Savory French Toast from Home Made Christmas #AbramsDinnerParty

Whoop, whoop, another fun (and free) book for my participation in the Abrams Dinner Party.

This time the book is Home Made Christmas by Yvette van Boven. When I saw the title, I thought it might be about making Christmas food gifts.

Nope, this is about food you might serve during the holidays.

There are plenty of dinner ideas, along with sides and desserts, but I got stuck on the idea of making the savory French toast. I mean, I like plain French toast, and I generally don't make it super-sweet (although I do love it with maple syrup) but this sent the savory meter all the way over to the no-way-is-this-sweet side.

The recipe includes mustard, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, and cheese. So, if you happen to like savory breakfasts, you'd like it. But I had it for lunch. Because it seemed to make sense.

The best thing about this recipe is that it opens the door for all kinds of savory variations. I mean, I wouldn't make it with anchovies, but you could change the cheese, add more heat, or add some herbs and spices. It's not completely unlimited, because the ingredients would have to be able to either soak into the bread or stick to the outside. But it could be fun to fiddle with.

This called for a salad of fresh herbs on the side, but I skipped that and just had the French toast. And while this is meant to be savory, I can see how a tart jelly or jam could work with this. Probably not maple syrup, but something fruity. Maybe even cranberry sauce, hmmmm?

I also didn't cut the bread into shapes with a cookie cutter. Cutting the bread into triangles after cooking was as fancy as I wanted to be. But yeah, for a holiday breakfast, they'd be fun cut into shapes.

Wentelteefjes, or Savory French Toast (the Dutch version)
Adapted from Home Made Christmas by Yvette van Boven

4 large eggs

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon mustard
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
A pinch of sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A few drops of Tabasco sauce
6-8 slices of good-quality white bread
Butter, for frying

Whisk the eggs, milk, cream, and mustard until foamy, then stir in the cheese. Season with salt and pepper, a little Tabasco, and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. (You can do this the night before, if you want to save a little time, and save yourself from early morning measuring.)

Pour the mixture into a shallow bowl.

Place two slices of bread in the bowl - or really, as many as you can fit at one time, whether it's one or 4 - and let the bread soak for a minute or two.

Heat a nonstick frying pan on medium heat, with a small pat of butter. Cook the bread slices for about 2 minutes per side, until they're golden brown. Let them drain on paper towels as you continue cooking the rest of the sliced.

Sprinkle with a little extra cheese and serve with a green herb salad.

Acid Trip and Eggs with Vinegar #AbramsDinnerParty

I'm participating in the Abrams Dinner Party, where I get cookbooks (and a little swag) from the publisher. Since I'm a bit of a cookbook hoarder, this is great for me.

Once of the books I got was Acid Trip, which is all about vinegar.

I adore tart foods, so a book about vinegar is right up my alley. I mean, I've even made my own vinegar from wine. There's a jar of it in the pantry right now.

When I first got this book, I bookmarked a whole bunch of recipes to try:

• Fried Egg with a Spoonful of Vinegar
• Beurre Noisette Dressing
• Brown Butter Balsamic Mushrooms with Hazeluts and Sage
• Seasonal Tomatoes with Raspberry Vinegar
• Vinegar Pie

Out of that list, I've made a few similar dishes, and wanted to revisit them. In particular, the egg with vinegar was calling to me. I'd made a similar dish, but used red wine vinegar. The flavor was lovely, but the look was ... not great.

The recipe in this book calls for white wine vinegar, which makes a whole lot more sense in terms of presentation. So I just had to do it. Breakfast for dinner just happens to be one of my favorite things ever.

If this sound a little weird, it's really not. The acid helps to cut the richness of the egg yolk, and adds another dimension of flavor. I love eating tomatoes with eggs, but never thought about why - it's that hit of acid. In this case, you can add that acid without needing to have fresh tomatoes on hand.

Yum!

I think the vinegar pie is next on my list. How about you?

Fried Egg with a Spoonful of Vinegar
Adapted from Acid Trip by Michael Harlan Turkell

1 tablespoon butter
1 egg
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Chopped herbs

Fry an egg they way you like it, with ample butter. (They suggested cooking on medium-high until the edges are a little brown. I opted for a more gently-cooked basted egg, instead.)

Place the egg on a warm plate and season with salt and pepper.

While the pan is still hot, add the white wine vinegar and allow to reduce by half.

Spoon the reduced vinegar over the egg and garnish with chopped herbs. (They suggested parsley or tarragon, but the only fresh herbs I had on hand were cilantro and chives. I opted for chives.)

