This month's food-capades

Here are some of our adventures in the world of food from the past month or two.

We found a breakfast/brunch place near our house called 'Snooze.'  We went there twice, ordered two things and shared each time, but our favorite was called the 'Bella Bella Benny,' which is sort of an italian take on eggs benedict.  The dish consists of poached eggs on ciabatta with hollandaise sauce, prosciutto, and baby arugula, all with a balsamic glaze.  Below is our version we made at home after eating two times at the restaurant. It is as much work as it seems, but quite good.

I have long since loved the idea of chicken and waffles.  We finally tried it in all its glory on our recent trip down to California for my little brother's wedding.  This was at Roscoe's House of Chicken & Waffles.  We haven't made it at home yet, we are scouring thrift stores for a thin waffle iron. (We currently only have the thick belgian one)

This is the overnight french toast when we made it (recipe in an earlier post).

We went to Crave with all of my siblings and their significant others.  This was the first time I got a shake after the burger heaven.  This shake was called the "Velvet Elvis."  It was caramel praline ice cream with peanut butter, bananas, and what else?  Bacon.

For my little brother's Colorado wedding reception, we were in charge of making mini cinnamon rolls.  We left the house with the dough rising, and this is what we came back to.  Oops.

Becca found some salmon on sale, so we made cedar plank salmon with orzo and fried zucchini.  This was also topped with balsamic glaze, naturally.

Also something that you wouldn't believe:  Becca and I had never made burgers in our married lives until this week.  Almost 5 years!  We were both kind of of the opinion, why buy ground beef if you can get chicken, steak, pulled pork, ribs, etc. for a good deal?  Ground beef went on sale, and we decided it was time to reintroduce it, and I am so glad we did.  Turns out when you do it right, you can make a mean bacon cheeseburger at home! (I made a leftover one with Jalapeno cream cheese instead of cheese...you should try it.  Or just come visit us, I'll make it for you.)

Legit Delicious French Toast

Becca wants to share this yummyness with all of you.  It is sweet like unto the gospel.  Or it will at least make you want to sing gospel music.

The best part is you just make it the night before and all you have to do is put it in the oven and wait.  Though waiting is pretty difficult once you start smelling it.

Overnight French Toast

An easy overnight French toast casserole that can be prepared in under ten minutes. Great for serving company!

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) butter, melted
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 loaf brioche or challah (a French bread loaf can a used) sliced into 1 1/2 inches thick slices
• 8 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup pecans, measured then chopped
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• (optional) maple syrup and powdered sugar for topping

Directions

1. 1In a small bowl combine brown sugar and melted butter and pour on the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
2. 2Arrange slices of bread in the baking dish overlapping if necessary.
3. 3Combine milk, eggs, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a bowl and pour evenly over bread slices.
4. 4Sprinkle chopped pecans over bread slices.
5. 5Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 4-12 hours.
6. 6In the morning, take the casserole out of the fridge for at least 10 minutes while you are preheating your oven to 350 degrees.
7. 7Bake casserole for 30-35 minutes. If top starts browning too quickly place a foil loosely over the top of the casserole for the last 10 minutes or so. You want it to cook long enough to make sure the bottom part is cooked but don't dry it out completely.
8. 8Remove casserole from oven and let it cool slightly before serving. Serve with a dusting of powdered sugar and a drizzle of maple syrup.

In case you love this a lot and want to find other ideas, we got the recipe from this blog: http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/

Besides that, wouldn't you trust any recipe that came from someone called "The Girl Who Ate Everything"?  I certainly would.  -- Becca

Do you crave real burgers?

One of my new favorite places to eat is called Crave.  They are kind of a modern diner style restaurant that serves up some crazy and delicious burgers.  Toppings range from jalapenos to shredded duck to peanut butter.  I'll give you a little sneak peek of the 2 that i have tried so far.

1) 'The Texas:'

In addition to a regular hamburger, this burger has BBQ Beef brisket, BBQ Sauce, Cole Slaw, and Battered fried onions.  It is as good as it sounds, though throwing bacon on there too wouldn't hurt.

