Mexican Baked Eggs

We are lovers of all things breakfast in the Coats house. If you were to look at our meal plan every week you would most likely see brinner (breakfast for dinner) at least once. Breakfast food is so good! I don't know what it is about it. But with our busy schedules, we don't often eat good breakfasts. I mean who has the time to cook a huge breakfast in the morning? Not us.

I did a summer study abroad in Mexico while in college and we stayed with this sweet Mexican woman. She was so nice and treated us like her kids...maybe better than her kids. She left for work early in the morning, but still managed to make breakfast for us before she left. Knowing we were lazy college kids she didn't wake us up, but instead left our food covered up and ready to heat back up. Every time I woke up it was like Christmas morning going down stairs, giddy to see what delicious gift was waiting to be unwrapped. Then we would watch some Mexican version of Jerry Springer and try to figure out what was going on while we ate. Those were simpler times.

Southern Biscuits with Jalapeno Cheddar Butter

I have never been a huge biscuit fan. I always preferred a dinner roll or something like that. Then I moved to the south. Moving here has opened my eyes. Now I will take a biscuit over just about anything. As far as bread goes biscuits are relatively easy to make. The trick is using really cold butter and cutting it into your dry ingredients. A good biscuit should be light and fluffy on the inside and flaky on the outside. Like a delicious flaky little could.

Inside Out Carrot Cake Muffins

You might want to sit down for this one...because you are about to be blown away. Think about delicious moist carrot cake topped with gooey wonderful cream cheese frosting. Now take that lovely slice of cake and invert it! Turn it's world upside down, by putting the cake on the outside and the frosting on the inside! I know crazy huh?! It sounds awesome, but does it taste good? Yes. Yes it does. There are some recipes that I have really high hopes for and end up falling a little short. This was not one of those recipes. It ended up being far better then I imagined, and trust me, I imagined it being really good.

Whole Wheat Pancakes with Buttermilk Syrup

Since my little angel woke me up at about 5 this morning I thought I would post a quick 4th of July food blog post. I knew it had to be something American so I thought I would post about the most American meal of the day, breakfast! Then I thought pancakes had to be American because Paul Bunyan ate them and what was more american then a giant beast of a man who loves to chop down natural resources for other Americans to consume? So pancakes it is!

I took these pictures! Holli isn't the only one who has picture taking skills. But she did teach me everything I know!

Food blog guest post: Orange Brûlée French Toast

As you can all tell by now we are trying to keep things fresh on the old blog. We have been doing votes, giveaways, and changing the look and layout. So to keep things in the same vein I have decided to feature recipes from people whom I look up to and admire in a culinary sense. As soon as I had this idea my mind instantly went to my sister Candice. Below is a picture Brinn Willis recently took of my family. Candice is the one wearing the cartoon chef hat.

Picture by Brinn Willis of  BMW Photography (I added the Chef Hat)

Egg-in-a-hole

Hi everyone, my name is Matt and I’m an egg-aholic. I have been trying to cut back, but it’s just too hard and this morning I had a hardcore relapse. I decided to write this post just minutes after I finished my breakfast so I can capture the emotion of my food high! I always have my eye on a ton of recipes that I want to make, but I just never make them. I am an ambitious lazy cook. I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. I get excited to make all these cool things, but never do. This morning I decided to do something about it.   

Picture by Holli Coats

Huevos Rancheros mis amigos!

After a brief hiatus from the blog, I am back! Holli has done a great job blogging lately and has even posted some recipes! Poor thing…she’s a good cook, but just doesn’t like to do it. Working full time and with the baby I just don’t get to do the extravagant meals that I enjoy. However, on our way to Utah I took a gander at Spirit magazine on Southwest Airlines. I must admit I love their dollar bill origami. In April’s issue the main article was on eggs and I found this recipe. One thing you must know about me is I love eggs. If I can put an egg on something I will. The Moco-Loco Hawaiian plate lunch (rice with a beef patty gravy and an egg on top) LOVE IT! The Royal Burger from Red Robin (Burger with an egg on it) LOVE IT! Eggs Benedict LOVE IT! I wouldn’t go as far as the Rocky raw egg shake, but let it be known I love eggs!

Grits so good it will melt your face off!

