I’m excited to share my latest culinary adventure with the freshest Sweet Georgia peaches from Kroger! Today, we whipped up one of my signature Dutch baby pancakes topped with a fresh peach and thyme compote. It’s a perfect blend of sweet and savory flavors that scream summer! Dive into this seasonal treat with me and discover the freshness of Kroger’s peaches firsthand.

Fresh Peach and Thyme Compote

Ingredients:

• 4-5 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced (about 4 cups)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar (adjust based on sweetness of peaches)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Peel the peaches using a sharp knife and remove the pits. Slice some of the peaches into thin slices and leave some in larger chunks or wedges. Set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the sliced and chunked peaches with the sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, thyme leaves, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt. Stir gently to combine all the ingredients.
3. Place the saucepan over medium heat and bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and ensure even cooking.
4. Let the compote simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until the peaches are tender and the mixture has thickened slightly. If the compote seems too thick, you can add a tablespoon or two of water during cooking.
5. Remove the compote from heat and let it cool slightly. 
6. Serve warm or chilled as a topping for yogurt, ice cream, pancakes, or waffles.

Storage:

Store any leftover compote in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week. Enjoy your delicious peach-thyme compote with the perfect balance of sweet peaches and aromatic thyme!

The post Recipe: Fresh Peach and Thyme Compote appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

Last week yours truly appeared on WOSU’s Broad & High in the Kate’s Quick Bites segment with host Kate Quickel. I taught Kate how to make Dutch babies (see our Dutch baby recipe here!), and we chatted about the programs offered at the Greater Columbus Arts Council, where I work!

I encourage you to watch the full episode, but if you want to skip ahead, my segment starts at 12:41.

Here are a few behind-the-scenes shots:

Tune in to Broad & High every Thursday evening at 8 p.m. on WOSU TV!

The post Making Dutch Babies on WOSU’s Broad & High appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

Making the Most of Leftover Night

Let’s cut to the chase: ours is a busy family, what with work, school, extracurricular activities, a new puppy. So meal planning is a necessary part of our weekly routine. We have a small chalkboard menu taped to our fridge listing the week’s tentative menu, so the boys know what to expect and so we can best plan shopping trips.

We typically plan at least one night – often a Thursday or a Sunday – for leftovers. And there is nothing more satisfying to us than getting to the end of a busy work week, seeing “leftovers” on the meal schedule, and actually being able to use them up. And, if we can transform them into something new and delicious, even better!

I think every family is in the same boat when it comes to home cooking. By the end of the week you  often have small containers of ingredients like sautéed onions or peppers, a mostly empty bag of shredded cheese, maybe half a can of black beans, or even a take-out carton of rice. It’s painful to see these go to waste, but it’s so easy to push them to the back of the fridge – and if you’re not careful, eventually toss them out when you get around to cleaning things out.

An Easy Recipe for Catch-All Quiche

But we try our best to eliminate food waste in our family, and one of our tried-and-true methods is to take these separate items and make them into something our kids won’t turn a nose up to: we mix them into a delicious quiche! We’ve found that most foods go well with eggs (add bacon, and it’s even better!). We usually have a frozen pie crust on hand (maybe for our family favorite dessert Chocolate Angel Strata?), and eggs are a staple in our house.

Ingredients

Although there are no hard and fast rules for quiche, we always try to include three ingredients (besides the eggs):

1. a cheese
2. a seasoned/spicy item
3. a veggie.

We haven’t yet found a cheese that doesn’t work with quiche, so throw in whatever you have – most recently we found a chunk of aged cheddar.

For the seasoned item, this can be a meat like bacon or sausage, or maybe an excess recipe ingredient from the week. In our dish, we used spiced and sautéed poblano peppers from a taco night. And, finally, some type of veggie adds great texture and a bright flavor. This can be as easy as a few tablespoons of salsa or an over-ripe tomato that didn’t quite make it into the bowl earlier in the week!

Directions

• Sprinkle the ingredients evenly in the pie crust first
• Mix in 7-8 eggs (seasoned with salt and pepper), and then pour over the ingredients in the pie crust
• Top the mixture with a little extra cheese

• Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until the middle doesn’t jiggle. (Pro-tip: set the pie crust on a large cookie sheet, to catch any overflow from the quiche.)

Quiche can be served either hot or cold and ALSO makes great leftovers!

How to Save Food and Reduce Waste with SWACO!

If you are interested in more food-saving ideas, SWACO offers loads of ideas on their Save More Than Food page. Can you believe that Central Ohioans send a million pounds of food waste to the landfill every single day? SWACO has put together simple and intentional steps that are easy to make part of your daily routine, such as:

• Fridge Night prompts families to collect leftovers and look for creative ideas to bring them together. It also lets families properly freeze and date any leftovers they can’t use right away.
• Label foods and leftovers that need to be eaten soon or place them within eyesight.
• Make leftovers new again by visiting SaveMoreThanFood.org to find a leftover recipe to demonstrate or try.
• Shopping more frequently and with a list reduces cost and waste. Creating meal plans makes those trips much easier.
• Proper food storage allows herbs, milk, cheese, fruits, and vegetables to have a much longer life in refrigerators.

Disclaimer: this post was sponsored by SWACO. Photos and opinions are our own.

The post How to Reduce Food Waste and Use Those Leftovers in the Fridge appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

Culinary quarantine projects have abounded this year. We’ve seen friends and family tackle sourdough bread, jar and pickle everything in sight, refine their grilling techniques.

Our wonderful local restaurants have obliged, too, by shifting to carryout cocktails, perfecting their takeout game, and offering family meal kits. Early on during the shutdowns, Lauren Culley, one of the owners of Fox in the Snow Cafe, generously offered her recipes for first her buttermilk biscuits and then her towering chocolate chip cookies. We gladly took up the biscuit challenge multiple times. They’re not as beautiful as Lauren’s, but they’re fun to make and certainly delicious.

Lauren collaborated with Aftermarq to produce a pair of fun and informative videos about the recipes. You can see both videos and recipes on their site here. If you’re making the biscuits, I’d definitely recommend watching the video first, as she shares some extra tips there. See it below:

The great thing about the recipe is that you’ll always have the ingredients on hand: flour, eggs, butter, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cream. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can easily make your own: just mix one tablespoon of lemon juice into one cup of milk, stir, and let sit.

Lauren’s recipe has you barely pulsing the butter into the dry ingredients: she aims to get nickel-sized chunks of butter in the dough. Then it’s a process and folding and refolding and folding again in order to build those layers.

The biscuits feel like heavy hockey pucks when they’re ready. They get coated in a heavy cream-egg yolk mixture, and at this point they can either go straight in the oven or in the freezer. I made a few batches for a trip, freezing them on parchment paper-lined trays, then packing them into freezer bags. You can then pop them in the oven right from the freezer.

Ideally, the biscuits will come out as these golden brown, flaky towers like Lauren’s. But she’s the expert, not me. Despite my best efforts, mine have tended to slip, but again – they still taste great.

My best results have come from freezing the biscuits first, and from making sure – as Lauren suggests – than you cut straight down without twisting the cutter.

Regardless of how tall and proud or squat and funny the biscuits turn out, they’re always a buttery, flaky delight to eat.

The only modification we made is to reduce the amount of salt (we’ve done one tablespoon as opposed to Lauren’s one tablespoon + one teaspoon); the first batch tasted just a touch too salty to us. (EDIT: I may have just realized that that one teaspoon is for topping the biscuits when they’re done, and not for the dough itself. Hang with me, folks, I’ll get there eventually.)

Perhaps the best part is drizzling the biscuits with rich honey butter glaze when they’re hot out of the oven.

We’ve followed Lauren’s lead and filled them with homemade strawberry jam.

And then we’ve left off the honey drizzle and served them with homemade sausage gravy – also amazing.

Thanks to Lauren for sharing her recipe and expertise! You can find it, along with an instructional video, here.

The post Baking Those Fox in the Snow Biscuits appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

I want to introduce you to chocolate angel strata. You may have seen it popping up on my Instagram from time and time. It’s a chocolate and cinnamon meringue pie that’s been a staple of my family since childhood. I’m not even sure when it became a thing for us, or where the name came from. (“Chocolate” is obvious, and “strata” make sense because it’s layered, but the “angel” – not sure). I just know that whenever the extended family got together around birthdays, my Grandma Dekker would make it.

Over the years, as our families have grown, making chocolate angel strata has been a rite of passage from my parents to my siblings and our spouses. It’s the signature taste of any birthday for us, but I’ve found myself making it as a form of comfort from time to time. With the permission of my family, I wanted to present our recipe. Enjoy!