2) 'The Cubano:'

The cubano has just about everything.  A roasted jalapeno, avocado, tomato, onion, a fried egg, breaded pork chop, hot dogs, ham, cheese, lettuce and chorizo.  Don't forget that it is still a burger with a pretty big patty as well.  This one was pretty tasty.  My/our one complaint is that it is so tall, that you really cant get all the flavors at once, and sometimes that means you are eating mostly hot dog.

There are so many different choices and toppings from pretty plain to fairly crazy.  There are a few more that I want to try for sure.  You can look at pictures of all the burgers here.

One that I am not sure yet if I will be daring enough to try is called 'The Luther" (below)

Why yes, those are 2 Lamar's doughnuts used instead of buns.  I love burgers, and I love Lamar's doughnuts.  We'll see if I am ever daring enough to try it.

Rib-o-flavin'

Do you love the flavor of ribs cooked on the grill? Do you hate that if you grill them too fast, they are as tough as Robbie is on delinquent fathers, or that if you grill them low and slow that you run out of propane father than the Gillilands can finish 5 large pizzas from Barro's?

Here's the solution!  All you have to do is cook them in the crockpot with whatever you would like to flavor the ribs, and then when you are done, just brush some bbq sauce on the outside and grill them for a few minutes.  It works like a charm for those of us who don't have enough cash to slow grill or smoke our meat, but still like them tender and flavorful. After they come out of the crockpot, they are very fragile while you grill them, but if you are careful, you can get that nice grill-char and still have them fall off the bone! (Becca cooked and I grilled)

The Magical Salad

Heather's wedding has been an enlightenment to us all.  Sure, she made an eternal promise, joined her husband to start a new family and took a spiritual leap of progression, but what I'm talking about it the part where her wedding got us all to like salad.

Just about every other day since the wedding luncheon in Phoenix, Becca has tried to recreate the salad that we had to go along with the potatoes and chicken croissants. This salad, with spring mix, sugar roasted almonds, craisins, feta cheese and poppyseed dressing has also brought me to the realization that a salad doesn't have to have bacon or some other sort of meat for me to enjoy it.  (Now whether or not such a salad can be counted as a meal is another matter).

The other great thing about it is its versatility.  For example, the picture below.  Want to get out of the rut of having corn, potatoes, and rolls with your steak followed by some other carbolicious dessert?  Try this on for size:

Probably still a little light on the veggies, but at least you feel a little bit better about it.

Fish Tacos

Becca, like most female members of the Gilliland family, does not like seafood.  We have found one way that she can appreciate it.  Behold, the fish taco!  This is actually a pretty easy dinner idea.  Take any white fish, cut it into little strips, dip in flour, then a beaten egg, and then some kind of bread crumbs, we used panko.  Then fry and drain the strips of fish.  With the corn tortillas, either wet them or put a little oil in a pan and saute them for a few seconds.  Put the tacos together adding finely chopped cabbage, tartar sauce (you can make your own to taste with mayo and relish), and fresh lime to squeeze on the tacos.  I know those who have never had a fish taco are doubting right now, but the even the fish hating Becca couldn't get enough of these the other night!

Tacos al Carbon

¡Estos tacos están de rechupete!
These tacos are finger lickin' good!

One of my go-to selections when going out for Mexican food is 'steak tacos al carbon.'  Mostly because they are super delicious.  This is our chicken version.  For the chicken we just take our regular fiesta lime chicken (sauteed chicken marinated in lime and Italian dressing) and re-saute it with some peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic salt, a sprinkle of taco seasoning or chili powder and a little extra lime.  (Sorry for the lack of quantities, we just do it based on what looks/smells/tastes right. We prefer them on corn tortillas, but I suppose any tortilla will do.  Top with whatever you want.  I prefer simple sliced avocado.  Becca likes the crisp of lettuce.  This is where you get to be creative and pimp out your tacos to your liking!