Aebleskivers

 

What is an aebleskiver?

 

They’re like pancakes, but smaller… And round, and fluffy… And you can’t get enough.

 

I grew up eating these during the holidays. I was lucky enough to have a grandmother who wasn’t far from her tall, pale, European roots. She wasn’t blessed with the culinary gift, but once a year, she got down and we feasted.

 

It’s actually Æbleskiver, pronounced able-skee-ver. In Dutch, it means, ‘apple slices’, which, I don’t quite understand, but it works for me. They’re marketed in America as ‘pancake puffs’… The more you know.

 

 

 

Ingredients:

1 c all-purpose flour
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 c milk
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites

 

Your pan is very important.

 

I’ve seen quite a few kitschy little pans that won’t do you any good.

 

You need a solid material like cast iron to heat evenly to give you quality skeevers.

 

Don’t cut corners on a good pan, it will last a life time.

 

 

 

Now, let’s make a big ole pile of awesome.

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, stir together the milk and the egg yolks until well combined. Add to the flour mixture, stir until smooth.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer, on high, until stiff peaks form. Now, this can seem like a daunting task if you’ve never done it before, and you’re like me, you might think you’re doing it wrong. Keep mixing, keep that shit on high and things’ll, you know, get stiff.

Gently fold beaten egg whites into batter with a spatula, GENTLY, leaving some puffs of whites. Now is not the time to just mix like a mad housewife, be gentle with the air bubbles you’ve taken so long to beat up, because that’s where the fluff of this glorious puff comes from. You’ll notice that towards the end of this process, your last skeevers of the batch will be flatter than the first. It’s your batter. It’s, deflating… Frowny face.

Place the pan over medium heat, lightly brush or spoon a little oil of your choice into each cup. We used Crisco while I was growing up, butter, margarine, whatever your preference is fine, just as long as the flavor isn’t strong, obviously.

When the oil sizzles, spoon about 2 tbsp of batter into each cup, so that they’re about 2/3 of the way full.

 

They’ll start to form bubbles, get crispy on the edges and look like they want to be flipped over, in about 1 or 2 minutes, depending on the heat.

Use a fork, or like me, two forks, and flip that little fucker in its shell. It’s a tricky little process, but if you mess up, use a toothpick to tuck the excess batter back into ball form and you’ll get the hang of it.

Flip each skeever and cook until shell is formed and they’re golden brown all over.

Pick out and transfer to an oven safe dish, in a warm (300) oven until they’re all finished.

Garnish with powdered sugar and syrup and ENJOY!

 

Southern Style Biscuits & Pork Sausage Gravy

It’s not your milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard, it’s your biscuits!

This is another one of my top posts. The original can be found here. It was also one of my first recipes I put up. It has evolved, a smidge, the photo was deplorable, my gravy was chicken and my biscuits came from a can! I had a few minutes to kill during my morning coffee. Shazam! We have a re-blog.

It’s a classic, it’s easy and although a bit time consuming, refrigerates well and is absolutely to die for. For me, it’s a fat kid dream, realized. I love it, it doesn’t love me and I’ll live with that. (You CAN make it without buttermilk- in the gravy- using only milk, and cut calories/fat-ahem-flavor like a mother, I’ve done it, the boys don’t know the difference. Heh…)

Say it with me now… “Buttermilk.”

It’s a fat chef’s right hand man, when it comes to creamy sauces, down home food and that special flavor you can’t get from anything like it. Buttermilk. It makes your biscuits fluffy, your pancakes like grandma use to make and your sauces creamier than creamy and richer than rich. You’re going to use quite a bit in this recipe, but like I said, you CAN use milk only, there are also variations, like my brothers, which is made from evaporated milk and regular milk. The biscuits, are all the same, it’s the buttermilk that makes them good... In the gravy, you can also use turkey or chicken sausage. We do. It doesn’t render much fat for gravy purposes, but a little butter or some extra bacon grease should do the trick. (Yes, I keep it in my fridge, it’s perfect for anything you’d sauté in butter or oil, in sparse amounts.)