Serve immediately. I suggest some toast on the side. Yum.

This post is sponsored by ABRAMS Books, as part of the ABRAMS Dinner Party. Look for more posts with the hashtags #AcidTrip and #VinegarCookbook.

Home Made Cheerios

Why yes, those are home made Cheery O's

I had a post half-written, and it was a long one. The history of why I started this blog, why I write about the things I write about, and where I'm going from here. It was a lot of self-indulgent navel-gazing, blah blah blah that no one would care about except me.

I can boil it down to something shorter. I blog about what's fun. What I'm excited about. What I'm eating. What I'm amused by. I cook things I like to eat, and I sometimes I create recipes just for the challenge involved.

That's how it's always been, and it's pretty much going to stay the same. So, nothing new, really.

Speaking of FUN, the nice folks at General Mills recently invited me to go on a trip to Winnipeg, Canada to learn about oats. They paid for the trip (let's face it - I couldn't have afforded it otherwise!) and they made sure all the participants had plenty to eat and a comfy place to sleep.

This guy followed us everywhere!

And there was a photographer who documented the whole adventure.

If you don't immediately get the connection between General Mills and oats, I can sum it up in one word: Cheerios.

Okay, they have other cereals and products that use oats, but I'm awfully fond of Cheerios.

A year ago, I wouldn't have gone on the trip. Ten years ago, I might have gone, but I wouldn't have been invited. This year, all the puzzle pieces fit, so I flew off to Winnipeg. I met farmers, artisans, and grain-storage gurus. There were also people from General Mills, who all seem to love their jobs a lot.

I learned more about oats than a normal person wants to know. I saw oats in the field and I saw wild oats and some invasive wheat and barley.

That's an oat.

I found out that oats are sort of an orphan crop. On my way home from the trip, the random stranger sitting next to me on the plane was a retired farmer who had nothing to do with General Mills or Cheerios. He said that many years ago, he used to grow oats on his farm, but it wasn't very profitable. It was mostly sold as horse feed.

I mean, people have been eating oatmeal for quite some time. But not enough, I guess.

So anyway, given the lack of excitement about oats in past years, the seeds have become sort of an open-source, school-project, crowd-sourcedw item. The varieties of oats that were in the fields we visited weren't owned and patented by companies. Instead, research is done in universities, and no one really owns the rights to those varieties. Anyone can grow the plants, harvest the seeds, and grow them again or sell to other farmers. It's like the Linux of the plant world.

Oats, almost ready for harvest.

Now, I don't know if that's true of every single oat being grown everywhere, but let's just say that there are a lot of freely available oat varieties out there.

On the trip, I saw where oats grew, and I saw where they were stored. And I found out that General Mills buys a lot of oats, and a lot of them come from the area we visited. Which is why we were there. Out standing in a field.

When we were there, the oat crop was a week or two away from the harvest. The farmer said that while there are tools to tell when the oats have dried enough to be harvested, he could tell by simply pressing into an oat with his thumbnail to see how much of an indent he could make. The oats need to have under a certain percentage of moisture in order to be milled.

After I got home, just for the fun of it, I decided to see if I could make my own Cheerios.

Yes, sometimes I have an odd idea of fun.

These won't look exactly like Cheerios, since they'll be flat on the side that's on the baking sheet, so feel free to use a decorative pastry tip, or pipe in shapes other than O's, if you want to. I used a tip that created ridges.

These don't taste exactly like Cheerios, either, but they're pretty tasty as a snack. I didn't eat mine with milk in a bowl, I just snacked on them until they were all gone. The fun thing about making these is that you could add flavors if you wanted to, or pipe whatever shapes you want. The not-fun thing is that it's a LOT of piping of little O's to make a small bowl of O's.

Home Made Cheerios
Just for the fun of it

Lots and lots of piped O's, ready for baking.

1 cup oat berries
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Water, as needed

Heat the oven to 325 degrees and like a baking sheet with parchment paper

Toast the oat berries in a dry skillet until they smell fragrant and begin to brown slightly. Let them cool before grinding in a grain mill. Or, if you have a capable blender, grind the oats in your blender, until you have flour.

Combine the oat flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Add water. Start with a cup of water, then add more as needed to create a soft dough that you'll be able to squeeze through a piping tip. Mix with a spoon, or you can use the paddle attachment on your stand mixer. How much water the dough will absorb depends on how dry the flour is.

Cheerios, and baby Cheerios. Okay, they're oat seeds.

