breakfast – Page 2 – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

17-16: Whole Wheat Baguette

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 26, 2018August 31, 2020all-purpose flour, baguette, baked goods, bread series, breads, breakfast, butter, dairy-free, dinner, dough, egg-free, fairly hard, French, French bread, garlic, inexpensive, kneaded, proofed, side dish, Silpat, sliced, untested, vegan, vegetarian, wheat germ, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, yeast

Here’s a simple whole wheat bread recipe. 17-16: Whole Wheat Baguette has “baguette” in the name, but you could use this same recipe to make buns, rolls, sandwich bread, or any other shape you prefer. This is more of a utilitarian recipe more than anything else–nothing fancy here.

Baguettes are indeed long, thin loaves of French bread (French bread being a type of dough, not a type of shape). I made short, thin individual loaves instead, which the Wikipedia article I linked to calls demi-baguettes, although mine are probably even shorter than that. I thought individually-sized ones might be an interesting experiment instead of one or two long loaves.

17-22: Bread Loaves with Creamy Filling

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods January 31, 2018November 8, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, breads, breakfast, cheese, chervil, chopped, cottage cheese, creamy, dill, easy, filling, herbs and spices, inexpensive, kneaded, lunch, melted, parsley, proofed, salt, sliced, snacks, tarragon, untested, vegetarian, white bread, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, yeast

One of the last few from the “in-the-queue-way-too-long” batch, here’s 17-22: Bread Loaves with Creamy Filling. I’ve been putting this recipe off for a while–I never seemed to have or remembered to buy cottage cheese to make it. Yes, in another 1980s-lowfat-health-craze-inspired moment, Simply Delicious chooses to sacrifice flavor for “health benefits”, this time by stuffing whole wheat bread with herb-flavored cottage cheese.

See? “Healthy” is right there in the description. Now, 30+ years later, we’ve determined that fats are probably better for you than we thought back then, and carbs/sugar are probably a lot worse for you. Remember, when they make things “low-fat”, they usually have to jack up the sugar to make it somewhat edible. Not really a great strategy for weight loss, as my parents’ yo-yo dieting throughout the 80s, 90s, and beyond can attest to.

9-13: Hungarian Frittata

Adam Martin Group 09: Ground Meat & Sausage, Section 2: Main Courses January 30, 2018October 18, 2020breakfast, chopped, dairy-free, diced, dinner, dried spices, Eastern European, easy, eggs, franks, frittata, green bell peppers, herbs and spices, hot dogs, Hungarian, inexpensive, lunch, paprika, red bell peppers, salami, sausage, sautéed, sliced, tomatoes, untested, vegetables, wieners, yellow onions

Frittata is one of my favorite dishes. I could eat eggs all day: morning, noon, and night. I am so happy that the meme of Put an Egg On It has come into existence. A warm egg yolk on top of well done corned beef hash is my favorite application of Put an Egg On It. Sausages and salami inside a bed of scrambled eggs could be a close second for best application of eggs in a dish.

A frittata sounds a lot like an omelette: Eggs, veggies, and meat combined together. The difference is in how the ingredients are combined.

5-8: Royal Crêpes

Jamie Martin Group 05: Eggs & Cheese, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters January 25, 2018January 19, 2023all-purpose flour, breakfast, broiled, butter, butter sauce, Cheddar, cheese, chilled, chopped, cooked shrimp, creamy, crêpes, dill, double boiler, dried herbs, egg yolks, eggs, emulsion, fairly expensive, fairly hard, half-and-half, herbs and spices, Hollandaise sauce, lemon juice, lunch, melted, milk, Monterey Jack, pancakes, peeled, salt, seafood, shredded, shrimp, untested, whipping cream

More queue-cleaning–add 5-8: Royal Crêpes to the pile of other crêpe recipes that I’ve done over the course of this project. When I first started making crêpes for this project about 4 years ago now, I had never made crêpes before. Now I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on the concept, so let’s kick it up a notch with a “royal” version. ?

