MagicallyDelicious

If french toast and a grilled cheese sandwich had a baby, this is what you’d get.  This is five ingredients, salt, pepper, and 20 minutes of anticipation.  You likely have every ingredient in your pantry, and if you can use a fork, this is something you can whip up in about 2 minutes and pop into the oven.  Or in this case, toaster oven.  It’s baked french toast with a cheesy twist, and it would be delicious for breakfast, lunch or brinner.  Consider adding a little pre-cooked bacon, ham, chicken or turkey.

It’s called Sarah’s Savoury Bread & Cheese Pudding at AllRecipes, but this isn’t very bread-pudding-like to me.  So I just revised the title a little to give you a different idea of what to expect.  Make it soon!

Well…I kind of took the summer off from cooking.  I moved from Maryland to Chicago, and I’m still unpacking boxes and restocking my kitchen.  Every time I try to make something, I’m missing an ingredient that I always have on hand, but had to leave behind because it was an open liquid.

So I was very excited to make my first dish in my new kitchen.  Simple, quick but so delicious.  This is my recipe for Quick & Easy Home Fries I posted on AllRecipes a very long time ago.  Enjoy!

Image from GoBoldWithButter.com - I've made this twice and haven't stopped to photograph it either time. So you know it's good!

For me, nothing compares to the taste of warm (not melted, not firm, but just warm and spreadable), creamy, fresh salted butter.  The way it melts into the crevasses of a crunchy toasted English muffin, the way it fills all the spaces in the grid of a warm waffle under a cascade of maple syrup.  The way it slides across a stack of pancakes.  What’s not to love about butter?

Ok, there’s fat.  But fat is flavor, and to me, it makes much more sense to use a little butter than to use a lot of something synthetic.  Margarine will never be butter.  It really shouldn’t try.  There’s no substitute for the natural, creamy goodness of melty butter.  It makes everything better.

My newest favorite recipe containing butter is from the fine folks at GoBoldWithButter.com.  French Toast with Honey Butter.  I can’t even describe how mouth-watering this is.  As if the french toast isn’t enough (it’s really pain perdu with brandy…divine!) the honey butter is the best I’ve ever tasted.  It’s mixed with honey, vanilla bean, and some powdered sugar and a little salt to create a butter so perfectly sweet and salty it’s great on everything.  And easy – don’t miss it.

photo: Washington National Cathedral

I’ve heard of lots of names for this day of indulgence before lent:  Mardis Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Fastnacht, Paczki Day.  But pancake day was a new one on me – and I’m on board.  Any excuse for a nice tall stack of pancakes is ok by me.  And since I can’t get a decent version of my beloved paczkis where I live, I will have to settle for pancakes.

The traditions are all the same with different ways to celebrate.  The idea was to purge the house of all the thing you had to give up for Lent – so high-fat high sugar treats are the watchword for the day.  Pancake day is the same idea – make pancakes to get rid of the butter, sugar and flour.  But there’s an even more fun tradition for those flapjacks than enjoying their fluffy goodness on a plate.

Shrove Tuesday was once known as a ‘half-holiday’ in England. It started at 11:00am with the signalling of a church bell. On Pancake Day, pancake races are held in villages and towns across the United Kingdom. Legend has it that a housewife from Olney was so busy making pancakes that she forgot the time until she heard the church bells ringing for the service. She raced out of the house to church while still carrying her frying pan and pancake.

The pancake race remains a relatively common festive tradition in the UK, and England in particular, even today. Participants with frying pans race through the streets running and flipping their flapjacks. In Olney today, a pancake race still takes place every year on Shrove Tuesday.

The tradition of pancake racing had started long before that. The most famous pancake race, at Olney in Buckinghamshire, has been held since 1445. The contestants, traditionally women, carry a frying pan and race to the finishing line while tossing the pancakes as they go. The winner is the first to cross the line having tossed the pancake a certain number of times. Traditionally, when men want to participate, they must dress up as a housewife (usually an apron and a bandanna).

And in the US, the national cathedral celebrates this tradition with their annual pancake race.  I can think of better ways to treat a stack of flapjacks, but it looks like fun to me.  As long as I get to eat some of those pancakes I’m totally on board.  Here’s my recipe for the best pancakes I’ve ever had.  Much like pancake racing, making these perfect is all about the technique.

Click for my favorite pancake recipe

I’m not sure why it is that jams and jellies taste so much better on bread than they do on their own, but I’m thankful that is the case.

Enjoying the first breakfast of my new launch of Weight Watchering – two slices of crunchy whole wheat toast with a sparing amount of butter on each and the same amount of cherry butter.  Yes, you heard me right, butter.  Not “butter” – no spreads or light butter or margarine.  Butter.  My theory is this.

Butter has a lot more flavor than all those other substitutes combined.  So if I use less of a good thing instead of more of a not-so-good thing, my taste buds will still be happy and maybe my waist will be eventually too.

Cherry butter, by the way, is awesome.  It gives that sweetness without being overly tart, and it has a really good texture (something you’ll hear me complain about often I’m sure – yes, I’m a weird, picky eater).  If you see some, buy it.  I got mine at McCutcheons in Frederick, MD.  Good and good for you.

Anyway, random post of the morning.  Now back to work!

Just for the record, there’s no affiliate program for McCutcheon’s.  I just love their products so I’m telling you fine folks about them.

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