Let the dough sit for at least five minutes to hydrate. Check it again and add more water if it stiffened up. Make sure it's evenly mixed, because if you have tiny bits of denser dough, it will be harder to pipe. Trust me, I know.

Use a pastry bag fitted with a small tip to pipe Cheerio-sized circles on the prepared baking sheet. I used a tip that had ridges rather than a round one. Just for fun, you know.

These won't rise or spread, so you can pipe them pretty close to each other, but you don't want to let them touch.

Use a second baking sheet for more O's if you need it.

Bake at 325 until the O's are completely dry and crisp. If the ones around the outside of the sheet start to brown while the ones in the center of the sheet are still pale and uncooked, move them around so they bake more evenly.

When they're baked through, allow them to cool, then store. Or eat!

In case you missed it, General Mills paid for and hosted my trip to an oat farm in Canada. I was not required to re-engineer Cheerios or to even post about the trip.

Cocoa Puff Waffles with Zesty Cocoa Puff Honey #Sponsored

Sponsored by Big G General Mills Cereals.

I used to think that honey was just honey. Then I found out about varietal honeys that come from bees that feed on specific flowers. Then I found out about hot honey. No, the bees don't feast on pepper flowers - the spice is added to honey.

And that's part of how this recipe came about.

My buddies the Big G Cereals team at General Mills challenged me to come up a with a recipe using Cocoa Puffs for a sponsored post, and the first thing I thought of was adding something spicy, because chocolate and spice are such good friends. And then spice immediately led to hot honey.

I had a few different ideas before I settled upon waffles studded with Cocoa Puffs along with a spicy chocolate honey. If you're not fond of spicy foods for breakfast, you can certainly leave out the cayenne. Chocolate honey is still pretty darned good.

These waffles aren't super-sweet on their own. And if you haven't had Cocoa Puffs in a while, you might want to know that they aren't super-sweet, either. They've got a nice chocolate flavor, but they're not like candy. I really love that.

The reason General Mills is sponsoring this post right now is that September is National Whole Grain Month and whole grain is the first ingredient in all General Mills Big G Cereals - including the Cocoa Puffs I used, which are made with whole grain corn. In all Big G cereals, there is more whole grain than any other single ingredient, including sugar from all combined sources. That's pretty impressive.

No wonder those Cocoa Puffs weren't super-sweet.

A whopping 95 percent of Americans don't get enough whole grain in their diet. Pretty amazing, considering how many folks are so interested in healthy foods these days. And fiber - which is one of the nutrients you'll find in whole grain - is something people are concerned about.

I've been trying to improve my diet, and swapping whole grains for more refined grains is part of the plan. I'm not going to completely give up refined flours - moderation is my mantra - but I've been swapping in whole grains when they make sense.

And by make sense, I mean that the food has to taste good. I've tried some whole grain products that made me feel like I was eating mulch. Sorry, but no.

So, to make these waffles even more better for me, I added a good dose of whole wheat flour. Sometimes whole wheat is tricky to work with - you can't always substitute it 1:1 for white flour in a recipe. Or you can, but sometimes you end up with a product that's a little too dense. So most of the time, I use some whole wheat and some white flour. See? Moderation.

I tweaked this recipe a few times, messing with the liquids and the flours, trying to get exactly the right flavor and the right texture. My last tweak was actually a mistake - I grabbed the bread flour instead of the all-purpose flour, and I really liked the result. The waffles were soft and fluffy on the inside with a nice crisp brown on the outside.

Meanwhile, the Cocoa Puffs added a little bit of chocolate in every bite.

As far as the honey - if you have any left after you've stuffed yourself with waffles, try it drizzled on fried chicken. Trust me.

Zesty Cocoa Puff Honey
Makes a little more than 1 cup of honey

1 cup Cocoa Puffs
1 cup honey
Pinch of cayenne pepper (or to taste)
Pinch of salt (optional)

Put the Cocoa Puffs in a blender and blend until the pieces are as small as you can get them. Add the honey, a small pinch of cayenne pepper, and the salt, if using. Blend until the Cocoa Puffs are incorporated into the honey. Scrape down the sides of the blender, if necessary.

When this is first blended, there will be small crunchy bits in the honey, but they soften and dissolve as the mixture rests.

Taste for seasoning and add more cayenne, if desired. Wait about 10 minutes, then blend again, to incorporate the softened bits of Cocoa Puffs. Transfer to a container for storage and serving.

