GF Adventures: Breakfast Tartlet

Sunday brunch is a  thing my family would do quite frequently after church when all of us kids were home. Now that several of us have moved and went to college, we do not get to do it as often. This particular weekend my aunt is visiting from Minnesota and Tyler is home from university, so my mom wanted to have the family together on Sunday morning. Being gluten free can be a bugger when it comes to brunch; there are so many yummy options like pancakes, waffles, quiche, muffins … none of which I can have. So I decide to make one of my favorite brunch options: Danielle Walker's 'Breakfast Pizza with Gruyere, Baked Eggs & Bacon'. It's a really simple recipe, quite quick and a treat that you wouldn't even know is gluten free! 

Breakfast Pizza with Gruyere, Baked Eggs

Original post: Danielle Walker - AgainstAllGrain 

Serves: 6 

Ingredients:

Crust

• 2 cups blanched almond flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil 
• 1 tablespoon cold water
• 1 tablespoon chopped chives

For the Pizza

• ¼ cup Crème fraîche (scd legal), or Greek yogurt
• ¼ cup shredded Gruyère cheese
• 7 bacon slices, cooked until crisp
• 4 eggs
• fresh chives
• salt and pepper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Mix the dough ingredients in a stand mixer until the a soft dough comes together in a ball. Press the dough into a tart pan, then bake the crust for 10 minutes.

Mix the Crème fraîche and Gruyère in a bowl and add a dash of salt and pepper

Spread the cheese mixture in the bottom of the baked tart shell, then layer the bacon on top.

Increase the oven temperature to 425 degree

Bake the tart for 5-7 minutes to melt the cheese, then remove it and carefully crack the eggs on top.

Return it to the oven and bake it for another 7-10 minutes, until the egg whites are set and the yolks are still soft. If you prefer more well-done yolks, leave the tart in the oven for 2-3 minutes more. The whites will look slightly underdone due to the oils from the cheese, but they will be set.

Garnish with chives and serve immediately.

Baking Adventures: Trisha Yearwood's Banana Bread

It appears that my family is always well stocked on bananas. It works out well that two of us like bananas, what we like to call 'fresh from the monkey'...just perfectly yellow without any blemishes, and the other three like them slightly past ripe, with lots of spots. However, it's inevitable that some of the bananas don't get plucked in time, so we somehow end up with a surplus of over-riped bananas in the freezer. We have a bunch of family coming into town  in a week, so I wanted to go ahead and bake some easy breakfast items that can be tucked away in the freezer and popped out when they arrive! 

Family coming into town + a half dozen bananas in the freezer = banana bread!

From Trisha Yearwood's Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen 

3/4 c. unsalted butter

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 large eggs

4 ripe bananas, mashed

1 t. vanilla

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1/2 c. buttermilk

1 c. chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 loaf pans.

With an electric mixer or stand alone mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

 Add eggs one at a time. Beat in the bananas and vanilla. 

Sift flour together with baking soda and salt and add to the mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour. Fold in nuts if desired.

Pour the batter into the loaf pans and bake for 50 minutes. Cool slightly in the pan before turning the loaves out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

*

**I added 1/2 t. of banana flavoring to the mixture, about 1 tsp of cinnamon and divided them into 4-mini loaf pans and 1-regular loaf pans, and baked for about 42 minutes until lightly golden brown

Bon Appetite !

Organic Lifestyle: Homemade Croutons

Having a clean and organic lifestyle is not just about eating carrot sticks and celery; you can enjoy many of the things you usually enjoy, just in a cleaner and healthier way. It's more time, but making things yourself is rewarding and you know exactly what is in your food! It may seem overwhelming to start thinking about everything being homemade, but start small. Look at things you use a lot, simple things like croutons and salad dressings; start there and work your way to bigger things like bread and cereals.

Today I had leftover cibatta bread that was getting a bit too crunchy, so I decided to make some fresh homemade croutons. They're so simple!

I simply cut up the cibatta bread into chunks and loaded them up in a big bowl.

Next, I drizzled about 3 Tablespoons of oil oil the bread chunks and seasoned them with coarse salt and granulated garlic and tossed them up until all were slightly coated.

Finally, I placed them in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Then I lifted the rack to the top tier, put in the broiler on high and let them sit for about 3 minutes until the tops were golden brown and yummy!

Store in an air-tight container and enjoy on salads for the next week or so :)