The Good Plate

Archive for the ‘Sunday Mornings’ Category

Recipes in this Post

• Silver Dollar Pancakes
• Perfect Sausage Patties

What a pleasure to make breakfast on Bertha. She keeps perfect temperature, unlike my previous stove that always had a strange hot spot and was tilted to one side,

Bertha made Silver Dollar Pancakes and sausages for breakfast. Well, I helped her.

This is my canonical pancake recipe. I will never go back to a box again. It is so simple, and you could bag up the dry ingredients and give them as gifts with a note to explain the preparation.

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Spane had a new haircut and I had a package of mild Italian sausages in my freezer on Saturday. In a moment of inspiration, I decided that I would make my girl friend Biba’s Mom’s recipe for Biscuits and Gravy. John, always here on Sunday morning with Maria, Spane and I, also suggested eggs.

 

Biscuits have always been an issue for me – they would turn out more like crackers than fluffy biscuits, but I finally found a recipe that worked. I had tried using my fingers, but the fat always melted. When I made Fresh Blueberry Muffin Breakfast Cake I learned that I did not have to laborously use a fork to mix the fat and dry ingredients, I could use a food processor instead. Wow! Who knew? So, when I saw the recipe and it said to quickly mix the fat and flour with your fingers, so quick that the fats would not melt, I thought doing this in the processor was the way to go. I was right, the dough was great, the biscuits were tall and fluffy!

Buttermilk Substitute

A word of warning. The original recipe calls for buttermilk, but I very rarely have that on hand. I do, however, usually have yogurt on hand, and white vinegar. I get whole milk plain yogurt from Mountain High – it is very creamy tasting, not too sour as some yogurts are. It can easily substitute for sour cream. If you are going to substitute yogurt for buttermilk, it’s really important to use a good brand, that is naturally cultured and does not have any fillers or other nasty things in it.

Biscuits

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 1/2 cup plain good yogurt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 drops white vinegar

Preparation

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In the food processor bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Process until the mixture looks like crumbs. Remove to a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that’s life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

Biscuits and Gravy

Ingredients

• 6 Italian sausage mild
• 2 tablespoons Flour
• 2 cups Milk
• 1/2 teaspoon Lemon Pepper
• 6 dash Tabasco sauce
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp Italian Seasoning
  • 2 tbsp Parmesan Cheese, grated
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 2 tbsp butter

Preparation

Remove the skins from the sausages. Place the sausages in a cold iron skillet. Turn on the heat and break them up, until they are in medium pieces. Do not drain off the fat. Add the flour and stir to coat all the meat. Add the milk, and cook, stirring occasionally until the sauce has thickened nicely. Remove from the heat, and serve over biscuits.



Italian Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients

Preparation

Mix the eggs together with the herbs, cheese and milk. Heat a skillet and melt the butter, swirling the butter all round so the sides are covered. Add the egg mixture, and stir until the eggs are cooked and fluffy.

Recipes in this Post

Eric Goeddel chose Mrs. Francisco’s class

• Baked Pancake or Dutch Babies
• Baked Bacon

This morning, our friends Barney and Charlie came by because we were going to UCLA to see the baseball game against the Oregon Ducks. Spane’s first grade class (Mrs. Francisco) was chosen by number 33 Eric Goeddel to come to the game at UCLA today.

Out friend, Maria, was with us as she is on all Sunday mornings. I love Maria Torres so much! She is so much fun, and when she tells those headline jokes, it’s just too much!

Anyway, you’re here to hear about the food, right? Well, when I had asked Bonnie to come from breakfast, and what she liked, she had said pancakes. Hmmm, I thought to myself last night – that’s a lot of pancakes to stand there and make (and this is right after making Cheddar Cheese Spritz Crackers last night). I vaguely remembered hearing about a baked pancake, so I decided to make Dutch Babies, otherwise known as Baked Pancakes.

I served the pancake with fresh strawberries and sweetened sour cream. Baked bacon was also on the menu. It was truly a hit!

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It’s Sunday morning, and my friends are here for fellowship and watching movies. It’s a lazy day, and in Los Angeles, it looks like it’s going to rain so it’s a little cold. What’s the perfect food? Why it’s Judy Rosenberg’s Fresh Blueberry Muffin Breakfast Cake.

This cake is wonderful fresh from the oven, while it’s still hot. I love this with a cup of coffee and friends. You have to make this cake.

In the spring when blueberries first come into season, I buy a box to make blueberry pancakes, which are a favorite of Spane’s on Wednesday mornings when we don’t have to get to school quite so early. Usually, I have blueberries left, and this is what I do with them. It’s well worth the effort.
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Ready for the oven

Recipes in this post

• Potatoes Anna

There are three of us, Stephen, Spane and me. Stephen, although an adult, is picky, and doesn’t like a lot of foods (won’t eat sautéed Rex Sole with Grapefruit Caper Butter). Thankfully, Spane who is five years old, likes just about everything.

We were supposed to go to brunch this morning, and I completely forgot. I started cleaning the house, doing other chores, etc., and I just didn’t feel like taking a bath and getting ready. I wanted to make something nice at home, like scrambled eggs and some left over bacon. We were out of eggs, so I sent the boys to the store.

They came back with eggs, three huge russet potatoes and Pillsbury Orange Glaze rolls. Yes, the perfect setup for brunch at home. But, it needed a star, and I decided the star should be Potatoes Anna.

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