Cocoa Puff Waffles with Zesty Cocoa Puff Honey
Makes 6-8 waffles (depending on your waffle maker)

2 eggs
1 cup bread flour (use all-purpose flour if you don't have bread flour)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup Cocoa Puffs (a little bit more won't hurt)

Heat your waffle maker while you make the waffle batter.

Put the eggs in a medium bowl and beat with a whisk until they are well blended and a little lighter in color.

Add the rest of the ingredients (except the Cocoa Puffs) and mix until the batter is smooth. Stir in the Cocoa Puffs.

Pour the waffle batter into the waffle maker, using the amount appropriate for your particular waffle maker. Cook until nicely browned.

Serve with butter (if desired) and the Cocoa Puff honey.

If a stack of waffles is too much for you to tackle, cut the waffles in quarters and serve them with the Cocoa Puff honey as a dip. Perfect for smaller appetites!

Thanks to General Mills Big G Cereals for sponsoring this post!

Little Pancakes, courtesy of Vincent Price

Okay, I admit it. When I was a kid, Vincent Price creeped me out. Or. more accurately, the parts he played were creepy.

Little did I know that he was a foodie. Before there were such things as foodies. In fact, he came from a family of foodies.

One would imagine that a star with the stature of Vincent Price would have spent a whole lot of time in fancy restaurants. But, like today's fans of food, he liked to cook. And even more important, he thought that good food should be available to the masses.

A Treasury of Great Recipes by Vincent Price and his wife, Mary, is a collection of recipes that the average cook of the day (the book was first published in 1965) could manage to make.

But the recipes are inspired by restaurants.

The book had been out of print for quite some time - and became crazy expensive as a collector's edition. But it has since been re-released by Vincent and Mary's daughter, Victoria Price, so it's more affordable, for sure.

As I was browsing through the book, I spotted a recipe for "little thin orange pancakes" that seemed like a perfect fit (hehe) for a new pan I was testing. The pan is called a Plett Pan, and it has shallow indentations that are meant for making ... well, small pancakes.

The Plett pan is usually used for Swedish pancakes, but after I looked at a bunch of recipes, I realized that the common theme was that the pancakes used about a tablespoon of batter each - just like the little thin orange pancakes in Vincent Price's book.

And I thought, well, how about that? I could test a cookbook recipe at the same time I was testing the pan. (The pan will appear on the review blog later. For now, we're making PANCAKES.

To be fair, Vincent Price's recipe didn't require using a special pan. But, hey, I figured the little pancakes would be cuter if I didn't free-form them.

Harvey Girl Special Little Thin Orange Pancakes
Adapted from A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price

Zest from 1/2 orange
1 cup fresh orange juice
Supremes from 1/2 orange, diced (about 1/4 cup)
1 cup packaged pancake mix
Butter, for the pan (if needed)
Combine the zest, orange juice. diced orange, and pancake mix in a bowl.

Heat the pan. You can brush a little melted butter in the indentations, if you like but the pan I used was very nonstick and really didn't need it.

I did add butter at first, but didn't add any more as I continued making pancakes.

Put about 1 tablespoon of batter in each indentation.

From this point, you're cooking just like you'd cook a normal pancake.

Cook until you see bubbles coming to the top of the batter and the bottom side is golden or medium brown (depending on how you like them), then flip the pancakes and continue cooking on the second side until the pancakes are cooked through.

I suggest using a small silicone turner to get under the pancakes to check the bottom and to turn them.

To remove the pancakes from the pan, you can just flip the pan over, or slide them out, or remove them one at a time with the little spatula you used to flip them.

These pancakes were sweet enough that they didn't need any syrup, but a little butter was nice. Sour cream would be nice, too, if you prefer creamy-tartness.

I bought the cookbook; the Plett pan was sent for the purpose of a review (which will be on Cookistry Reviews a little later - right now I'm in the midst of GIFT GUIDES!

Yogurt-Filled Crepes with Apple and Cranberry Compote and a #Giveaway

Crepes are so fun - thin little pancakes that you can do so much with. They can be sweet or they can be savory. They can be breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or dessert.

They can be whatever you want them to be.

I didn't grow up eating crepes, and the first time I had them, they were cheese blintzes. I thought they were magical. I had no idea how easy they were to make.

Of course, it helps if you have a decent recipe and a good pan to work with.

One of my lucky readers WILL have a pan to work with, because I'm giving one away, courtesy of Anolon. They asked me to create a recipe, so you have that, too. My recipe is a yogurt-filled crepe topped with a seasonal apple-cranberry compote. Follow the link to find it on the Anolon website.