Now, let’s make breakfast!

Gravy-

INGREDIENTS:

1lb Breakfast sausage, use pork for the full fat kid experience, use turkey or sausage if you plan on feeding somebody with clean arteries.
Buttermilk about 2 cups
Milk about 2 cups
3tbs All purpose flour
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Cook the sausage in a large sauce pan on medium while breaking it into small pieces. Once the sausage is cooked add the flour, using a whisk to make sure all the sausage is coated in flour. (There are also some who like to remove their sausage from the pan and add it later once the gravy has thickened. Not I, no… Not I. I prefer that whole fried sausage feel, seriously.) Let that cook on medium for about 4 or 5 minutes until it starts getting darker brown and you can tell the flour is starting to cook. Then, start adding the buttermilk, slowly, whisking thoroughly and quickly until it becomes thick and aaaalmost paste-like, but don’t let it burn! Then start whisking in the milk. You can add a little at a time to make sure the butter milk and milk get fully incorporated into each other and that the gravy will thicken up properly. (IF you happen to burn the gravy while you’re cooking, resist the urge to scrap the shit out of the bottom of the pan. Let it stay there, and yes, burn, while keeping that bottom later as thin as possible. You want your food to cook evenly, but that bottom is a lost cause. It’ll turn your gravy gritty.) Once you’re sure everything is mixed and going well, add the rest of the milk, about 4 cups total, and bring to a boil. Keep whisking, making sure to keep the sides and the bottom of the pan clean and free from gravy buildup. (Unless you already effed up, of course. You little culinary failure, you.)

It takes a while to cook, depending on how much gravy you’re making. The amount of buttermilk and milk also depend on how much you are making as well. The amount of liquid does reduce as it thickens, of course, but not drastically. I usually end up with enough for my Fiance, myself and the baby to eat to our hearts content as well as having leftovers for a couple of days. The time it takes is also relevant to how thick you like your gravy too, mine takes about 45 minutes to an hour to fully cook. And I’ll admit, that the gravy up there is a little thin. Gravy retains heat like crazy, so when you think it’s cool enough to pile up on your biscuits, it ends up being a waterfall of creamy sausage speckled bombtasticness.

Biscuits-

Ingredients:

2 c all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups very cold fat-free buttermilk
1 tablespoon canola oil

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450°. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl and give it a stir with a whisk. Place butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at HIGH for 30 seconds to 1 minute or until completely melted. Add cold buttermilk, stirring until butter forms small clumps. Add oil, stirring to combine. (You can use all butter, I usually do.) Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture; stir with a rubber spatula until just mixed and batter pulls away from sides of bowl. (Batter will be very wet.) Drop batter in mounds of 2 heaping table spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Bake at 450° for 11 minutes or until golden.

Wait until your gravy is close to done to pop the biscuits in the oven. You can turn off the heat and cover your gravy while you bake since it will help thicken the gravy to let it stand for a while. Once your biscuits are done, split them in half, cover them in gravy and…. You know what to do next!

ENJOY!

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

I’m trying to watch the first season of Walking Dead, and write recipes for cookies. Zombies and treats, yay, Friday! Haha….

I’ve searched and I’ve searched for an oatmeal cookie recipe that I actually liked, one that used real oats, not powdery quick oats, and one that my son would like, without being too sweet.

Couldn’t find it, so I made it up.

It uses very little flour, little sugar and is essentially a baked, flavored, cereal. Which is perfect because everybody eats them for breakfast sometimes, especially the baby… He says, “Cookie?” Yes, you can have a cookie. You can have anything you want with that face… Smh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are obviously, only a slight difference in my three types of cookies. One are plain, one have chocolate chips and the others have chocolate and peanut butter chips. They all bake the same.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 Cup all purpose flour
1/2 Tsp baking soda
1 Tsp Cinnamon
3/4 Cup brown sugar, packed
3 Cups of whole oats
1 Tsp Salt
1/2 Cup mix in’s of your choice
3/4 Cup butter, softened or melted
1 Tsp vanilla
1 Egg
A splash of milk, trust me.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix dry ingredients… Mix wet ingredients… Combine.

