We spend weeks crafting a menu, days of prep, countless hours of cooking and then freak out about what to do with it all the next day. I do that same thing, even though leftovers on their own are fantastic. Maybe it’s because, even after hours and days and weeks of prep, we still feel "lazy" just reheating the tupperware containers and setting it out on the table.
Even though I will chow down on cold beer brined turkey and left over dinner rolls in those post dawn hours, it’s still not hyper socially expectable to serve mashed potatoes and leftover turkey for breakfast. But throw some chopped up rolls and a few handfuls of turkey into a skillet with some eggs and you’ve got brunch.
And you should serve it with a mimosa, you’ve earned it
Leftover Turkey Frittata Recipe
Ingredients
3 tbs butter
2 cups bread cut into cubes (leftover dinner rolls work well)
1 cup turkey, cut into cubes
½ red bell pepper, chopped (about 1 cup)
6 eggs
¼ cup sour cream
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
¼ cup green onion, chopped
Instructions
Preheat oven 400.
Melt the butter in a 9-inch cast iron skillet over medium high heat.
Add the bell peppers, cook until softened.
Add the bread cubes, cooking until browned.
Add the turkey, toss to coat.
In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, sour cream, salt and pepper.
Pour into the skillet, sprinkle with green onions.
Cook undisturbed until the sides have set, about 5 minutes.
Bake at 400 until until center has set, about 12 minutes.
In honor of moms everywhere, and the upcoming Mothers Day holiday, I’m hosting some giveaways this week with a Mothers Day brunch theme!
If you are a coffee drinker, you need to get a French press. This is the best way to make coffee at home, and it doesn’t get any easier. You get an amazing coffee-house flavor, and it doesn’t even need electricity. I fell in love with French press coffee in Europe and I’ve used them ever since.
For a gorgeous, thoughtfully stocked, kitchen store, their prices are outstanding (remember that marble rolling board? Shockingly inexpensive!) and the store has everything I’m looking for, I’d take this over shoe shopping any day (ok, most days).
Sur La Table and I are giving away this fabulous Le Creuset French Press (that I adore) and some amazing Sarahbeth’s Peach Apricot jam that has quickly become a favorite of mine. The ingredients are amazingly simple: sugar, water, peaches, apricots. The simplicity of the recipe puts the focus on the amazing fruit. Try turning over the jar of jam at your local super market and you’ll know why I’m so thrilled with this jam. Most commercial jam is full of dozens of unpronounceable ingredients, and even food dye (why the heck does my apricot jam need to be oranger?!). Sarahbeth’s jam is amazing, I’m a fan of the honest ingredients and incredibly huge flavors of real life fruit.
Because this jam is so gorgeously simple, I wanted a recipe that was simple as well. Something easy to throw together for your Mothers Day brunch, but that will show off that fabulous jam.
Just roll out a sheet of puff pastry and cut it into squares.
Fill those squares with a little sweetened cream cheese and jam (the stuff that breakfast dreams are made of).
Seal it up to keep all the good stuff inside.
Brush it will a glaze made from jam and a little water to thin it.
Bake it to golden brown perfection.
Apricot Peaches and Cream Turnovers
Yield: Yield: 6 Pastries
Ingredients
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
¼ cup Apricot jam
2 tbs jam plus 1 tbs water for glaze
pearl or sanding sugar (optional)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400.
In a small bowl, stir together the cream cheese and the powdered sugar, set aside.
Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 6 equal sized squares.
Add 1 tablespoon sweetened cream cheese towards one corner of the squares, leaving about ½ inch edge empty. Top with 1 tablespoon jam.
Moisten the edges with water, fold the puff pastry over into a triangle.
Use a fork to seal the edges, transfer to a baking sheet that has been covered with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
In a small bowl, wisk together the 2 tbs jam and 1 tbs water. Brush each pastry with the glaze, sprinkle with pearl or sanding sugar if desired.
Bake at 400 for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown.
In honor of moms everywhere, and the upcoming Mothers Day holiday, I’m hosting some giveaways this week with a Mothers Day brunch theme!
To kick us off is Le Creuset with a gorgeous cake stand (I love cake stands) that is perfect for a cake, pie, cookies, lets be honest, I’d serve roast chicken off this thing, it’s gorgeous! But not just that, we are also throwing in some beautiful French preserves by Bonne Maman. The winner also gets four jars in fabulous flavors like Fig, Strawberry and Golden Mirabelle. I love that these are jams that have simple, honest ingredients, jam like your Grandmother would have made in her own kitchen, with the fruit from her trees.
To celebrate these gorgeous jams, I wanted to give you a recipe that works well with all the great flavors. Of course, I looked to Martha, a woman who is no stranger to French jams. I adapted her amazing crumb cake recipe for the use of these jams, making it three times to get it just right. I love this so much, and I love that it works with all of these fabulous jams.
The winner will receive: One cherry red Le Creuset cake stand, four jars of French Bonne Maman preserves, shipped anywhere in the continental USA, you can even have it shipped directly to your mom! Or keep it for yourself, I won’t judge.