NOTE: I usually double everything and make two pies at once, because… well, you’ll see.

Ingredients

• 1 baked pie crust
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1/2 tsp vinegar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon*
• 3/4 cup white sugar*
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup melted chocolate chips
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

*these ingredients will be split between steps

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Meringue

2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar

Beat egg whites, vinegar, salt, and cinnamon together until soft mounds form. Add 1/2 cup sugar gradually; beat until you have stiff glossy peaks. Spread in crust, bake at 325 for 15-18 minutes or until it turns lightly brown on top. Let cool completely.

Chocolate

1 cup chocolate chips
2 slightly beaten egg yolks
1/4 cup water

Melt chocolate chips in a bowl. Mix egg yolks and water together, then stir slowly into melted chips until smooth. Spread 3 tbs of the mixture onto cooled meringue. Save the rest.

White mousse

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Beat above until thick, spread half over chocolate layer.

Chocolate mousse

Take remaining chocolate and fold into remaining white mousse until completely mixed, then spread over white mousse layer.

Chill for 20-30 minutes, then serve!

Chocolate angel strata is delightfully rich. A little bit goes a long way. But I promise you the pie won’t last long.

And if your family is anything like mine, you might occasionally find the pie like this. And, honestly, I can’t blame my kids.

The post Recipe: Chocolate Angel Strata appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

One of our goals for 2020 was to reduce food waste through better meal planning and by trying new preparations for familiar foods. When you’re meal-planning for a busy family, this can takes a concerted effort.

Fortunately, Misfits Market, a new produce delivery service, has entered the Columbus market. Misfits makes it a mission to reduce food waste by purchasing fruits and vegetables that were deemed unfit for grocery store shelves. The produce is perfectly good to eat; it’s just slightly misshapen or too large or too small. They redirect the produce to consumers through home delivery, so it’s not just thrown out.

Misfits boxes come in two sizes, The Mischief ($22 for 10-13 pounds of produce) and The Madness ($35 for 18-22 pounds). They shared a couple Mischief boxes with us, and we found it to be a great way to challenge ourselves by introducing new foods and new ways to augment our meal planning.

Like a traditional CSA, you don’t quite know what you’re getting each week, so you have to be ready to roll with the punches. We found ourselves preparing a lot of these items as snacks or sides to our meals. It’s good to plan how you’re doing to use the items, so they don’t go waste.

Generally, though, the shipments should be a fun match for someone who likes cooking, likes to try different recipes, like surprises and is flexible in their meal planning.

Through our two shipments we received oranges and apples, cucumbers and celery, potatoes and pears, onions and squash, mangos and green beans, and many more.

One night, for instance, we were whipping up fish cake sandwiches and roasted the green beans and sweet potatoes as a side.

We tried to make the green beans more attractive to our boys by mixing them with orzo pasta, butter, and sea salt. And everyone loves sweet potato fries!

Another night we roasted some of our Misfits veggies as a side. We tackled the beets and the eggplant because people often shy away from them. Beets in particular are very healthy. We peeled them, chopped them up, tossed them in olive oil, and roasted them.

The eggplant we sliced in half, then cross-hatched it like an avocado or mango, and drizzled it with olive oil and Italian seasoning. This preparation makes it easy to scoop out as a side; and it allows you to taste the eggplant better than other preparations like breading and frying it.

Using these Misfits veggies demonstrated the ease of adding healthy nutrients to a dish that wouldn’t be considered very nutrient-filled, like a basic pasta and red sauce.

For another meal, we simply roasted potatoes and served them as a side, or saved them to serve with eggs and bacon at breakfast.

It one shipment we received delicata squashes. These are common squashes often seen in the fall at farmers markets, recognizable by their yellow skin and green stripes.

We prepared them like acorn squash, halving them and scooping out the seeds.

Then we added butter and brown sugar, and roasted them ~45 minutes at 350 degrees until golden brown and soft.

We then laid out the roasted squash like a baked potato bar! This is a great way to clean out the fridge and use up other leftovers and ingredients. We used leftover pulled pork, avocados, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream.

Want to try Misfits Market for yourself? You can get 30% off your first box with the code CMH30. Look up the boxes and schedule your order here.

Disclaimer: this post was sponsored by Misfits Market. Photos and opinions are our own.

The post Making the Most of Your Produce with Misfits Market appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

By Mrs. Breakfast With Nick

Every time my sister-in-law and I get together to do a bulk freezer cooking day, I get asked questions about how we do it: what recipes we use, which containers to get, what is our process? But I always get stuck on how to teach or explain something that we’ve done so often it’s almost second nature.

Well, I’ve decided to try! First things first:

We don’t use recipes!

I know! It’s scary at first, but this food is hard to mess up, I promise! I know it sounds crazy, and I totally understand there are people out there that need to – and enjoy – following recipes for everything they cook. I certainly do, sometimes! But we have made these specific meals so many times that we have adapted the originals to fit our needs, the containers, and – crazily enough – the package amounts that certain foods come in!

Efficiency is King (or Queen, as the case may be)

I aim for efficiency in our bulk cooking days, mainly because I think it’s less overwhelming and it feels more do-able, so I want to do it more often.

It can be hard to think about individual recipes and tasks when you are making several at a time, but that is generally the most efficient way to bulk cook. And, when two meals use one ingredient (rice, beef, etc..) it can be challenging to think about exact amounts and whether you’re dividing everything up perfectly. 

A few tips:

1. Be prepared: Go grocery shopping a few days before your cooking day, and get everything you need. When in doubt of the quantity, get two. You don’t want to have to run out when you’re up to your elbows in tasks.
2. Keep it loose: Choose recipes that are flexible and that won’t change drastically if you throw in another handful of veggies or rice.
3. Finish it up: Work to “use up” packages of food., i.e., instead of seeing “two cups of chopped carrots” and grabbing the measuring cup, think what you could do to use up the full 1# bag of carrots. Can you add more beef or celery? There is something satisfying about going through a full package of something, because then you’re not trying to find places for 1/2 onion or a cup of cooked rice.
4. Lists: I am convinced that decision fatigue is one of the main reasons people don’t get more done in a day. By following a well-laid out grocery list, and a day-of prep list, it makes the whole experience smoother and – dare I say it? – more fun!
5. Support: It always helps to have a few extra people to help with clean up, assembly, and trash/recycling duty.

The Process

I’ve written out our process as closely as I can below, but obviously that can change slightly, as helpers may come and go over the course of your time. What we do is, as soon as we have one of the components of the meals prepped, we hand it off for “assembly,” which usually means spooning it into dishes or making burritos. Then we can continue making the other components.

The Meals

• Chicken, Rice, Broccoli Bake: 8 small casseroles
• Lasagna Roll Ups: 8 small casseroles
• Shepherd’s Pie: 8 small casseroles
• Breakfast Burritos: 20
• Meat Burritos: 20
• Veggies Burritos: 10
• Crock Pot Stew: 5 bags

Shopping

I always shop a few days ahead, but I don’t prep much other than that. By keeping your mess and chaos all to one day, it feels less stressful and less likely to bleed into other activities in your life.

ALDI (Yep, ALDI) List: $130

• Cilantro – 1 bunch
• Carrots – 1 bag
• Celery – 1 bag
• Onions – 1 bag
• Bell peppers – 3
• Broccoli – 4 stalks
• Yukon Gold potatoes – 5#
• Shredded cheddar cheese – 3# bag
• Shredded mozzarella cheese – 3# bag
• 2% Milk – 1/2 gallon
• Eggs – 2 dozen
• Butter – 2#
• Ricotta – 3 16-oz containers
• Sour Cream – 1 16-oz container
• Shredded parmesan cheese – 2 containers
• Flour tortillas – 5 bags
• Refried beans – 6 cans
• Tomato paste – 1 cans
• Crushed tomatoes – 1 can
• White rice – 1 3# bag
• Chicken broth – 2 quarts
• Tomato juice – 1/2 gallon
• Lasagna noodles – 3 boxes
• Marinara sauce – 3 jars
• Gallon freezer bags – 1 box
• Foil – 1 box
• Sausage – 2 packages
• Ground beef – 6#
• Beef chuck roast – 4#
• Frozen peas – 2 bags
• Frozen mixed veggies – 4 bags

Dollar Tree: $8

• 3-for-$1 small size foil pans with flat lids: 8 packs

Other Grocery Store: $12

• 2 Rotisserie chickens

From My Pantry

• Salt 
• Pepper
• AP flour
• Italian seasoning
• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Taco seasoning
• Meat seasoning