You want this recipe, particularly at this time of year when cranberries are so plentiful.

The beauty of these crepes is that they're so versatile. With a plain yogurt, they're a lovely lunch crepe. But if you use a flavored or sweetened yogurt, the crepes transform into a perfect breakfast or brunch crepe. Add some whipped cream or a dollop of ice cream, and these crepes would make a lovely dessert.

You could, of course, switch things around and fill the crepes with the compote and top it with yogurt, whipped cream, or ice cream, but the compote is so pretty, I thought it was a shame to hide it inside the crepe. It really wanted to be shown off.

If you have extra compote, I'm sure you'll find a use for it. And then you might want to make more. Because it's really really good.

As far as the pan, it's an Anolon 9.5 inch Advanced Bronze pan. It's a pleasure to use - light enough to be able to easily swirl the batter over and over and over while you're making a lot of crepes. And it's very nonstick. The crepes slide right out of the pan when they're done.

And ... shhhh ... the pan is also very useful for heating or reheating tortillas. And for reheating your crepes, too. I think you'll get a lot of use out of it. If you're the lucky winner who gets one.

Thanks to Anolon for sponsoring this post and for supplying the pan to the winner! The giveaway is now over.

French Toast - microwaved in a mug

The other day, I received the book Mug Meals, and it got me thinking. There was a recipe for French toast cooked in a mug, but it called for a sturdy bread like challah (which I didn't have), along with fresh berries (which are out of season). But I liked the idea.

While I don't mind making French toast for the two of us, it seems like a lot of mess when I'm making it just for me. I figured that making it in a mug would cut down on the number of things I'd need to wash. Or at least they'd be smaller, right?

I plan on reviewing Mug Meals later, after I've had a chance to actually try a few recipes. But for now, here's my Mug Meals inspired French toast.

French Toast in a Mug

1 tablespoon butter
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk or cream
Pinch of salt
2 slices bread, cut into cubes

You'll need a fairly large microwave-safe mug for this. I used one that was allegedly a soup mug. A regular coffee mug might be enough for 1 slice of bread.

Put the butter in your chosen mug and melt on high in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs, milk, and salt together in a small bowl. It doesn't need to be frothy - just combined. If you want your French toast to be even softer and more custardy, you can add more milk or cream - up to about 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) but I suggest that you try with 2 tablespoons to start, and see what you think.

When the butter is melted, add the bread cubes, then pour the egg mixture over the bread, making sure to drizzle it over all the cubes. If some are still a little dry, press them down into the mug to get them soaked in the egg mixture.

Cover the mug. I use a silicone lid from GIR, but you could use anything that's microwave-safe. The idea is to retain the heat and keep from splatting eggs inside your microwave.

Cook for 2-3 minutes at medium power.. You'll need to check the first time you do this, so you know how much time you really need - and it depends how custardy or firm you want the finished product. It will be more cooked around the edges and less cooked in the center, so stick a spoon in there and see what it looks like. If it needs more time, cook a little longer.

Leave the mug covered for another minute before you eat. For one thing, it's hotter than heck, so you don't want to eat it just yet. And for another, this lets it finish cooking all the way through. You know how microwaves sometimes don't heat evenly? Yep, this helps the heat even out.

Once you've figured out exactly how long you need to cook, you won't need to stop and check, as long as you're using the same mug and similar ingredients.

Top with butter and/or maple syrup. Or whatever you normally put on your French toast. Eat with a spoon.

You can certainly add other ingredients to the egg batter - vanilla or cinnamon or nutmeg would be nice. But since this is a quick breakfast for me, I go with the basics most of the time.

Egg-in-a-Heart - perfect for Valentine's Day Breakfast

Can I be honest here for a second?

The truth is that my husband and I don't get all hearts-and-flowers for Valentine's Day. Oh, we'll probably exchange silly cards. But no one's going to go out and buy a pink teddy bear stuffed with chocolates, or anything like that.

Because when you've been married since dinosaurs roamed the earth, you don't really need some marketing company to tell you that it's time to be all smoochy.

On the other hand, I might serve something silly, romantic, or sort of funny on a normal, average, random day.

It's like that around here.

So while this might be something you'd make for Valentine's Day, it's just as likely that we ate this last Tuesday afternoon, for no reason at all. Okay, maybe because I was recipe testing. But still...

