoes seasoned with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Stir occasionally, of course, and cook until the onion is browned about 6-8 minutes. Add the garlic and paprika and continue cooking for another minute.

Stir in the beans, water, spinach and a bit more salt to taste. Cover the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes.

Season with pepper and drizzle with a bit more olive oil if you'd like.

Orange-Yogurt Coffee Cake

Things I am not motivated for: doing real work. Things I am motivated for: eating cake. Actually I am having a bit of a motivation problem lately, and "next monday" seems always to be the day of reckoning for when I'll begin taking my life seriously again. The great thing about next monday is that it can always be put off for a week. So I do. I try to feel guilty about it, something I'm normally good at, but not this time. So anyway, next monday.

But that doesn't mean I've turned my brain all the way off until then. In fact, there's something I'd like to talk about a little because it regularly Pisses. Me. Off. (you heard me.) And that, my friends, is advertising. Specifically, advertising that always hinges on the photoshopped woman-as-object. It gets to me. It's why I haven't read a fashion magazine in years. It angers lots of other people, turns out, including Newsweek. And this article on 2009's worst photoshopping offenses proves it. Why do we women put up with this crap?

So you know what I think we should do this New Year? I think we should shelve all of that damn body shame heaped on us by corporate America and eat cake instead. Can we do that, please? It would make me feel a lot better.

Orange-Yogurt Coffee Cake

From Cooking with Shelburne Farms

Cake:

2 large oranges, washed well (I used 2 navel oranges that were Huge)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon table salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup white sugar

2 large eggs

3/4 cup vanilla or plain yogurt (come on, stick with the spirit here and don't use fat free)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Glaze:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice, from those oranges up above

1/2 cup apricot-orange marmalade (There are several brands of apricot-orange, but if you can't find it, just use orange)

confectioner's sugar (optional)

For the cake:

Oven preheated to 350F. Zest one of the large oranges, and that should be just about the perfect amount. If it's not, use some of the second orange as well. Juice both oranges, then measure out 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of juice and set aside, separated.

Grease your bundt pan and put it in the refrigerator. (I have to admit I'm not totally sure why this step is here, but I did it, and the cake turned out, so...) whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl.

With a standing or hand-held mixer (standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment), cream the butter and sugar together. I like to add the zest at this point, because the sugar acts as sand paper and releases the oils from the zest, making it even more fragrant. So add the zest. Cream for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating between each until they're fully incorporated.

In a small bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of the orange juice, the yogurt and the vanilla. Keep your mixer on low speed and add the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients, alternating, to the creamed butter and sugar. Do this in three parts.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes until it passes the toothpick test.

While the cake is baking, it's time for the glaze:

Melt the butter, the remaining 2 tablespoons orang juice and the marmalade together in a small saucepan over medium heat.

Remove the cake from the oven and immediately turn it from the pan onto a serving plate. Pour the glaze over the hot cake. Cool the cake and dust with confectioner's sugar before serving.

Barley Stew with Leeks, Mushrooms and Greens

You. Guys. (And girls, especially you girls). I am finally back from the black hole of orals. Yes, I passed, after 4 months of 9 hour study days that ended up being closer to 12 hour study days by the end. When I finished in mid-December, I crashed pretty hard right afterward, then I went home for winter break and didn't do anything that required, you know, effort. And you might think that after the hell that is orals one would be free and clear. But you'd be wrong. Because the next requirement is the worst kind of annoyance, a two-week paper. What's that, you ask? It's just what it sounds like. You pick up a sheet of paper with three topics listed on it, chosen by your orals committee, and from that moment you have two weeks to choose a topic, do the research and write a 20 page paper. Gross. I know. It is.

I just finished my draft, and it's due on Tuesday, so I'm sittin' pretty enough to actually cook something for myself to eat. I already missed pretty much the best part of the entire year for eating (late summer/early fall...I miss you! I promise we'll be together again next year!). But ever the optimist, even in winter, I can find something to crave. Have a guess? Does the title of this post give it away? It's kale. Green, leafy, glorious kale.

And the recipe is super easy. And if you have an iPhone (like I do, thanks to Christmas and my generous parents!) you can even get the recipe off of Epicurious's iPhone app and have it with you while you shop. A very handy thing when the first two grocery stores you try have neither kale nor leeks (aahh New York City, and you're supposed to have everything).

Barley Stew with Leeks, Mushrooms and Greens

Directly from Bon Appetit, December 2009

Olive oil for the pan

1 8 ounce container baby bella mushrooms (button mushrooms)

2 garlic cloves, run through a press

2 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary

1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes in juice

1 cup pearl barley

4 cups (or more) vegetable broth, depending on your preferred stew consistency

1 bunch kale, torn up (they say to trim it and remove the center stalks, but I have never understood why one would want to do that. I love the center stalks, and I hate wasted time)

Heat the oil in your soup pot over medium head, then add the leeks and season them with salt and pepper. Sauté them until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Be sure to stir often, so they don't burn. Add the mushrooms, garlic and rosemary and increase the heat to medium-high. If your pan begins to dry out a little, you can add some broth. Sauté until the mushrooms soften and begin to brown. This should take about 7 minutes. Again, be sure to stir often.

Add the tomatoes with their juice, stir to combine, then add the barley and 4 cups of the broth. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add the kale, and stir until it's wilted, only about a minute. Cover again, and continue simmering until the barley are as tender as you'd like them. You can add more broth at this point depending on how soupy you want your stew. I like my barley a little chewy, so the suggested 10 minute cooking time worked for me. You can cook it longer if you want less resistance from your grain.

Serve and enjoy!

UPDATE: This is great for leftovers, but barley will absorb the rest of the liquid. To me, that was okay, I ate it like a warm barley salad. But you could also keep some extra broth on hand for re-souping it later.