Kitchen Tools

• Bowls
• Large saucepan
• Large pot
• Spoons
• Flat whisk
• Spatulas
• Potato masher

Order of Prep

1. Boil a big pot of water
2. Put 1/2 bag of rice into rice cooker to cook
3. Start browning ground beef in large pan
4. Peel potatoes and carrots
5. Put potatoes in water to cook
6. Chop carrots, celery, and onions into stew-sized-pieces
7. Chop broccoli into florets
8. Chop bell peppers into smaller pieces
9. Chop cilantro 
10. Cut chuck roast into stew-sized-pieces
11. Pull rotisserie chicken
12. Steam broccoli
13. Drain potatoes and mash with butter, sour cream, and salt
14. Boil pot of water
15. Drain ground beef and mix 1/2 of it with the can of crushed tomatoes, 1 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 tablespoon onion powder, and 1 can tomato paste
16. Brown sausage in large pan
17. Sauté bell peppers 
18. ASSEMBLE Shepherd’s Pies by layering beef first, mixed veggies, and mashed potatoes on top
19. Put lasagna noodles on to boil
20. Open refried beans and put into bowl
21. Mix rice with chopped cilantro and salt
22. Mix remainder of ground beef with 2 tablespoons taco seasoning 
23. ASSEMBLE Beef Burritos: refried beans, beef, cilantro rice, cheese, and wrap in foil (place in gallon freezer bags). (20 burritos)
24. ASSEMBLE Veggie Burritos: refried beans, veggies, cilantro rice, cheese, wrap in foil (place in gallon freezer bags). (10 burritos)
25. Drain lasagna noodles, rinse with cold water
26. Make béchamel white sauce: 1 stick of butter, melted, stir in 1/2 cup flour until slightly toasty, add 1/2 quart broth, stir until combined, then the other 1/2, stir until heated, and thin with 1/4 gallon of milk. Salt and pepper to taste.
27. Mix chicken with remainder of rice, peas, broccoli, and 1/2 white sauce.
28. ASSEMBLE Chicken and Rice Casserole: divide equally into foil pans. Top with 1/2 cup or so of white sauce.
29. Scramble 2 dozen eggs until just barely dry, put in bowl
30. Mix ricotta with 1 container shredded parmesan, Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper. 
31. Layer 1/4 cup of tomato sauce in bottom of (5) casserole pans 
32. ASSEMBLE Lasagna Roll-ups by spreading a spoonful of ricotta mixture onto flat noodles, rolling up and placing in pan on sauce. Fill pan, then top with 1 cup of sauce and handful of mozzarella cheese.
33. ASSEMBLE Breakfast Burritos: refried beans, eggs, sausage, cheese, wrap in foil (place in gallon freezer bags). (20 burritos)
34. ASSEMBLE Crock Pot Beef Stew Bags: divide beef, celery, carrots, onions into 5 gallon freezer bags, top with 1 teaspoon salt and pepper, meat seasoning, and 1 cup of tomato sauce.
35. Label everything! Name the casserole, and write “defrost, 350 degrees for 30 minutes” on each. Label the bags of burritos, 10 in each, and the beef crock pot stew bags.
36. Freeze the beef stew flat and be careful not to stack the casseroles more than 2 tall before they are frozen solid.

The post Bulk Cooking: A Simple How-To appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

Disclaimer: this post was sponsored by Panwaffle. Photos and opinions are our own.

It should be no surprise that, as a breakfast-loving family, we enjoy making breakfast at home. Most mornings we whip up scrambled eggs, breakfast sandwiches, and the occasional eggs in a nest.

On weekends we’ll play around a little more, and our 11-year-old Will especially loves making anything sweet. He’s an expert at French toast, and he works the waffle iron like a champ.

Some days he can’t decide which sweet breakfast he’d like to make, so of course we found it amusing when we were introduced to the Panwaffle.

The gimmick with the Panwaffle is that it ends the debate between waffles or pancakes. It’s a hinged, non-stick pan that features both flat and molded sections. With one pour of batter, you get a creation that’s part-waffle, part-pancake.

We’ve been tinkering with the pan for a few weeks and have had some fun with it. We’ll whip up our own homemade batter or use a boxed mix. Either way, it’s business as usual – you don’t have to modify the recipe for the pan.

Once get the pan is warmed up with a medium heat on the stovetop – and in our experience you don’t have to grease it – you fill the center section with batter and close the lid. It’ll push the batter to out the edges, automatically creating both the waffle and the pancake effect.

In our experience, you need to flip the pan halfway through, otherwise one side of the waffle doesn’t get as browned as we prefer.

While they’re cooking, we’ll whisk up some homemade whipped cream.

And we’ll prep all sorts of toppings: fresh fruit, shaved coconut, chocolate chips, and real maple syrup.

The panwaffles are easy enough to make, and they cook pretty quickly, so you can set up pancake/waffle bar and let everyone top and drizzle to their heart’s content.

It terms of consistency, it’s more like a pancake than a waffle; you can leave the pan on the oven longer to get that signature waffle crisp, but then you risk over-cooking the pancake. And no one wants that, right?

Still, the end product looks pretty fun. It’s hard to resist a decent pancake, especially with fresh whipped cream, fruit, and maple syrup.

The Panwaffle comes apart easily, and has been very easy to clean. It has rubber handles that insulate well. The whole contraption can also go in the dishwasher.

Interested in trying the Panwaffle for yourself? You can find it on Amazon and on Shopify. Get it through Shopify with the code BfastFam and you’ll get $5 off your order!

Happy Breakfasting!

Disclaimer: this post was sponsored by Panwaffle. Photos and opinions are our own.

The post Can’t Decide Between Pancakes or Waffles? The Panwaffle Is Here! appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

This post is sponsored by Deejo. Photos and opinions are our own!

We’ve found that one of the most useful tools you can carry with you is a knife. Beth has carried a knife with her since her days working as a floral designer. Will is allowed to use his knife in Cub Scout activities after earning his Whittling Chip. I remember my grandfather always had a knife with him; he always had it at the ready to help open Christmas presents.

With the weather turning warmer, we’re looking forward to using our backyard firepit to do some campfire cooking. And a good knife always comes in handy.

Fortunately, the folks from Deejo, an online knife company that lets your customize your own products, invited us to create our own knife and try it out. So we put it to use making a campfire steak and eggs skillet!

Cooking on a skillet is the best! Just throw it all together in one pan.

Steak and eggs over the campfire is simple. You just need:

• 1 pound New York strip steak, trimmed of fat and cut into 1” cubes
• Handful of red potatoes, diced
• 2 bell peppers, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped OR 1/2 cup scallions, chopped
• 5 large eggs
• bacon fat (or ghee)
• Salt and fresh cracked pepper

Once you get a nice bed of coals (you don’t want open flame), throw a couple tablespoons bacon fat (or butter or ghee) into the pan and let it melt. Then toss in the steak and crack salt and pepper over it.

You don’t want to overcook the steak, because you’ll throw it back in the pan later. We used our Deejo knife to check the pieces for done-ness.

Once the meat is done, pull it from the pan and keep it covered with foil. Throw more bacon fat/butter into the pan, then toss in your vegetables and potatoes.

Make sure you include a couple different types of bell peppers. I love the color.

Keep an eye on your potatoes. You’ll want to make sure they’re soft enough to cut easily with a knife.

Once your potatoes are done well enough, add the steak back to the pan and mix it all together.

Make little wells in mixture, then crack some eggs into them! You can drop a little extra fat into the wells first, if you like. We’re lucky enough to partner with Copia Farms, so we used some of their beautiful eggs.

We then laid a sheet pan over the top to essentially steam the eggs.

We wanted to firm up the whites but leave the yolks runny. The eggs will cook quickly, so keep an eye on them!

And if you do it just right, you can poke the yokes and get that perfect Instagram shot.

Pull the skillet from the fire and then dig in! The potatoes, peppers, and onions should get a good crust from the pan. Stab that yolk and mix up it with everything, add a little salt and pepper to taste, and you’re good to go!

Having a knife handy while cooking is important. If you’re looking for a fun Father’s Day gift, take a look at Deejo’s website. They let you customize everything from the weight to the blade’s finish, the design on it, and the handle.

It’s fun just to tinker around and try different combinations!

Disclaimer: this post was sponsored by Deejo. Photos and opinions are our own.