The recipe starts off with corn tortillas. You can get all rustic and make your own, but you can buy decent corn tortillas these days, and you might even have locally-made tortillas nearby. By the way, I tried this with flour tortillas, and the corn ones worked out much better. And, many corn tortillas are gluten-free, so that's a plus.

Once you've secured a supply of corn tortillas, you need a large heart-shaped cookie cutter or heart-shaped biscuit cutter. In a pinch, I guess you could free-form cut hearts out of the tortillas with a knife, but at this time of year, you'll probably find the cutters you need at the grocery store, in the aisle that's decorated in pink and red.

Choose a pan to fry the tortillas to crisp them. Choose carefully, because it determines how much oil you'll use. You only need about 1/4 inch of oil in the bottom of the pan, so a larger pan will use more oil.

On the other hand, a very large pan will allow you to fry more tortillas at once. So here's the deal. If you can't fit three tortillas in the pan without overlapping, you might as well use a smaller pan and fry them one at a time. Yes, it will take longer. But in theory, you're not making these for the whole neighborhood.

This recipe is similar to migas, which is eggs fried with tortilla chips, and it's also similar to all the egg dishes simmered in tomato sauce or salsa, like eggs in purgatory. But it's cuter. And romantic. Awwwww...

Egg-in-a-Heart

Vegetable oil, for frying the tortillas, as needed
Corn tortillas - 1-2 per person
Eggs - 1 for each tortilla
Marinara sauce (or salsa, if you prefer) about 1/4 cup per tortilla (Plus more for serving, if desired)

Heat the oil in the pan until it's hot enough to fry the tortillas. How do you know? You dip the edge of a tortilla in the oil, and if it bubbles like mad, it's ready to fry.

Meanwhile, use the heart-shaped cutter to cut a heart from the center of each tortilla you will use.

Fry the tortillas and the heart cut-outs in the oil, flipping as needed, until they're golden brown and crisp. They will warp and get bubbles in them as they fry - that's fine. It makes each one unique.

Let the fried tortilla drain on paper towels as they cool, to catch the grease that clings.

You can make the chips well in advance - several days is fine. If you make them in advance, make extra. They're good for snacking.

When you're ready to make the hearts, put a small pat of butter in the center of a frying pan and heat on medium. You want the butter to cover about the same diameter as the heart cutout, but it doesn't need to be exact.

Dollop the marinara (or salsa) in a ring around the butter. This creates a barrier so the egg won't spread quite as far. Place one of the tortilla rings on top of your marinara so the buttered area is in the middle of the heart.

Break an egg into the heart-shaped hole in the center of the tortilla.

Cover the pan and cook until the white of the egg is set and there's a white film covering the yolk. If you have a glass lid, you can watch the process, otherwise you'll need to peek occasionally, which slows down the cooking process as you lose the steam when you lift the lid. So don't keep peeking!

The yolk will still be runny when that film has formed on the egg. If you like a firmer yolk, keep cooking until the egg is done to your liking.

Use a large spatula to slide under the egg and tortilla and lift both at the same time, onto a plate. Add more sauce (or salsa) around the outside of the tortilla, if you prefer.

Serve hot with the heart-shaped cutouts (and extra rings, if you like.)

Happy Valentine's Day.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Dried Plum Bars #TheFeelGoodFruit #CG

Healthy snacking is a great idea, but I have to admit that I'm not virtuous enough to snack on foods that taste like hay and and twigs. If it doesn't taste good, I'm going to go looking for something else. It really helps if I make something at least vaguely healthy, and have it on hand.

So when Clever Girls and Sunsweet offered an opportunity to have some fun with dried plums - the fruit formerly known as prunes - I jumped right on it. I like prunes a lot, but I usually eat them as-is, just snacking straight from the bag. They're a nice combination of sweet and tart, with a little chew to remind you that you're eating real food.

My challenge was to create a healthy snack using the dried plums. Hmmm. After snacking though half of the bag of whole prunes they sent, I decided that the diced plums would make a good addition to baked goods, so I created this recipe for bars with oatmeal, white wheat flour (which is a whole grain product) and nuts. And of course the diced prunes.

Are you ready for your close-up?

Dried plums and peanuts playing the starring roles as far as the flavor, with the plums adding sweet/tart to complement the savory nuts.

Fiber is one of the good-for-you components, courtesy of the grains and the dried plum. Peanuts provide protein. And plums provide potassium.

Texture is a big component when it comes to food, and the oats and nuts add their texture to these bars - but not so much that it's a chore to chew.

Some of the oats are ground to a powder, so the bars have a slightly cakey, softer texture rather than being dense and chewy like a granola bar.