Bake at 350 until brown at the edges but SOFT in the center. It’s better to be on the soft side, when they’re hard, they’re like granola. Which might not be bad, if that’s what you’re going for! I like them soft in the center though, especially the chocolate chip ones!

Enjoy!

Spicy Breakfast Burrito

I’m a professional breakfast burrito maker. I don’t want to brag…. Buuuut, I’ve got skills.

I literally make these daily and I’ve fine tuned it into a pretty quick process, about 20 minutes…. Plus, we shop at Whole Foods and Fresh and Easy, where their prices are amazing. This breakfast feeds 3 people for $1.30 each!

I keep my potatoes, bell peppers and onions chopped up in Tupperware in the fridge. It saves an incredible amount of time for me since I use bell peppers and onions every single day!

 

A-here, here we go:

INGREDIENTS:

3-4oz Breakfast sausage, we usually use chicken sausage, but it doesn’t render much fat for cooking the potatoes, so times like this, we use regular old Farmer John.
1/4 White onion, diced
1/2 Green bell pepper, diced
1 Potato, diced
A pinch of: Black pepper, red pepper flakes, thyme and garlic powder
5 Eggs, we use the Whole Foods 365 brown eggs, they’re a little more expensive, but they’re better than bleached eggs.
Milk
Pepper Jack cheese
Flour tortillas

DIRECTIONS:

In a large skillet, brown the sausage over medium heat. Add the diced potato and herbs and cook, stirring frequently until potatoes start to get translucent and soft, cover for a few minutes if need be. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook until soft. In a bowl, combine the eggs and a splash of milk, scramble and add to the pan…. On a griddle, heat the tortillas until they’re warm and soft, grate the pepper jack cheese and finish cooking your eggs to your liking!

Roll up in a nice burrito with your hot tortilla and serve….

 

That’s it! Sometimes I add salsa, switch up the cheese, use chorizo or bacon, or ditch the potatoes…. There are endless ways to mix up this burrito, the breakfast burrito is a no fail.

Enjoy! And let me know how it works for you!

Cinnamon Streusel Banana Bread

I had to post this in addition to my original banana bread because, it’s amazing. I made a loaf for the house and my lovey asked me to make a few for his bosses too! Needless to say, it’s a big hit!

There is no big difference from my original banana bread recipe which can be found here, except that about a half table spoon of cinnamon is added in with the sugar.

The difference is in the topping. Which is too easy.

Take about 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar and mix in another table spoon or 2 so of cinnamon. If your brown sugar isn’t so fresh or was left open and is hard as a rock, microwave a chunk for about 30 seconds. It will get soft and you can crumble it by hand. But be sure to go through it carefully and remove all the really tiny hard pieces. When the sugar gets older it forms tiny sugary rocks that can actually chip a tooth if you’re mid-munch.

Sprinkle the mixture over the banana bread before it goes in the oven. Take a toothpick and swirl the topping into the top of the batter.

The bread, with the topping, will take a little bit longer than an hour to cook. Just keep an eye on it after about an hour and fifteen minutes, until a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf, comes out clean.

This bread also freezes incredibly well!

Enjoy!

Biscuits & Chicken Sausage Gravy

** An updated version of this recipe, complete with homemade biscuits, is available here.**


I’ve been on a mission to “One Up” my brothers gravy recipe for years. His always seemed too complicated, even for gravy from scratch. So I’ve worked away on this one for a long time, perfected it and am finally, sharing it. It’s not easy, but every other weekend or when we have friends over in the mornings, it’s great to have. It even makes amazing leftovers, unlike most breakfasts, so it’s not wasteful to make a bunch. Make it on Sunday and keep it in the fridge for the week. It’s easy to reheat and my fiance absolutely loves it when he’s in a hurry. I pop a plate in the microwave and he’s got a quick bite of a breakfast I worked really hard on and put a lot of love into! Can’t beat that!