Cream Cheese and Jam Crumb Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake:
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
½ cup milk
1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoons vegetable oil
For the topping:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 egg
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup Jam
1 ¾ cups flour
½ cup packed light-brown sugar
½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
Confectioners sugar for dusting
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325
line 8X8 pan with aluminum foil, spray with butter cooking spray, set aside.
Stir together 1 ¼ cups flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, vanilla and vegetable oil. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, batter will be thick.
Spread the batter in an even layer in the prepared f baking pan.
In a small bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, egg and granulated sugar. Spread evenly on top of the batter.
Drizzle with the jam (marble in with a knife, if desired).
Combine the remaining 1 ¾ cup flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Drizzle with melted butter, stir together until crumbs form.
Bake at 325 for 32-36 minutes or until the top crumbs have just started to turn golden brown. Allow to cool to room temperature, chill until ready to use. Cut into squares and dust with confectioners sugar prior to serving.
Don’t Feed The Trolls: How to Survive Online Bullies
In the age of living online, the greatest gift are the people you meet. The biggest drawback? The people you meet. Once a skeptic of online friendships, I’ve felt the connections made across the globe from one screen to another. A richness lent to my world through knowing people who live in such far off places, we never could have connected, seen our similarities, shared our thoughts and support, had it not been for two lap tops with internet connections. I’ve also seen the dark side of the vail that the computer brings, an entire society of online bullies waiting with snark and nastiness to prey on anyone with a voice.
The blog comments I’ve seen from online bullies rage wildly from strange with a twist of insanity, to angry and hateful. The following is a list of comments I’ve seen posted to online blogs, to people who get paid little or nothing for the recipes that they post:
"I hope your baby dies. I hate you"
"Ugh, I can’t stand this girl. Will you just shut up already?!"
"This recipe sucks, it’s probably why your husband left you."
"I bet you just adopted that baby so you could get more blog hits."
"This is the most disgusting recipe I’ve ever made in my life. I substituted [lists 3 major substitutions] and it was horrible! Think before you blog, you stupid B—-!"
"It’s no wonder her husband died if she cooks like this! She pretty much killed him herself, is she trying to kill my husband too?"
I know. Horrifying. People fail to realize that another human, possibly a stay at home Mom looking for a connection to the outside world, a widow, an introvert with crippling agoraphobia, or just and average joe, will read that and be incredibly hurt. We all remember the worst comment that was ever posted to our blogs, the sting from a complete stranger who’s hate has invaded our world. I’ve recently seen two celebrities melt down on Twitter, responding to the nasty comments, defending themselves, lashing out, retweeting insults, indulging those Trolls who seek to disperse hate.
Celebrity, blogger, or just an average mom with a twitter following, here are some rules to help us all cope:
Five Rules to Survive Online Bullies
1. Don’t Feed the Trolls. Don’t respond, engage or even post comments made out of sheer hate and anger. If a comment is just made to hurt, there is no reason to post it and you have no moral or civic obligation to do so. Delete the comment and shake the thought of it from your head.
2. Find Power In Silence. To stay silent and to be silenced are not the same thing. There is powder in silence, feel it. There is no response to a bully or a nasty comment that makes you look cool or superior, you are only wallowing in the mud by responding.
3. Feel Pity. Child Actor turned writer, Mara Wilson said on her blog recently: "Very few intelligent, successful, attractive, confident, happy people spend their time bashing people they have never met. Just be glad you are not that person." A comment a stranger makes about you says a lot more about them then it will ever say about you.
4. Strangers Will Defend You. More often than not, when I see a nasty comment posted on a blog, I watch others rush to the aid of the blogger. People who don’t know that blogger or the commenter, but who do know right from wrong, and are quick to rush to your defense.
5. Feel Important. No one throws rocks at Tiny Tim. If you are a blogger or a celebrity, the negative comments you receive will rise in direct proportion to how important people think you are. If they didn’t think of you as successful, they wouldn’t even bother. Negative comments are a direct result of doing something right, try to think of it that way.
I try to follow these rules on both this blog, as well as my other blog, The Beeroness, which has garnered a much higher level of praise as well as exponentially higher level of nastiness. With the good comes the bad, finding your own inner filter will help you enjoy more of the experience.
In a completely unrelated note, these Jalapeno Corn Waffles are perfect for brunch, or to serve with Fried Chicken. And you’ll want to drink the Sriracha Maple syrup on it’s own.
Jalapeno Corn Waffles with Sriracha Maple Syrup
Waffles:
1 cup fine yellow corn meal
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup corn kernels
1 large jalapeno, chopped, stem and seeds removed
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cheddar cheese
1 tbs brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup whole milk
1 tbs canola oil
1 egg
For the Syrup:
1/4 cup real maple syrup
1 tsp sriracha chili sauce
(Makes 4-6)
Preheat your waffle iron.
In a bowl, combine the corn meal, flour, baking powder, corn, jalapeno, salt, cheese, and brown sugar, mix. In a separate bowl, add the melted butter, milk, oil and the egg, beat until well combined. Make a well in the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and mix until just barely combined. Spray waffle iron with cooking spray if recommended, cook in waffle iron according to manufactures specifications.
Mix the maple syrup and sriracha and serve with the waffles.