And then they're studded with the soft, sweet, squishy dried plums.

They're tasty, they're filling, and they're really easy to make. They're great for snacking any time, or for a quick running-out-the-door breakfast bar.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Dried Plum Bars

2 cups rolled oats, divided
1 cup white wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup Sunsweet diced dried prunes
1/2 cup peanuts

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and spray an 8-inch square pan with baking spray.

Take 1 cup of the oatmeal and grind it in blender, food processor, or spice grinder until you have a fine flour-like powder. You can also buy oat flour, but if you'r not planning on using it for other purposes, you might as well just grind your own.

Combine the oat powder, rolled oats, white wheat flour (you can sub all purpose flour, if you prefer), baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Combine the peanut butter and brown sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl where you will beat with an electric mixer.

Beat the sugar and peanut butter until well blended. Add the vanilla and egg and beat until combined.

Add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with two additions of the buttermilk - starting and ending with the dry ingredients. In theory, you could add all the buttermilk at once, then add the dry stuff - but, trust me - doing it in several additions is easier to get it mixed, AND it's less messy.

Stir in the diced dried prunes and the peanuts. You just want them well distributed in the mix. If you want to add more, go for it. I won't tell.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread it evenly in the pan. Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the center of the pan comes out clean - about 35 minutes. The edges will be slightly brown and will be pulling just slightly away from the pan.

Let the bars cool completely before slicing into 9, 12, or 16 pieces depending on how snacky you feel!

The three products that Sunsweet provided were whole prunes, diced dried plums, and plum juice.
They said: PlumSmart® Light: This juice is made from a special variety of fresh, juicy plums and has only 60 calories and 15g of carbs, and helps you stay fit on the inside by providing a good source of fiber. PlumSmart Light is a great addition to a smoothie.

I said: Okay, I haven't tried this yet, but I'm giddy excited that it exists. I love plums, but their season is so short. Plum juice sounds danged good, and if we're being honest, it's going to end up in a cocktail. Just wait.

Yeah, I ripped that prune bag right open. Yup. *munch*

They said: Amaz!n™ Prunes: These little gems are a good source of fiber for only 100 calories per serving. Amaz!n Prunes are nature's perfect way to feel good with nutrition and delicious taste. Prunes also have a low glycemic index, which means they keep you feeling fuller longer. They add a powerful boost of nutrition and fiber to snack time or your favorite recipe.

I said: I love dried fruits for snacking all on their own, and with a prune you get a quick fix of all the goodness of a plum in one bite. These don't last long around here.

They said: Amaz!n™ Diced Prunes: Grab a handful of these delicious diced prunes for nutritious snacking. Toss them in cereal, oatmeal, salad or your favorite recipes for added flavor and fiber. One serving of Amaz!n Diced Prunes is a good source of fiber for only 100 calories. Add to your favorite snacking recipe for extra fiber and a fruit flavor boost.

I said: Let's be serious for a second. Dicing dried fruit is not fun. It's sticky. It sticks to your knife. It sticks to your cutting board. You're not enough of a ninja to get pretty, even cuts. If you want diced dried plums that don't look like you cut them with a dull lawnmower, just buy the diced version. You'll save yourself a lot of frustration.

Want to know more about Sunsweet? You'll find @SunsweetGrowers on Twitter and Sunsweet on Facebook.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Breakfast for Dinner: A GIANT Pancake in the Rice Cooker

I do it.

I'll bet you do it too.

I'm talking about breakfast for dinner. It's what I make when I don't have the brain power to make anything else. Because breakfast food tends to be pretty easy.

The folks at Krusteaz did a survey and this is what they found out:

• Nine out of ten (91 percent) Americans say they eat breakfast for dinner, with 56 percent doing so once a month or more often. 
• For families, the trend is even more prevalent. 67 percent of respondents with children in the household say they have breakfast for dinner once a month or more.
• A variety of factors contribute to the rising popularity of breakfast for dinner, with the main appeal being ease of preparation versus a traditional dinner meal (43 percent).  
• For families especially, it's also "a fun way to break up the monotony of weekly dinner night" said 44 percent.
• When it comes to preparation, mom is most likely to lead the preparation of breakfast-for-dinner (42 percent), followed by dad (19 percent). Another 17 percent say it's a joint effort between parents and kids.
• Half of all adults (52 percent) choose dinner as their favorite meal of the day. 
• Most adults (62 percent) eat dinner as a family at least four nights a week, with over one in three (37 percent) saying they do so every night. 
• Those with children in the household are even more likely to have dinner as a family at least 4 nights a week (72 percent).