Campfire Steak & Eggs Skillet

Ingredients

• 1 pound New York strip steak, trimmed of fat and cut into 1” cubes
• Handful of red potatoes, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 bell pepper (any color) diced
• 1 onion, chopped OR 1/2 cup scallions, chopped
• 5 large eggs
• bacon fat
• Salt and fresh cracked pepper

Instructions

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat in a large cast-iron pan over medium to high heat. Season the steak with salt and pepper, and place in the pan. Cook for about 3 minutes. Remove from pan and place under foil to rest.
2. Add 2 more tablespoons of bacon fat into the pan and stir in the potatoes, peppers, onions/scallions. Stir to cook until just browning, and then stir in the steak.
3. Make 5 wells in the hash and put small pats of bacon fat into them, crack one egg into each well. Cover pan with lid or large cookie sheet, until the whites are set and the yolks are done to your taste.

The post Campfire Steak & Eggs Skillet with a Deejo Knife appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

First step, I had to go to Weiland’s and get some more because, well, see above… Then I found the perfect combination to serve my obvious obsession with this spread and the hubby’s obvious obsession with breakfast: Jalapeno Fig Stuffed French Toast.

I started with a loaf of French bread – glad I remembered that Alton Brown recommends that you should use 1 or 2 day old bread, so that it is a bit dry and will suck up the egg and milk mixture well. At this time, turn your oven on and prep a cookie sheet lined with a piece of parchment paper in the oven.

Using a serrated knife (sharpened by our friendly neighborhood knife sharpener Blades of Glory), I sliced the loaf into 1.5″ pieces.

Then make a cut in one of the short ends and create a pocket for deliciousness by slicing the center of the soft part of the bread.

Take about 3/4 of the jar and mix it in with the mascarpone cheese.

Taking a thin spatula or a spoon, put about 2 TBS of filling into each slice of bread. Make sure you have plenty of vanilla wafers on hand to eat the remaining mixture…

Stack up your stuffed bread pockets and get a picture!

Mix up the French toast batter by adding the remaining ingredients to a wide bowl and whisking until well combined.

Lay your stuffed bread into the bowl, letting the goodness soak into each side.

This is where it really helps to have day-or-two old bread, it acts like a sponge. Into the hot pan! We used a few pats of melted butter because delicious, but you can use cooking spray as well.

Use tongs or a spatula to flip each after each side turns toasty brown.

We like to use a cast iron pan because it creates a beautiful caramelized crust on each side.

You’ll notice that the middle of each doesn’t feel quite cooked – that’s where the oven comes into play!

Set each piece onto the cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes. We used staggered timers to space out each pair of French toasts.

Serve with powdered sugar, the remaining mascarpone spread goodness and drizzle with a bit of the warmed up spread. Perfection.

JALAPENO FIG STUFFED FRENCH TOAST

Servings: 6

Ingredients
6 Slices of Rustic Italian Bread sliced about 1 1/2 inch thick
6 oz Mascarpone, softened
1 Jar Bellisari’s Blistered Jalapeno & Fig Spread
8 Large Eggs
1 Cup Whole Milk
1 Cup Half-and-Half
2 Tbsp Granulated Sugar
1 Tbsp Pure Vanilla Extract
¼ Tsp Kosher Salt
Canola Oil Cooking Spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place in oven to heat.

With your paring knife, make a slit to form a pocket in the breads slices, being extra careful not to cut all the way through.

For each individual serving, use a mixture of 2 tablespoons of Bellisari’s Blistered Jalapeno & Fig Spread along with 2 tablespoons of mascarpone cheese. Carefully spread inside the pocket of each slice.

Combine the eggs, milk, half and half, vanilla and salt to make your dipping mixture. Dip each stuffed piece into the bowl, soaking on both sides.

Spray skillet with cooking spray and gently lay each piece unto the skillet. Brown each side for 3 minutes. Place each piece of French toast into oven on cookie sheet. Cook each for 8 minutes until cooked through. (Staggered timers help with this step, as each piece comes out of the pan.) Heat remaining fig spread over low heat and remove, thin with a few TBS of water if needed. Place slices of French toast on serving tray and spoon remaining Bellisari’s Blistered Jalapeno & Fig Spread and mascarpone spread mixture on each slice.

Disclaimer: this post was sponsored by Bellisari’s. Photos and opinions are our own.

The post Recipe: Bellisari’s Jalapeno Fig Stuffed French Toast appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

I am a huge fan of almond anything, and it’s even better when it’s wrapped in flaky pastry. The other great thing about this is that it makes eight sticks of banket, which is the perfect amount for our extended family Christmas celebration, BUT they can also be made ahead and frozen. So, you can always have banket in the freezer, ready to thaw and freshly bake when the mood strikes. And the mood WILL strike.

To start, combine 3 sticks of butter, 4 cups of flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1 cup of water using your favorite pastry-combining method. This can be using 2 knives to chop the butter into the flour, pulsing with a food processor, or a pastry blender. The main idea is not to work it too much, so that there are bits of butter surrounded by flour and held together by water.

Pat it into a ball. Divide this ball in half, then those in half, and then those in half until you get 8 balls. Chill for at least an hour, or overnight. I like to shape them into oblongs so they are really easy to roll out when you go to do so.

**Dutch note: In our recipe, and in many others I’ve found, there is direction to mix the pastry dough more than you normally would for most pie crusts or delicate pastry. I have done it both ways and it comes out pretty similar.

Mix the almond paste, sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, and 3 eggs & 1 egg yolk together.

I find this easiest in a stand mixer, after crumbling the almond paste with your fingers into pea-sized pieces first. Stick it in the fridge to firm up a bit.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees, and cover 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Take one ball of dough and start rolling and flattening it into a long oblong rectangle, roughly 3″ wide and 18″ long. Nick remembers his maternal grandmother’s Banket being a bit wider, more like a cake-shape. Grandma Dekker and his mother make it thinner like shown.

Spoon 1/8 of the almond paste mixture into the center of the pastry strip, leaving about 1/2″ around the edges.

Pinch the sides together, using a little bit of water as the “glue” to make them stick.

Try to seal it up as much as you can. This will help keep the almond paste in as it cooks. This isn’t a HUGE deal, as you’ll see later…

Once you have it sealed, flip it over and brush it with the remaining egg white, and sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until it is golden brown. So beautiful!

Do you see where the almond filling has leaked out and browned up a bit? Yeeeaaahh… I’ve never been able to perfectly seal the edges enough to keep it all in. The secret to banket is that THOSE are the BEST PARTS. Trust me.

BANKET
3 sticks chilled butter
4 cups flour
1 cup water
1/2 tsp salt

1# almond paste (2 cups)
1.5 cups sugar
4 medium eggs (1 egg white saved)
1/2 tsp salt

1. Combine butter, flour, water, and salt using your favorite pastry method. Chill for a few hours or overnight.
2. Crumble the almond paste and mix with the sugar, eggs, and salt and chill for an hour.
3. Divide dough and filling into 8 even sections; also divide the one stick of butter into 8 even pieces.
4. Roll dough into long rectangles, adding 1 remaining piece of butter into each. Brush egg white over the top of each stick just before baking.
5. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

Can be frozen and thawed in fridge before baking.

The post Recipe: Banket appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

This post is sponsored by OhioPork.org. Opinions (and that delicious top photo) are our own!

I admit, I have been a very lazy cook this summer – it has been so crazy hot and humid that heating up our oven for meals is the last thing I want to do. Our dinners the last few months have all centered around a theme: easy to prepare with as little heat as possible. My favorite of these are ones where you put a bunch of seemingly disparate things on a plate and they magically taste delicious together. Ok, obviously not everything goes together all the time, but I’ve learned to lean on a few key ingredients to anchor the meal.

• Avocados: We all know these are little green bites of heaven by now, right? They just work with EVERYTHING – meats, veggies, salads, burritos, breakfast, appetizers…! You can’t go wrong.
  • Pro Tip: Mash into your favorite bean and rice dish, or use the mixture as a burrito filling.

• Eggs: Listen, I know I’m a bit biased, based on family obligation to all things breakfast, but eggs seriously go with everything. Almost any preparation works, but impress your guests (or kiddos) with a 6-minute-egg where the whites are cooked but the yolk stays runny.
  • Pro Tip: For 6-minute-eggs, bring a small pot of water to a boil, gently lay the eggs in (we do 6 at a time), and set timer for 6 minutes. When it dings, lift into a ice water bath for a minute or two, and carefully peel right away.

• Cheese: Again, do we need to talk about how awesome cheese is?
  • Pro Tip: It sounds silly, but slicing cheese in different ways can be fun and take a dish up a notch – try wedges, long strings, cubes, or my fancy favorite – shards. (It makes a dish taste better when you describe it plated with “shards of sharp cheddar.” Trust me.)