Oh no–my mortal enemy: Hollandaise sauce. I’ve struggled with it in the past–will this be my redemption? Jump behind the cut and find out!

20-12: Basic Rolls

Jamie Martin Group 20: Basic Recipes, Section 4: Cooking School December 19, 2017October 18, 2020all-purpose flour, appetizers, baguette, baked goods, bread series, breads, breakfast, brushed, butter, cardamom, cheese, chopped, cinnamon, coarse salt, cooking school, crescents, cumin, curry powder, dried herbs, egg wash, eggs, granulated sugar, grated, herbs and spices, lunch, melted, milk, nuts, party food, poppy seeds, pretzels, proofed, rolls, saffron, salt, scored, sesame seeds, slit, snacks, sunflower seeds, untested, vegetarian, white bread, yeast

Playing a bit of catch-up here since unscheduled interruptions, other non-food-related projects, and massive amounts of holiday baking have put me far behind in terms of keeping up with posts. I had started working on a Bread Series, starting with 18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I which I published back in October. Covering 20-12: Basic Rolls was intended to play off of that concept, giving you an easy recipe to utilize the lessons presented in both that post and its follow-up, 18-2: Basic Yeast Dough II.

Quick review: the last three chapters of Simply Delicious are part of its Cooking School, intended to review basic techniques, ingredients, and recipes with which all aspiring chefs should be familiar. I’ve covered a few bits and bobs out of those last few chapters, but much of it still remains untapped.

5-16: Richmond Omelette

Jamie Martin Group 05: Eggs & Cheese, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters October 30, 2017January 26, 2021all-purpose flour, Béchamel sauce, black pepper, breakfast, broccoli, broiled, butter, casserole, Cheddar, cheese, cheese sauce, creamy, easy, eggs, Emmental, filling, French, garnish, grated, Gruyère, inexpensive, lunch, melted, milk, Mornay sauce, mushrooms, omelette, Parmesan, port wine, roux, salt, sliced, sour cream, tomatoes, untested, vegetables, vegetarian, whipping cream, white Cheddar

A lot of Simply Delicious‘ recipes are takes on already-established dishes, like 9-4: Swedish Meatballs, 2-13: Waldorf Salad or 3-2: New England Clam Chowder. I did a fair amount of searching for anything that resembled 5-16: Richmond Omelette, but besides some rankings of places to get a good omelette in Richmond, VA, there’s not much out there for that particular dish with that name.

I’ve put this one off for a while due to not having port wine on hand. After a trip to the store and a rather haughty store clerk who carded me for it despite the clearly visible gray streaks in my hair, I have the wine–let’s make a weird mushroom omelette-casserole with cheese sauce.

18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I

Jamie Martin Group 18: Basic Techniques, Section 4: Cooking School October 5, 2017September 30, 2020all-purpose flour, anise, baked goods, beer, bread series, breads, breakfast, butter, cake yeast, canola oil, cinnamon, cooking school, cumin, dairy-free, dried herbs, dried spices, durum wheat flour, eggs, fennel, garlic, granulated sugar, herbs and spices, milk, olive oil, poppy seeds, rye flour, saffron, salt, sesame seeds, shortening, snacks, untested, vanilla extract, vegetable juice, vegetable oil, vegetarian, wheat germ, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, whole wheat kernels, yeast

I’ve made a lot of bread during the 3.5 years I’ve been working on this project (both for the project and outside of it), and I hear a lot of the same remarks whenever I talk about making bread: “Oh, that seems hard”, or “It’s too much work to make bread”. I used to feel the same way, and shied away from yeast recipes for a long time out of a fear of failure. In cooking (like most things in life), you have to be ready to embrace failure and learn from it–otherwise, you’ll never get past heating up Hot Pockets in the microwave.

Simply Delicious even notes in their recipe blurb that bread making is perceived as hard. It’s maybe not the easiest thing in the world, but you’ll make a lot of friends fast if you can make them fresh bread. 18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I is the first in a three-part series on bread making, where you’ll learn some tips and tricks for improving your bread baking, as well as a few basic recipes that you can use.