September is actually Breakfast for Dinner Month. (Who thinks of these things???) So I decided to celebrate by making a giant pancake.

And when I say giant, I mean ginormous. Like, it's really a cake, sort of. I suggest cutting it into wedges to serve.

I made this in my rice cooker which seems odd, but it actually cooks. The rice cookers with sensors actually pay attention to ... something ... which is how they know your rice is cooked. I think it's the temperature.

In any case, it's that same sensor that tells the rice cooker when your ginormous pancake-monster is done.

If you have a rice cooker that doesn't have a sensor, I guess you're on your own to figure out the timing on the cooking.

Walnut Rice-Cooker Pancake

2 cups Krusteaz pancake mix
1 1/2 cups water
Generous 1/2 cup walnuts
1 tablespoon maple sugar

Combine the pancake mix and water and mix well. It's fine if there are a few lumps, but it should be mixed. Add the walnut and stir to combine.

Pour this into your rice cooker.

Yes, I said rice cooker.

Sprinkle the maple sugar on top.

If your rice cooker has settings, you might need to fiddle around to get the perfect setting for making pancake cakes, but I used the sushi setting. Next time I might try the brown rice setting. We'll see.

In any case, the top of the cake (which will be the bottom when you turn it out) won't brown, so it will look pale even when it's cooked. You might see browning around the edges, though, since it will brown where it makes contact with the rice cooker bowl. To check for doneness, poke a toothpick in, just like with a cake.

Turn it out onto a rack and then put it on a plate for serving.

While you'd normally eat pancakes warm from the stove, I actually liked this better after it was cooled, and I liked it better plain or with a little butter, rather than with syrup.

But I'm weird. So try it warm and try it cooled and see which you prefer.

And, if this is breakfast for dinner, you might want to serve it with some bacon and eggs. Otherwise, it's sort of like cake for dinner. Which, now that I think about it, isn't such a terrible thing.

This is NOT a sponsored post. Krusteaz has sent me products in the past, but this time around, I just wanted to have some fun with the info they sent me.

I know how to make a ham sandwich, but ...

You might know that I'm mildly obsessed with my Hamilton Beach Sandwich Maker. I reviewed it, I wrote recipes for it, and I gave a bunch of them away.

It's fun to use, doesn't take a lot of space, and it's easy to clean. It doesn't heat up the kitchen. I don't need to use the stove. It's completely non-essential, but I use it often. Just because it's fun.

So, when I found out there was a cookbook dedicated to making things in a sandwich maker, I said, "Sure, I can review that." I don't think the brand is mentioned in the book, but are there others out there? I really don't know. I'm perfectly happy with the one I have.

The book is called Crazy for Breakfast Sandwiches, and the author is Jessica Harlan. It's a thin volume, with no interior photos - but they're probably not necessary. These are sandwiches... it's not waffle surgery.

Although some of the recipes in this book are pretty basic - available at the drive-through of the closest fast food chain - there are others that are a heck of a lot more creative. I mean, would you think of using your breakfast sandwich maker to create shrimp and grits stack, or a Chicago-style hot dog, or a French toast stack with praline bacon?

Probably not. But now that I think if it ... hmmm. Ideas sprout.

Let's face it, if you just got one of these sandwich makers, maybe you need some lessons in the basics, like where to put the egg, what order to layer things for the optimum melting without burning, and how long to cook your monstrosity.

There are also recipes for components you might use, like biscuits or pancakes. Of course, you can also by pre-made components and assemble them. But it's good to have options.

I felt compelled to cook something from the book, so I browsed for a recipe where I happened to have everything on hand, and ended up with a ham and cheese sandwich with butter, mustard, ham, cheese, and pickle. I used a burger bun, since I made those a few days ago and I had some left. Otherwise I followed the recipe, even though I was itching to ditch the pickle and add a sliced tomato and a smear of mayo.

It was a good sandwich, and a fine lunch. Did I need a book to tell me how to make a sandwich? Not really. But it inspired me to make a ham sandwich that was different from my usual fare. And that's always good. Nice to cook outside the loaf pan.

Meanwhile, if you've got a breakfast sandwich maker and you haven't ventured beyond sausage-egg-and-cheese, you might want to pick this one up. It would also be a great add-in if you're giving a breakfast sandwich maker as a gift, so the recipient can see the possibilities beyond breakfast.

I received the book from the publisher at no cost.