• Pork: I am super lucky to have a talented brother who has been dabbling with smoking meats for the last several years. We have enjoyed the fruits – or meats – of his labor, especially in the form of his delicious pulled pork, slow smoked over several hours. We use it in absolutely everything, from sandwiches to omelets, salads to rice.
  • Pro Tip: Pulled pork freezes great – we vacuum seal and freeze meal-sized portions for quick and easy dinners.

The meal pictured above started with red beans and rice with a little smoked pulled pork, avocados, and 6-minute eggs. We added seasonal roasted peppers from Lucky’s Market, fresh heirloom tomatoes from our garden, and shards (ooohhyyeahh) of smoked gouda. And a delicious meal was had by all, with nary an oven turned on.

How do you like to cook with pork? The Ohio Pork Council is offering you the chance to win a LeCreuset Dutch Oven if you fill out their quick survey. To enter, just click the image or click here to complete the survey.

The post Recipe: Pulled Pork appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

Ok, so I feel kind of silly writing up a “recipe” for this one-pan meal. It’s one we make all the time, usually at the end of the week, and its sole purpose is to clean out the fridge of leftovers, baggies of cut veggies, jars of salsa, and roto chicken. By nature, it changes all the time, and it is never the same twice. But it’s DELICIOUS. It somehow always turns out great. So, it may be more of a “process” than a “recipe,” but you’ll thank me either way!

I like to start with a pepper and onion, which I always seem to have around. I have tried it with green, yellow, and red pepper and sweet, white, and red onions, and have been happy with any combo. I dice and sauté them in a little olive oil until they are soft. At this same time, I start 2 cups of rice in my rice cooker and grab 2 cans of black beans out of the pantry.

Then I see what else I have laying around! This week was a good one – we had some tomatoes, limes, and cilantro from guacamole I was going to make but didn’t (because some little boy ate all the avocados), leftover sweet potato fries, and a half of a roto chicken. JACKPOT. Everything gets chopped up, and the limes get squeezed.

And then, everyone in the pool! (I personally like to drain my black beans before I use them, but you can leave it if you like it a bit soupier.)

We somehow always end up with 2 or 3 half-used jars of salsa in our fridge, and they make the BEST seasoning (and sauce) for this dish. Just empty them into the pan, and if you need a bit more seasoning, I always have some taco or salsa seasoning on hand to spice it up a bit.

One of our favorite things to top our black beans and rice with is a 6-minute egg. They’re really easy to make, and they seem to make everything better. We get a small pot of water to a rolling boil and drop a few eggs in. Start the timer for 6 minutes.

Once time is up, scoop them out and put them into an ice bath to stop the cooking.

And the best part is the toppings – we love the 6-minute eggs, sour cream, avocado, lime, salsa, and tortilla chips. It’s a crowd-pleaser, every time. AND it makes great grilled burritos the next day! Enjoy!

This post was sponsored by Door To Door Organics, now delivering in Ohio! Sign up to get home deliveries here!

Want to win $50 to try Door To Door? Comment below by midnight Tuesday, March 22 with your favorite quick recipe! (You don’t have to list the whole recipe – just tell us what you like to make!)

The post Recipe: Black Beans & Rice appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

First things first: I’m of Dutch descent. My great-grandparents came over from the Netherlands and settled around the Midwest. So when we talk about Dutch babies (known to many as German pancakes) I cannot – nay, I will not! – resist making jokes about it. I mean, what am I do when someone utters the phrase, “Let’s make some Dutch babies?” I’m helpless.

But on to the focus of this post. We like making Dutch babies. (Ha ha haaaa! See?!) We think the best Dutch baby pancake recipe comes from our friend Sam at the blog Pie Are Round. The pancakes are easy to make, but they come out looking really impressive. See above.

How to Make Dutch Baby Pancakes

INGREDIENTS

6 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon

All ingredients you have in your cupboard already. The milk and eggs – as Sam suggests – are best at room temperature, so I often set them out a half hour or so ahead of time.

INSTRUCTIONS

Before you do anything, pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees and throw in the cast iron pan – I use the largest pan we have.

Then it’s simply a matter of mixing everything. I like to whisk together the dry ingredients first, then add the wet ingredients one by one, and whisk by hand until the batter is smooth.

When your batter is ready, pull out the pan and toss in a couple tablespoons of butter, and tip it around to coat the bottom.

Then pour all the batter in (use a spatula to scrape the sides of your mixing bowl!), slide the pan back in the oven, and set the timer for 18-20 minutes. I’ve had better luck on the lower end, especially when using a convection oven. Try to lower the shelf, too, to keep the pancake away from the upper heating element, as it puffs up.

In my experience, if you let it go above 20 minutes, the puffed up edges start to burn.

But if you get it right, you can impress your friends and family when whisking it out of the oven.

The Dutch baby will puff up beautifully around the edges. The bottom should be baked through but a little custardy, while the edges are crispy. You can usually slide it out easily onto a plate for serving. We like to dust it with powdered sugar.

Where you go from there is up to you! We like to cut pie-shaped slices. You can dress it up simply with maple syrup, or add jam or fruit compote, lemon juice and powdered sugar, lemon curd, or even savory ingredients like crumbled sausage and cheese. (We do the same with crepes.)

Have fun making your Dutch babies! (Ba ha haaaa!)

The post The Best Dutch Baby Pancake Recipe appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

Every time we put together our biweekly grocery order from Door to Door Organics, this recipe popped up on their site. I must have been subconsciously shopping for ingredients to make this delicious meal. I was also intrigued by the fact that this had very little in the way of spices and currys, besides the fresh ones. And, really, it’s hard to not be excited about a meal when it starts this beautiful!

Start by chopping the green onions – I did it at an angle to be fancy…not sure that it helped or not!

Chop the mushrooms, carrots, green peppers, and jalapeno into thin strips. I hesitate to say I julienned them, but I made an attempt.

For the ginger, I used my standard trick of grating a frozen ginger root to create a fine snow-like powder. It almost dissolves, and makes for a much stronger flavor than dried ginger.

I made sure to remove the seeds and ribs of the jalapenos before cutting. This helped to cut down on the heat, because we had a number of kiddos at the table for dinner.

Start by sautéing the onions, ginger, and garlic in oil. The recipe calls for canola, but I cook with coconut oil so substituted.

After a few minutes, toss everything else (besides the chicken and snow peas) and let it saute and soften.

Cube the chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces. I like using kitchen shears for this task.

Once the mixture on the stove has softened, it’s time for the chicken.

It looks like a lot, but I promise it cooks down and works out to being the right amount.

The coconut milk goes in with the broth to make it creamy.

While the soup was coming to a boil, I sliced the snow peas into strips. (The recipe called for snow peas, but if I make this again I might try sugar snap peas instead.)

And then they get stirred in as well, along with the lime zest and juice. I also threw in handfuls of chopped cilantro and chopped basil. Taste it at this point, and add in salt to your liking. I ended up adding a bit over a teaspoon.

Fill up your favorite bowl and dig in!

Thai Chicken Soup
(find the recipe here on Door To Door Organics’ site)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 TBS canola oil
• 1 cup green onions, thinly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 TBS ginger root, peeled and minced
• 1 cup carrots, thinly sliced
• 1 cup shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and sliced
• 1 jalapeno pepper, thinly sliced (seeded if you prefer less heat)
• 1/3 cup green bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 pound chicken thighs, cubed
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 14oz. can of coconut milk
• 1 TBS fish sauce, or more to taste
• salt to taste
• 1 cup sugar snap peas, thinly sliced
• 2 limes, one zested and juiced and the other quartered for garnish
• cilantro leaves, for garnish
• basil leaves, for garnish

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat the oil in a large  pot over medium-high heat. 
2. Toss in the green onions, garlic, and ginger, stirring frequently, until softened, about 4 minutes. 
3. Add carrot, jalapeño, green peppers and mushrooms and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. 
4. Add in the chicken, broth, coconut milk, and fish sauce. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cook until chicken is cooked through, 15-20 minutes. 
5. Season the broth with salt and more fish sauce, if desired. 
6. Add in the sugar snap peas. 
7. Stir in the lime zest and juice and top with fresh herbs.
8. Serve hot, with the lime wedges on the side.

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This post was sponsored by Door To Door Organics, now delivering in Ohio! Want to try a delivery yourself? Comment on this blog post by midnight on Wednesday, November 25 to enter to win a $50 gift certificate! To enter, tell us about your favorite soup you make for the winter. UPDATE: the contest is now closed!

