Strawberry Bread

I love Publix. It is my most favorite grocery store in Augusta. It's always clean, the people are friendly, it has a wonderful balance of "health nut" to "normal" food, and the produce and meat departments always have the freshest selections.

Probably my favorite thing about Publix is that they don't have those VIP reward cards, but they always have 2 for the price of 1 on most of the items you buy, except every week, they change up the brands. But unlike a lot of stores, you can still get the deal even if you only buy one. So, you get a carton of orange juice for half price. It's great, as long as you not always a one-brand kind of person.

Last week, they were having a huge sale on strawberries. It was a tremendous savings. Three pint size containers for $5! I love strawberries in my yogurt (fresh strawberries, not strawberry flavored yogurt--gross) so I thought I'd buy a couple pints and see how long they lasted. Turns out, it's not so easy to eat 2 pints of strawberries before they go bad. So, I devised a plan to rid the fridge of the leftover strawberries...make strawberry bread on Sunday morning.

I love my mom's recipe, but couldn't find it so I found one on the internet. Luckily we were housesitting so she had everything I needed in her pantry. It's always nice to know you can make a perfectly delicious breakfast without having to go to the grocery store. Publix is great, but at 9:30 in the morning, being home is even better.

Strawberry Bread
Adapted from Joy of Baking

1/2 stick of unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
3 large eggs, lightly scrambled
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. AP flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. sour cream
1/3 c. pecans
2 c. roughly chopped strawberries

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour an 8x4-inch loaf pan.

Place pecans on baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes or until fragrant. Let cool and coarsely chop.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter for about one minute. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat until just mixed. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in three additions) and sour cream (in two additions) alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Mix only until combined. Gently fold in the chopped strawberries and walnuts.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake for one hour and 15 mintues. Insert a toothpick to see if comes out clean. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove bread from pan. Serve warm with lots of butter.

How to Pair a Rosé

I've had a good bottle of rosé in our wine refrigerator for I don't know how long, and I was starting to worry about it going bad before we could drink it. The problem is that I didn't what to drink it with. I don't think of rose as a sipping wine, but a wine that needs to be drunk with some kind of food.

I started my search and quickly found that rosé goes particularly well with tomato based dishes that contain seafood. So a shrimp creole would have been perfect. Problem was, last night, I was determined not to go to the grocery store. I made it my goal to prepare dinner with only what I had in the kitchen. Upon further searching, I learned that egg dishes go well with rosé, too. And there I had it...a frittata.

So, I grabbed some chipotle chicken sausage links and tortillas from the freezer, some leftover manchego cheese, and my last 4 eggs from their carton and went to work on my creation. Turns out that rosé pairs perfectly with a frittata. We should have figured that out earlier because we have missed out on rosé and frittatas for way too long.

Chicken Sausage and Manchego Frittata
Serves 2 with leftovers for breakfast the next morning

1 tbs. olive oil, divided
1/4 red onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 link of spicy chicken sausage, cut into thin disks
4 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded manchego cheese, divided
1/2 tsp. chili powder
salt and pepper
two small flour tortillas
Frank's Red Hot Sauce

Preheat the broiler. In an oven-safe small skillet over medium-low, sauté the onion and garlic in 1/2 tbs. olive oil until softened. Add the sausage disks and heat through. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, small handful of cheese, chili powder, and salt and pepper. Take the skillet off the heat, add sausage mixture to bowl with egg mixture. Whisk to incorporate everything.

Wipe skillet with a paper towel. Heat 1/2 tbs. oil over medium low heat. Add egg and sausage mixture. Cook until the bottom sets and starts to brown and the top begins to set. Transfer to a low rack of oven. Let broil for about 5 minutes or until the top has set and is beginning to brown, but making sure it doesn't burn. Meanwhile, toast tortillas until just brown, about 3-5 mintues.

Remove frittata from the oven and transfer to a plate. Place one tortilla in skillet and top with cheese. Slide fritatta on top of the tortilla. Top with another tortilla and sprinkle with cheese. Put back under broiler until cheese melts. Cut into wedges and serve with chopped tomatoes and hot sauce.

Happy Post-Holidays!

Thank goodness the holiday meals are officially over. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the traditional casseroles, turkey and ham, but after 3 Thanksgivings and 3 Christmas dinners, I'm done. Last night, I needed a dinner that was a lot less cheesy and way less meaty.

It was our first night home after a marathon month and a half of traveling and eating. I'd decided we needed a warm and quick dinner since we finally beat the East coast Christmas blizzard and made it home at 2 a.m. Following my much needed afternoon nap, I cozied up to my stack of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks for some inspiration. And then the perfect dish came to me as I was flipping through Barefoot in Paris--Herbed-Baked Eggs.

It's a relatively easy dinner to make if you get the timing just right, and it only needs a light green salad and some toasted baguette as sides. I used Ina's Green Salad Vinaigrette from the same cookbook over baby greens with the addition of a little of the leftover parmesan and some thin slices of Bosc pears. It was a perfect meal to warm us up, and bring us down from the holiday high.

Since I followed the recipe to a T, I won't post it here. I will, however, post the link to Food Network's website with the recipe. Enjoy!  Herbed-Baked Eggs

Sometimes You Just Want to Feel Like a Kid Again

Why was having breakfast for dinner such a special treat when you were a little kid? I guess because it was an anomalous event on a seemingly normal night. While all the other kids in the neighborhood were eating casseroles or spaghetti, you were eating eggs and bacon. Somehow you felt that you were some kind of special and your mom was the greatest. Now that I'm an adult, I realize that it wasn't just greatness that convinced my mom to make breakfast for dinner. It was because she had all the breakfast fixin's in the fridge, and after a long day, lord knows she didn't want to get in the car, find a parking spot and wait in line at the Winn-Dixie.

Tonight was a little along the same lines as that. I got home late from work, which throws my afternoon timing all off, and Adam and I had to start our 90 minute workout, do laundry and clean the house. The last thing I wanted to do was go to the grocery store down the street. On my way home, I put my thinking creative cap on and decided what I had to do. Breakfast for dinner with a twist. A healthy Waffle House-esque bacon, egg and cheese sandwich with fruit salad. And the best part, Adam thought I was giving him an extra special treat.

For the fruit salad, I only had an apple and an orange in the fruit drawer so it wasn't a colorful salad, but I made it special. I cut the apples small and segmented the orange (with none of the dreaded bitter white pith) and stirred them together to keep the apple from turning brown. I wanted to make a sweet dressing so I squeezed out the remaining juice from the membrane into a bowl, added a little touch of honey, sprinkled a few poppy seeds, whisked a bit, and poured it over the fruit. And now for the pièce de résistance for all you Waffle House fans.

Breakfast Sandwich
Serves 1
2 slices whole wheat bread
1 slice of thick-cut ham
1 egg
1 slice 2% American cheese
Butter flavor Pam
Light mayonnaise
Salt and pepper

Place the bread in the toaster and set for a medium color. Crack an egg into a small bowl, but do not beat. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, place the ham slice on one side. On the other side, spray a bit of Pam and slide the egg into the pan. Once the egg has set on the bottom, take your spatula and poke the yolk a couple of times to let it spread and cook. Let it cook for a minute or so and flip the ham and egg. Turn the skillet off, salt and pepper the egg, place the cheese on the egg, and spread a little mayo on the toast. Layer the ham and egg and cheese on the toast and enjoy.