Trust me when you eat these grits it will be like that Nazi who looked in the Ark in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Last Ark! If you do not get that reference you should take some time out of your day to watch that movie. Since coming to Virginia about 5 years ago, I have heard southerners rave about the southern staple known as grits. I decided to give them a go several years back and almost gagged. Over and over again I was duped by some smooth talking southerner to try them again. Every time I naively gave them another try I was left with the same result, Barf! I admit I didn’t have too high of hopes for grits in places like waffle house or even quick grits from Wal-Mart, but I was confused with the wonderful flavors of southern food and the bland and tasteless flavor of their ever so popular grits. They would tell me to load it up with cheese and butter and bacon, but even with the celestial meat known as bacon I could not choke grits down.

Then I ate at a little restaurant in Lexington known as the Red Hen. (www.redhenlex.com/) One of the main courses included grits and rabbit bacon. I was so excited about the rabbit bacon I completely ignored the grits altogether. When the food arrived I looked at my plate and saw the grits. My heart sank! “Why did I order this?” I thought! Then I decided to just suck it up and give them one last try. This was in fact a high class restaurant. The first bite with the grits and rabbit bacon was like biting into heaven itself! The grits were almost as good as the rabbit bacon, which is on a very short list of the best things I ever ate! From that moment I became a true convert! I knew that not all grits were created equal. So I asked the waitress what kind of grits they used and she said they used stone ground white grits from Wades Mill here in Rockbridge County.

It’s been over a year since I had them and I am not sure why I didn’t make this trip sooner. This Saturday we made a trip to Wades Mill. It was so cool! They use local ingredients from the Rockbridge County Farmers Co-op and stone grind everything from grits, flour, polenta, to barley. They have pancake mixes, bread mixes, and beer bread mixes. I got a small bag of yellow and white grits. Then this morning made creamy stone-ground grits with bacon and cheddar and threw on a fried egg to top it off. It was awesome! Not quite Red Hen quality, but close. If you do not live close to Rockbridge County here is wades mills web site (www.wadesmill.com). Now all my friends out west can order grits if they want to. This recipe is worth your time!

Creamy Stone Ground Grits

Ingredients
4 cups water
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup coarse stone-ground white grits
1 cup whole milk
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Preperation
Bring water, salt, and 1 tablespoon butter to a boil in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan, then add grits gradually, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Reduce heat and cook at a bare simmer, covered, stirring frequently, until water is absorbed and grits are thickened, about 15 minutes.
Stir in 1/2 cup milk and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally to keep grits from sticking to bottom of pan, 10 minutes. Stir in remaining 1/2 cup milk and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until liquid is absorbed and grits are thick and tender, about 35 minutes more. (Grits will have a soft, mashed-potato-like consistency.)
Stir in pepper and remaining tablespoon butter.

Bacon, egg, and Toast Cups

Saw this in Martha Stewart Everyday Food (Don’t judge me). It was super easy to make and had normal breakfast ingredients that we already had. It made for a nice Sunday breakfast! It was a fancy spin on a normal everyday breakfast or brunch. I may try to make a hollandaise sauce to drizzle over next time and Holli wants to try it with sausage. You can even do different variations in the same muffin tin. There are so many things you can do with this! Try getting this at a Waffle House!

Bacon, Egg, and Toast Cups

Total Cook Time: about 35 minutes

3 Tablespoons Unsalted butter, melted

8 Slices of White or Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread

6 Slices of Bacon

6 Large Eggs

Corse salt and Ground Pepper

Preheat the oven to 375. Lightly butter six standard muffin cups. With a rolling pin, flatten bread slightly and, with a 4 ¼ - inch cookie cutter, cut into 8 rounds. Cut each round in half, then press 2 halves into each muffin cup, overlapping slightly making sure that bread comes up to the edge of the cup. Use extra bread to patch any gaps. Brush bread with remaining butter.

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium, until almost crisp, 4 min, flipping once. (It will continue to cook in the oven.) Lay 1 slice of bacon in each bread cup and crack an egg over each. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until egg whites are just set, 20-25 minutes. Run a small knife around cups to loosen toast. Serve immediately.

Try cook crumbled sausage in place of bacon or make a vegetarian dish with sautéed spinach.

Best Enchiladas EVER...just keep a fire extinguisher close by

Ok gang (by gang I mean the 3 or 4 people who read this blog)! I have tried out some new recipes this week and I wanted to get these posted before our LOST series finale extravaganza (See post next Monday for more details). This first recipe comes from our William-Sonoma cookbook. I have been messing around with making a green sauce for Chicken Enchiladas for a while, but with little success. I mean they weren’t bad, but it was just lacking something. I should have thought green sauce = tomatillo, but I didn't.