You can also sign up here to get $10 off your first order!

The post Recipe: Thai Coconut Chicken Soup appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

It’s somewhere just after the first brisk night and before we pull out the heating blanket that we start craving some of our favorite comfort-foods. Soups, breads, roasts, they’re all in the rotation but this one – THIS ONE – tops the list.

I learned this one from one of the first and most beautiful food blogs I poured over during grad school, bread & honey. She hasn’t updated in a long time, but it is well worth taking a look back through her posts, they’re lovely.

I’ve made a few updates to her recipe, but it’s still a fairly simple one to execute and most of the ingredients are things you’ll have normally in your home. Some of the chopping can even be done ahead of time to throw it together for a quick after-work comfort meal with friends and family. Speaking of, this recipe would feed 6-8 people, and it makes great leftovers, so I don’t mind the big amount if I’m going to get the kitchen messy.

Start by dicing the “holy trinity” mirepoix of carrots, celery and onions. You’ll also want to finely chop some garlic – I use about 5-6 cloves, but I like garlic.

We generally pull a rotisserie chicken for this, but if we’re getting really fancy, we’ll roast a chicken and use part of that for this recipe, depending on the size of the chicken.

Toss the garlic and onions into a large, heavy-bottomed pot and start to soften with a hunk of butter and some olive oil. I’m using an wide oval dutch oven. I love how a cast iron enameled pot retains the heat throughout the recipe and handles the various processes of cooking (and it’s so easy to clean up!).

After a few moments, throw the carrots and celery in and stir to combine. We’re looking to get everything soft but not mushy.

This would be a good time to enlist the help of a little assistant. Please notice the “hand-behind-his-back” stance to keep safe at the stove. He’s very proud of that.

After they’re soft, grab the flour. Baby, we’re gonna make a roux. Make a little space in the center of the veggies and throw the flour in the hole.

Using a flat spatula (my FAVORITE kitchen utensil) start stirring out towards the veggies, slowly incorporating them while toasting the flour.

After a minute, begin pouring the broth in 1/2 cup at a time, while stirring, to make a thick sauce.

Keep going until all the broth is combined and the flour is dissolved.

It will be thick and creamy to coat all the veggies.

Dump the chicken into the pot and bring it to a boil.

While that is cooking, prepare the dumpling dough. This is a mix of flour, salt, baking powder, heavy cream, fresh thyme, and lemon zest. All of these things are important to make sure the dumplings are light and fluffy with tons of flavor. And, if there were any “secret” ingredients in this recipe, it would be the thyme and zest. They make the whole dish.

After combining the dry ingredients, pour in most of the heavy cream.

With a fork, stir the ingredients to combine.

Add a bit more cream and get your hands dirty. You’re wanting to get the dough to a point right before it gets too sticky to work with, and right after it feels crumbly dry. I remember bread & honey describes it as “shaggy,” which is very accurate.

After that, separate out the dough into imperfect lumps roughly 1.5-2″ round, but don’t compress them too much. They don’t have to be perfect – that’s what make this so good…

Start laying the dumplings into the pot. You’ll want to cover the top layer of soup without piling them up.

You’ll end up with a layer of dumplings just below the surface. Then, cover with a lid for 20 minutes!

This is what they should look like half way through cooking – puffy, creamy, and almost dry to the touch on top. (And try not to peek like I’m doing here!)

Once the 20 minutes is up, bask in the glory of the dumpling!

Spoon out heaping portions for you and your guests and dig in! I promise you’ll want to make it every week.

Quick meal tips:

• Most of the items are standard kitchen fare, but you may need to pick up heavy cream, lemon, and a roto chicken on your way to/from work to throw it together in a snap.
• You can chop the veggies the night before and keep in the fridge for quick sautéing the next day.
• Lime zest works just as well, and I also love fresh rosemary in the dumplings!
• In the winter, at least in Ohio, some thyme stays green under the snow, so brush it off and grab a bunch!

Chicken and Dumplings

Dumplings:

Directions

Sauté vegetables in the melted butter and a bit of olive oil, starting with onions & garlic, until they begin to soften. Make a “hole” in the center of the veggies and toss in flour, stirring with a flat spatula to toast and coat the veggies. Add stock slowly while stirring. Bring it to a boil while stirring, then drop to a simmer. Add the chicken breast (and a bit of milk or heavy cream, if you’d like) and the bay leaf and let simmer.

In a mixing bowl, mix together the flour, salt, thyme, baking powder, and lemon zest. Add about 3/4 of the cream and mix until it is generally combined. Add the rest and mix with your hands until it is combined but not sticky, and looks “shaggy.” Shape lumps 1.5-2″ around and lay them into the pot, covering the surface of the soup. Put a lid on the pot and let simmer for 20-30 minutes until dumplings puff up.

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This post was sponsored by Door To Door Organics, now delivering in Ohio! You can sign up here to get $10 off your first order!

The post Recipe: Chicken and Dumplings appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

Alas, I was never one with the bird. I have no problem eating it, but I threw a fit any time I had to actually work with the vile naked chicken bodies. Just…so…fleshy…and bony!…at the same time!!!

Then my Pop and Grammie came to visit us in Columbus about 7 years ago. We asked Grammie to make her signature Kentucky fried chicken OF COURSE, and the two of them set out to prep the full fryer birds we had bought for the occasion. My Pop asked for a knife, so I handed him what I thought was my sharpest and best knife. He then proceeded to attempt to break down these birds with the equivalent of a piece of rebar. It was not pretty, many choice words were said, and the man/bird struggle ended in him turning around, facing me, and saying, “Bethie, you need some better knives.”

(You had better believe I secured myself a brand-new Wusthoff knife set as soon as humanly possible after that! Which has entirely changed the way I cook on multiple levels, but that is for another post.)

He then set to explaining to me how to properly break down a chicken, though I can never hope to be as swift and accurate as he was. That was the beginning of my love of working with chickens and poultry – and they have become a staple in our household year-round.

Although we LOVE rotisserie chicken for those busy weekdays, my favorite way of cooking chicken is a simple roast. I almost always have all the ingredients handy, and if I’m working from home to be able to be near the oven for 2 hours, it’s an easy thing to throw together.

The two main things about a roast chicken are TEXTURE and FLAVOR. You want the meat juicy and well-flavored, and the skin browned and crispy. So, the FLAVOR: Chop 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, 1 small onion, a few cloves of garlic, and 1 lemon or lime into 1-inch pieces. Gather 3-4 TBS butter, kosher salt, ground pepper, and handful of thyme.

Unwrap your chicken – I use a 5-6 pound roasting chicken. Remove all the bits inside, rinse it in cool water, and pat dry.

Turn it breast-side up, and take all the lovely veggies and herbs that you have assembled and shove them in that bird. Make sure that you get a good blend of them throughout the cavity so you are able to mix the flavors well. If you have extras, place them under the legs and wings, close to the body.

Once you’re done stuffing, take your knife and cut a few inch-long holes in the skin, on the breast, the legs, and thighs.

Take the butter and shove pinches of it under the skin.

This is what it will look like with the butter under the skin.

Then take the rest of the butter (2-4 TBS) and rub it over the skin. (If you haven’t properly dried the skin, this will be difficult.) You can also melt the butter and drizzle it over the bird. And then liberally cover with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.

And, the TEXTURE: Throw it onto the center rack of an oven preheated to 425 degrees. (Let me make a note about this, most ovens have a “preheat” time after which they are supposedly “at temperature.” Do not believe these lies. Get yourself an in-oven thermometer and use that as your go-by! At the very least, especially when you’re heading north of 400 degrees, give it at least 15, if not 20 minutes. You’ll thank me!) I know you’re going to want me to tell you an exact time to put it in for, but that’s not the question to be asking. The best way to ensure the perfect texture of a roast chicken is to use a meat thermometer pierced into the breast, but not touching the bone. You’re waiting for it to get to 165 degrees, and the juices running clear. A thermometer is the best way to tell you that.

BONUS! Because I’m assuming you’re not animals who would JUST eat the delicious chicken by itself (although we have TOTALLY done that…), chop orange and yellow peppers (or green, if you have it!), an onion, and some green onions. Let’s keep it simple.

Saute those in some olive oil or butter until soft and slightly browning.

Then throw in one of those great jarred curry or masala sauces – you can find them at Trader Joe’s, in the international food section of regular grocery stores, or at specialty Indian groceries (Patel Brothers!!!). Salt to taste.

And if you have a rice cooker (or even if you don’t), throw some basmati rice in, steam it, and mix with the chopped green onions for a great side.