17-14: Nutty Muffins

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods September 15, 2017August 31, 2020all-purpose flour, almonds, at work, baked goods, baking cups, baking powder, breakfast, butter, candied, chopped, cinnamon, citrus, creamed, dessert, dried fruit, easy, eggs, fairly inexpensive, gift ideas, granulated sugar, hazelnuts, melted, milk, muffins, nuts, oranges, pecans, peeled, reduced, simple syrup, snacks, tangerines, toppings, untested, vegetarian, walnuts, zested

Here’s one of the last few recipes left from the chapter on baked goods, Group 17: Baked Goods. I made 17-14: Nutty Muffins for work–I thought they’d make a nice accompaniment to everyone’s morning coffee. ☕️

See? Even Simply Delicious shows them being served with coffee. Wikipedia offers a deeper dive on the history of muffins if you’re interested/bored. There’s a difference between these types of muffins (referred to as “quickbread” muffins or “American” muffins due to the fact that they’re very similar to a cupcake or other types of sweet, dense, cake-like bread) and the traditional “English” muffins that you get with Eggs Benedict or an Egg McMuffin.

15-30: Champagne Sundaes

Jamie Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods June 6, 2017July 30, 2020blueberries, breakfast, brunch, cantaloupe, champagne, chilled, cider, cold desserts, dairy-free, dessert, easy, egg-free, fairly expensive, fruit, fruit salad, gelato, ginger ale, gluten-free, honeydew, ice cream, mason jars, MD2017, melon, melon baller, mimosas, Mother's Day, orange juice, party food, raspberries, sherbet, sliced, snacks, soda, sorbet, sparkling, sundaes, untested, vegan, vegetarian

The final dish of my Mother’s Day brunch this year (MD2017) was the second half of my dessert options (in addition to 17-23: Mocha Éclairs): 15-30: Champagne Sundaes. My mom loves mimosas (which we had in abundance already), and since we already had fruit from 15-19: Layered Fruit Salad, I decided this would be an easy dish to make as well. Plus, it’s nice to have something light to finish with–it balances out the other rich dishes I made for this meal.

I decided to update this recipe concept for the 2010s: I served them in mason jar glasses instead of stemmed glasses. This could totally be a dish at current-day hipster bottomless-mimosa brunches everywhere.?

20-15: Vary the Butter Sauces

Jamie Martin Group 20: Basic Recipes, Section 4: Cooking School June 5, 2017October 18, 2020appetizers, Béarnaise sauce, black pepper, breakfast, butter, butter sauce, chopped, cookbook project, cooking school, creamy, deglazed, dinner, double boiler, dried herbs, egg yolks, eggs, fish bouillon, fish sauce, fish stock, food processor, Foyot sauce, French, gluten-free, gravy, herbes de Provence, herbs and spices, Hollandaise sauce, lemon juice, lunch, Maltaise sauce, melted, minced, mounted, Mousseline sauce, orange juice, oranges, parsley, party food, peeled, peppercorns, purée, reduced, salt, shallots, side dish, tarragon, tomato paste, tomatoes, untested, vegetarian, vinegar, whipped, whipping cream, white wine, white wine vinegar, zested

Consider 20-15: Vary the Butter Sauces to be the advanced version of 20-13: Béarnaise and Hollandaise Sauces. There’s probably something that bridges the two better (whatever 20-14 is, but I don’t have that card in my collection), so 5-4: Eggs Benedict will have to do. This set of recipes is part of the Cooking School, the back section of Simply Delicious that provides instructions in basic techniques, ingredients, and recipes that any skilled cook should be familiar with.

Like I said in 20-13: Béarnaise and Hollandaise Sauces, Hollandaise and its variations comprise one of the five mother sauces, a big part of French cuisine. Mastering it (and the others) is one of the marks of an accomplished and talented chef. I’ve always appreciated a well-made butter sauce, and these variations are intriguing–I’d be interested in eventually trying each one out.