My sister Candice is over this weekend and my family is huge on Mexican food, so I decided to try this recipe. It was super spicy! I don’t know why 9 serrano peppers didn’t throw up any red flags. If I were to make these again I would probably deseed the peppers after boiling or I would use less peppers. If you like spicy things then this is for you!

Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce (Enchiladas Verdes)

Ingredients:

For the chicken:

2 lb. chicken breasts

1/4 white onion

1 garlic head, halved crosswise

1 Tbs. sea salt

For the sauce:

3 lb. tomatillos, husked and rinsed

9 serrano chilies

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 cup safflower or canola oil

1 Tbs. sea salt, or to taste

For the enchiladas:

1/3 cup safflower or canola oil

18 thin corn tortillas

1 cup crema or crème fraîche

1 white onion, thinly sliced

1 cup crumbled queso fresco

Directions:

To prepare the chicken, place in a saucepan with the onion, garlic and salt and add water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to medium, cover and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool and lift out the chicken, saving the broth for another use. (The chicken can be wrapped and refrigerated for up to 1 day before continuing.) Discard the skin and bones and shred the meat with your fingers. You should have 4 cups chicken.

To make the sauce, in a saucepan, combine the tomatillos and chilies with water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. If some of the tomatillos remain firm, the pan should still be removed from the heat. Drain and, working in batches, place the tomatillos and chilies in a blender along with the garlic. Process until a smooth sauce forms.

In a fry pan over medium-high heat, warm the oil until it is smoking. Quickly add the tomatillo sauce and fry, stirring constantly, until the sauce begins to bubble. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the sauce starts to thicken, 5 minutes more. Add the 1 Tbs. salt; taste and add more salt, if needed. Keep warm. When the sauce is combined with the tortillas and chicken, the taste of salt will be quite diminished; it should be highly seasoned at this point. You should have 3 cups of sauce. If needed, add some of the chicken broth.

Preheat an oven to 350°F.

To make the enchiladas, in a fry pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat until sizzling hot. Using tongs, quickly pass each tortilla through the oil to soften, and then drain on paper towels.

Using your fingers, dip each tortilla briefly in the warm sauce, place on a plate, put a large spoonful of shredded chicken near one edge and roll up the tortilla. Place, seam side down, in a baking dish. Cover with the remaining sauce. Bake until thoroughly heated, about 10 minutes.

Remove the enchiladas from the oven and top with the crema, onion slices and crumbled cheese. Alternately, arrange the enchiladas on individual warmed plates and garnish before serving. Serve immediately enchiladas become soggy quickly.

Serves 6.

Also for breakfast this morning I made a Baked French Toast. It is like a Bread Pudding with a coffee cake crumb on top. It turned out awesome! I can see this being a mother’s day breakfast for our family. I topped ours with Strawberries and homemade whipped cream. This could definitely be a breakfast or a desert. Remember you need a least a few hours to soak. I would recommend soaking it over night. Everything can be prepared the night before so it is really easy to put everything together the next morning.

Baked French Toast

Prep Time 15 Minutes

Cook Time 1 Hour

Ingredients:

FRENCH TOAST

1 loaf Crusty Sourdough Or French Bread

8 whole Eggs

2 cups Whole Milk

½ cups Whipping (heavy) Cream

¾ cups Sugar

2 Tablespoons Vanilla Extract

TOPPING

½ cups All-purpose Flour

½ cups Firmly Packed Brown Sugar

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

¼ teaspoons Salt

1 stick Cold Butter, Cut Into Pieces

Fresh Fruit (optional)

Preparation Instructions

Grease 9 x 13-inch baking pan with butter. Tear bread into chunks (or cut into cubes) and evenly distribute in the pan.

Mix together eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. Pour evenly over bread. Cover tightly and store in the fridge several hours or overnight.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add nutmeg if desired. Add butter pieces and but into the dry mixture until mixture resembles fine pebbles. Store in a Ziploc in the fridge.

When you’re ready to bake the casserole, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove casserole from oven and sprinkle crumb mixture over the top. (If you’re using fruit, sprinkle on before the crumb mixture.) Bake for 45 minutes for a softer, more bread pudding texture. Bake 1 hour or more for a firmer, less liquid texture.