Once your chicken hits 165 degrees, you can take it out. I’ll go back on what I said before and say that this USUALLY takes around 1.5 hours. But if it’s less, it’s less! Take it out! Cover with foil and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Bask in the glory of your creation (and that crispy, buttery skin!).

Carve them into large pieces and serve next to the rice covered in the sauce mixture, OR eat the skin while it’s still burning your fingers, and then shred into pieces and stir into the sauce mixture and serve with naan. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

1 5-6# roasting chicken
1 bunch thyme
1 lemon or lime, halved
6-7 cloves garlic
1 large yellow or white onion, chunked
1 carrot, chunked
1 stalk celery, chunked
1 stick of butter
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper

DIRECTIONS: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove any giblets and rinse the chicken in cool water. Pat skin dry and lay breast-up on roasting pan. Stuff the cavity with the thyme, garlic, lemon/lime, onion, carrots, and celery. Make small cuts in the skin, and place pieces of butter under the skin in 5 or 6 places. Rub outside of skin with butter (either warmed with hands or melted), and liberally cover with kosher salt and ground pepper. Roast the chicken until the inner temperature hits 165 degrees (about 1.5 hours), and the juices run clear. Remove chicken and cover with foil for about 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

The post Mrs Breakfast With Nick: Roasted Chicken appeared first on Breakfast With Nick.

This stew is delicious. The first time I had it, we were sharing a meal with our dear friends Kim and Kurt in Portland. Kim warned us that this soup she was making would blow our minds. I was skeptical, but upon first bite, I was a believer. Creamy, spicy, warming, filling… I’m pretty sure I ate 3 bowls that night.

This stew is crazy healthy. The majority of the flavor comes from spices and peanut butter, and the bulk of the soup is veggies – tons and tons of veggies. The only other added fat is the sautéing oil. I’m pretty sure eating one bowl counts for at least one work out video.

This stew is magic. It can bend to a myriad of dietary restrictions or limitations, without losing the base flavor profile. I have included the recipe that I use for our immediate family below, but with just a few easy changes (that barely affect taste), it can be made to be vegetarian, vegan, soy-free and/or dairy-free (I’ll add these below). It is a chameleon.

It is African Peanut Stew.

First things first – prep your veg! With a freshly honed knife, chop the onion, green pepper, celery and carrots.

The only thing to remember here is keep them uniform! This ensures that they will all cook at the same time.

Throw these all into a big pot (I use my oval enameled cast iron casserole) with several tablespoons of olive oil, and let them simmer and soften.

While this is happening, prep your spices – curry, ginger, coriander, garlic, cayenne, salt and pepper. We have several different curries in our cabinet (there are as many curry recipes as grandmas in India – every family has their own!), but one of our favorites is from Patel Brothers grocery on Sawmill Road – $2.50 for 7oz of some of the most flavorful spice you’ll find.

I also always use fresh ginger for this recipe (and most others). We keep a few sticks in the freezer, peel the outer skin off a few inches when needed, and use the microplane to finely shave it, while still frozen. It almost looks like snow, and melts throughout the dish perfectly. That way, you don’t end up with large chunks of ginger, or a weak flavor from the powered spice.

For coriander, I use my mortar and pestle. Ground coriander is totally fine, I just really like the intense flavors you can get by grinding it right before you use it.

Once you add the chopped garlic, salt and pepper, you are at almost 1/3 cup of spices – which is just right.

Dump this entire bowl into the softened veggies and let the flavors meld, the veggies soak up the goodness, and the spice mixture heat up.

Letting that cook, chop your sweet potatoes. When you purchase these at the store, make sure to get true sweet potatoes, which are hard tan tubers with white flesh. Most U.S. grocery stores will label these correctly, and will label the more common, burgundy skin, orange flesh tuber “Yam,” even though that’s not entirely correct. As long as you have the white-flesh ones for this recipe, you’re good. Chop them into cubes similar in size to the veggies.

As I’m chopping, I throw the chopped sweet potatoes into the bowl with the broth. This prevents them from browning as they are exposed to the air.

The next step is to throw in the tomatoes and bay leaves. We use our home-canned whole roma tomatoes, but you can use any canned tomatoes (without the added spices).

Dump the tomatoes and bay leaf into the pot. I hand-crush the tomatoes as they are going in to get out all the juice and break up the whole tomatoes.

Stir it up and let it simmer a bit.

At this point, dump the broth and sweet potatoes into the soup and bring it to a boil.

While that is simmering, prep your peanut butter, edamame and chicken. We use creamy natural (peanuts and salt) PB, and the bag of already- shelled edamame (when I have it). But if you have a bag of the steam-in-the-bag shelled beans, this is a great way to get little kids involved. Steam the bag in the microwave for a few minutes before you start any prep, and have your kids shell it while you do the chopping and hot-stove work. (Just beware, if they’re like my boys, only about half of the edamame will actually reach the soup…the rest will end up in their bellies!) We use rotisserie chicken if we’re strapped for time, or if we’re roasting a chicken at home earlier in the week, I’ll put in a second one and pull it for use in this soup later.

(Side note: I always say that we know we’re eating healthy if we’re feeding the compost pile as well as ourselves!)

After the soup has reached a simmer (about 8 or so minutes) dump in the edamame, peanut butter, and chicken. Give it a good stir to make sure the peanut butter melts and gets all up in everything.

Gather the spinach and (sad winter) cilantro. I usually use a bag of baby spinach and throw it in as-is (no chopping), and roughly chop the cilantro.

Just set all the greens on top of the soup and slowly mix in – it always looks like too much, but it wilts quickly and gets incorporated within seconds.

And serve! We serve it with fresh bread, and garnish it with sour cream or goat cheese. This is a true crowd-pleaser and (if there is any left) it also freezes and reheats well. It also scales up nicely, and I find myself making double (and triple) batches most often (depending on how many people are on their way to my house for dinner!). I hope you love it as much as our family does, and that it allows you to invite your neighbors over – you know, the ones who don’t eat soy and gluten and dairy and cilantro. Because they will love it too. So, go ahead, fill your dining room table and get chopping!

African Peanut Stew

1 red onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 c carrots, chopped
1 c celery, chopped
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated (or 2 tsp ground ginger)
4 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 tbs curry powder
1 tbs ground coriander
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp salt (to taste)
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2-3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 quart crushed tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1/2 c natural peanut butter
1.5 c shelled edamame
1 rotisserie chicken, pulled (or 2-3 cooked chicken breasts, chopped)
1 5oz bag baby spinach
1 bunch chopped cilantro

1. Sauté the onion, green pepper, celery and carrots in a few tablespoons of olive oil or butter for 5-6 minutes, stirring often.
2. Add the ginger, curry, garlic, coriander, cayenne, salt and pepper, stir and sauté another 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes and bay leaf and cook 3 minutes.
4. Add broth and sweet potatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce head to low and simmer 8 minutes.
5. Stir in edamame, peanut butter and chicken to combine and cook 5 minutes.
6. Stir in cilantro and spinach until wilted.
7. Season with salt as necessary, and serve with sour cream or goat cheese on top.

This soup is naturally gluten free, but follow the instructions below to alter it for various dietary restrictions.

• Soy-free: replace the edamame with lima beans (or omit entirely).
• Dairy-free: Make sure to use oil (not butter) to sauté the veggies, and leave off the garnishes.
• Vegetarian: Leave out the chicken, and use vegetable stock instead of chicken broth.
• Vegan: Use oil (not butter) for sautéing, vegetable stock and no chicken.
• Cilantro-haters: Leave out the cilantro, or replace it with chopped parsley.
• Spice-lovers: Double the amount of curry, garlic, ginger, and cayenne listed (this is the way I always make it).

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Earlier this year, famed chef Grant Achatz brought to light a much-discussed issue – should parents take children to “fancy” restaurants? I’m pretty sure that, before we welcomed my two bouncing baby boys, I would have indignantly replied – YES! Children should be allowed EVERYWHERE.

And then I had my children. As most parents can attest, this makes most trips out of the house feel like venturing out with a ticking time bomb and waiting for when – not if – it goes off. But we live in one of the best food cities in the Midwest, and I married a food writer, so we GET to try the great new places that are opening every day in Columbus! Over the years we have developed a few tricks and tips for taking our (very active, very loud, very hungry-all-the-time) little boys to restaurants. I’m sure I’ll have to revise this in a few years once they get older, but if you have kids 7 or younger, read on!