If you’ve ever made a gravy before you know that once you start cooking it, you can’t walk away. So yes, this is yet another dish of mine that makes you a slave to the stove, but is also, so very worth it.
So, let’s get started.

Ingredients:
1 Pkg Breakfast sausage, I use Isernio’s brand because it’s all natural, tastes amazing and it’s chicken, not pork. If you like pork sausage, they make a great one too. Find it here.
3 Tbs All purpose flour
Reduced fat butter milk
Regular milk
Pepper
1 Pkg Grands Flakey Layers Biscuits

Directions:
Cook the sausage in a large sauce pan, on medium while breaking it into small pieces. Chicken sausage really doesn’t render a lot of fat for the purposes of making a gravy, so if you find the pan is dry add a couple of table spoons of butter to the sausage after it’s browned. It doesn’t take much butter so don’t go overboard, but if you use the pork sausage, no butter is needed! It’s biscuits and gravy, so it’s not HEALTHY but we can try to make it less-bad-for-you. Once the sausage is cooked add the flour, using a whisk to make sure all the sausage is coated in flour. Let that cook on medium for about 4 or 5 minutes until it starts getting darker brown and you can tell the flour is starting to cook.

Then, just like when you make the sauce for MacNCheese, start adding the buttermilk, slowly. About a cup and a half, whisking until it becomes REALLY thick, but don’t let it burn! Then start whisking in the milk. You can add a little at a time to make sure the butter milk and milk get fully incorporated into each other and that the gravy will thicken up properly. Once you’re sure everything is mixed and going well, add the rest of the milk, about 4 cups total, and bring to a boil. Keep whisking, making sure to keep the sides and the bottom of the pan clean and free from gravy buildup. That will make for some icky stringy surprises later if you’re not careful!

It takes a while to cook, depending on how much gravy you’re making. The amount of buttermilk and milk also depend on how much you are making as well. The amount of liquid you add will be close to the amount of gravy you end up with as it does reduce, but not drastically. I usually end up with enough for Mo and I and the baby to eat to our hearts content as well as having leftovers for a couple of days. The time it takes is also relevant to how thick you like your gravy too, mine takes about 45 minutes to an hour to fully cook.
Once your gravy is close to done, pop the biscuits in the oven. You can turn off the heat and cover your gravy while you bake since it will help thicken the gravy to let it stand for a while. Once your biscuits are browned, split them in half, cover them in gravy and…. You know what to do next!

Let me know how yours turns out or if you have questions, something went wrong, or if you just have comments! It’s great that some of you have emailed to let me know how things have turned out for you, I love it!

Classic Banana Bread

I thought this would be an appropriate recipe for my first post, and I’ll tell you why. I made this last night for the first time in a couple of months and in less than 24 hours, we managed to eat an entire loaf! As I sit here, typing this, I’m finishing the laaaast slice…. And it’s delicious. (Since I procrastinated and typed instead of eating my bread, my toddler has inevitably finished it for me. You snooze, you loose I guess!)
So here is the recipe! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
3 or 4 VERY ripe bananas (you’re going to be mashing these by hand, so you want soft bananas!)
1/3 Cup melted butter
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
1 Egg, beaten
1 Tsp vanilla extract
1 Tsp baking soda
1 1/2 Cup all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Smash bananas in a large bowl with a fork until all the chunks are good and smashed. Mix (with the same fork, if you want, but not with a beater) the melted butter into the mashed bananas, then add the sugar, beaten egg and vanilla. Mix well. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt in and mix. Add the flour last and mix well. Pour mixture into a buttered (oiled, sprayed, whatever your preference) 4x8in loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from pan, cool on a rack and slice to serve!