7 Tips for taking Little Kids to Restaurants

1. Practice Manners at Home

I know this sounds obvious (and slightly condescending), but if eating meals at home resembles eating out, kids will be more familiar and more likely to display good manners. It’s as simple as that. Before kids, we used to eat at the coffee table in front of the TV – totally fine, until you have kids and they won’t sit in a chair at a table anywhere. Practice, practice, practice.

2. Don’t Treat the Waitstaff Like your Cleaning Crew

I have never been a server – in fact, I would make a TERRIBLE server – but lots of my friends have been, and I have the utmost respect for them and the crap they deal with. We are choosing to add as little to that pile of crap as we can. When we go out, I stuff a thing of baby wipes in my purse. And, before we leave, we clean – the table, the floor, the walls, if necessary, and we stack plates and cups. Every. Time. I don’t care if people stare, I don’t care if we look OCD, I will do this until my kids are in college (and probably after). Although it may be the server’s responsibility to make the table ready for the next diners, it should not be on their shoulders to scrub the walls or pick up half-chewed pieces of chicken from the floor because one of our kid-bombs decided to explode. And, I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will  – TIP WELL.

3. Rethink Screentime when Eating Out

I’m worried I’m going to get some flack from this one, especially the next time one of you sees me hand my phone to one of our boys at a restaurant, but hear me out. We all know that screens aren’t great for kids, we hear it all the time. But we still allow our boys to watch at home…because we live in 2014. However, we have found that the stress level at our meals quadruples once we give in to “Can I watch?” or “Can I play a game?” at a restaurant. The dropping, and the dripping, and the fighting, and the volume, and the hitting-the-wrong button, and the shrieking…I just…I just can’t. (And don’t get me started on the amount of germs that are on that thing…) So, try something different…

4. Come Prepared

So what do our kids do at the table if we don’t give them our phones? I have discovered the wonders of the Target $1 bins and what that can do for a meal. Target and Dollar Tree carry $1 activity bags of themed items – crayons, stickers, a little coloring book – and package them in a slim sealed bag, perfect for a purse or car. I keep these things everywhere, and we consider the $2 it costs as just part of the experience of having a quiet meal. And set yourself up for success by bringing kiddos that aren’t over-tired or over-hungry. I also always keep a few crayons and a small pad of paper close just in case. It’s amazing how quiet those small things keep even the loudest of kids.

5. Focus on the Food

It might be an obvious statement, but when we’re out, Nick and I are often discussing the food at hand, so our boys have grown up hearing their parents talk about presentation and portion size and taste and acidity and drink pairings. So I realize this might not be the most natural thing for everyone, but talk about what you’re eating! Discuss the tastes and smells and look of the food in front of you. If you cook together at home, talk about how to replicate it in some way, or how you would change it. And, if nothing else, you’ll start to hear adorable and amazing quotes out of your little kiddos as they say things like “I think this needs a tad more mac and cheese.” or “This is delicious! I like how it’s meaty!”

6. Venture Off the Kids’ Menu

It’s so comforting, I know. Sitting down and seeing a neat little corner of the menu list all of our kids’ favorites – mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese. I get it. And we ABSOLUTELY order from the kids’ menu sometimes. (It certainly helps that tons of restaurants are now offering terribly interesting and delicious menus for the littles.) But we have been pleasantly surprised when we have ordered “adult food” (what IS that, even?) for our kids and they have LOVED it. In fact, and I so LOVE the restaurants that GET IT, a lot of places actually have “half-sizes” of larger entrees for less money that aren’t on the menu. Or, many of the appetizers offered are often the perfect size. It doesn’t hurt to ask what they can do!

7. Manage Expectations

I am not defending Chef Achaz’s position that kids should never ever be brought to upscale restaurants, but I will say – you need to know the restaurant, you need to know your kid, and you need to adjust your expectations accordingly (and maybe decide not to go). If you are taking your 3 year old to dine with you at a 4-hour candlelit chef’s tasting menu, you don’t need a child psychology degree to figure out that you’ll have problems (unless your 3yo is exceedingly well-behaved which, in that case, can mine come over to live with you for a while?). You can’t expect your kiddo to NOT grab the candle and start waving it around like a lightsaber because, well, HE NEEDS TO DEFEND THE GALAXY. It’s your job as parents to understand that not every restaurant is great for every kid, so pick your battle (grounds).

So there it is! I would love to hear your tips for dining with young kids – I think most of us can use all the help we can get! And stay tuned for a list of my favorite kid-friendly restaurants in Columbus. Happy Dining!

SPECIAL BONUS TIP

This one was mentioned by many readers, so I thought I would share it too. If, even after all of your preparation and planning, your sweet child still has an epic meltdown, pick them up, take them outside the restaurant, and take a walk until they have calmed down. Don’t try and settle them at the table – it rarely works, and the other diners don’t need to hear the tantrum. I have spent MANY a breakfast pacing with a boy (or two) on the sidewalk until they stopped shrieking because his brother looked at him. The horror.

– by Mrs. Breakfast With Nick

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I honestly just want some chilly cheap pizza with my coffee in the morning! But I am Mrs. Breakfast with Nick. It was only a matter of time before I was forced to reconcile my pizza-breakfast ways into an actual Breakfast Pizza. We have had some great ones in the past – Due Amici and Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza, for instance.

I started with my dough (recipe courtesy Dave Scarpetti of WeberCam. Thanks again, Dave!) the night before and made a few naked pizzas. I love doing this when we’re doing a make-your-own night and the oven is at a screaming 475 – we just make extra dough, and par-bake a few with simple olive oil and cracked sea salt. These work great for an easy meal later – breadsticks, steak wedges (do people have these outside of PA?), or a quick and easy pizza later in the week.

We had a few of the crusts made up already, at room temp, and fired up the oven again to get it to about 400 degrees (no need for higher, the dough is already baked).

Then, the toppings. I’ll admit, we went a little nuts. (In our defense, a lot of these items were from cooking we had been doing all week as a family, so it was a bit about cleaning-out-the-fridge too.) Spiraling out from the middle: pre-cooked hashbrowns, fresh basil, sautéed onions, marinara, sautéed peppers, browned sausage, cooked bacon, eggs, tomatoes, pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, aged mozzarella, and sautéed zucchini. Just note that you will want things mostly cooked – the time the pizza spends in the oven isn’t long enough to cook meat or soften veggies.

I don’t have many life-changing secrets to applying ingredients, except:

1. Go. Light. On. The. Sauce. I know you want to glob it on – it’s the most fun part. But hold back, because it will get soggy.

2. Don’t put the basil in the oven, wait until it comes out or it will turn black.

3. Finish with cheese. It will hold everything together after you bake and cut it.

I usually start with a little bit of sauce, and then a thin layer of cheese. If I’m using meat, I’ll put that on next (so it doesn’t dry out on the very top), and then veggies followed by another layer of cheese.

What’s that?  You can’t have breakfast pizza without eggs? I agree!!! But we wanted to know what would work best for cooking them on the pizza – do we crack them right on or fry them before? We tried to crack them and bake them, with mixed results.

8-10 minutes was just about the right time for the toppings to be heated all through and the cheese melty, but it took about 12 minutes to cook them through with semi-soft yolks, but the other toppings got a bit too crispy. (Delicious, but crispy.)

Then, we tried frying the eggs perfectly sunny-side up, and putting them on top – it was exactly what they needed.  The yolks were deliciously runny with perfectly cooked whites.

These pizzas were a great way to feed a crowd at breakfast, and do it quickly. It was a lot of fun, perfect for kids to get involved, and the prep ahead of time was well worth it.

Pizza Dough

Preheat oven to 500 degrees, and place your flat pizza stone in the oven to heat.

300g water

36g olive oil

20g honey

250g flour

10g salt

10g yeast

Stir ingredients together until combined and leave in plastic bowl covered with a damp cloth or saran wrap – wait for about an hour or so until the dough doubles in size. (OR put all ingredients into a bread machine on the “dough” setting.) Dump out onto a floured surface, punch down, divide into two balls and round dough by folding it underneath itself. Let it rest for 5 minutes, and squash dough into a 6″ disk. Cover it with a bowl or a damp towel and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Roll out the disc to about a 14″ circle (depending on your chosen thickness), place on a floured wooden pizza peal and cover each while they rest for about 20 minutes. Sprinkle the dough with olive oil, cracked sea salt and transfer the pizza to the oven using the peal. Par-bake the crust for 6-8 minutes. (At this point, you can bag or cover the par-baked crusts to save for future pizzas. They freeze well when fully sealed. Treat them as you would any bread on the counter.

Pull out of the oven, add the toppings however you’d like, return to oven for another 5-6 minutes. Enjoy!

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