Tag: breakfast

Flinsen (Or Pflinzen)

Flinsen

In honor of Father’s Day, Jonah and I made flinsen. Whenever we see Jonah’s dad, Randy, he makes us flinsen. Randy will stand at the stove and make these pancakes, handing them out one at a time, hot off the stove, until everyone is full. Then he will sit down and eat. What a caring dad, right? I love Randy. (Another awesome thing about Randy is that he makes cheese, and good cheese at that!)

Flinsen

Ingredients

1 egg per person
1/2 cup flour per person
milk

Toppings for serving: yogurt, maple syrup, jam, sliced fruit, butter, and cinnamon sugar are all good options!

Instructions

Flinsen are easy. Put one egg per person that will be eating in a bowl and scramble them. Now add 1/2 cup flour per person. Now add milk until it’s the right consistency. “Wow, Annie,” you must be thinking, “That’s a great instruction.” I know, I know. You want it to be like really thin pancake batter. Think crepes.

Throw a slab of butter into a 10 inch fry pan over medium heat. Spread the melty butter around, and take about a 1/4 cup measure full of batter, and dump it into the pan. Here’s the tricky part. While you’re pouring the batter into the pan, you need to pick up the pan and swirl it around so the batter makes a thin layer over the whole pan. It may take a couple tries to get the hang of it, but you can do it! Pile them on a plate (or a pan and put them in a low oven to keep them warm).

Now comes filling time. You can put whatever you want inside, kind of like a crepe. Jonah’s got me hooked on greek yogurt and a drizzle of syrup. Jam is also good, sliced fruit is too, and even plain ol’ butter and cinnamon sugar. Enjoy!

Matzoh Brei

Matzoh Brei
Matzoh Brei

Matzoh Brei

This is the last Passover related dish. I had been wanting to make matzoh brei for Jonah, that’s the real reason I bought a box of matzoh at all. This morning, after a weird run (there was a pretty bad house fire down the street from us, so went went out for a run, and then spent a little while watching all the fire trucks arrive and such before finally starting our workout) we came home and I got started.

I remember my parents making matzoh brei for us when we were kids. I think they did it as more of a scramble instead of like little pancakes (as I did here), but either way, it’s delicious. I think my parents also used a higher matzoh to egg ratio than I did, but it was still dang good.

Matzoh Brei

Makes enough for 2 hungry people

Ingredients

3 pieces of matzoh, broken into 1/2 inch pieces
3 eggs
salt
pepper
vegetable oil for frying
jam, syrup, and/or sugar for serving

Instructions

Break matzo into 1/2″ pieces and put them in a medium mixing bowl. Cover the matzoh with piping hot tap water and let stand for about 30 seconds, then drain. In another bowl, beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Pour the eggs over the matzoh (or the other way around, doesn’t really matter) and mix thoroughly until combined and a batter forms.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Scoop scant 1/4-cupfuls (or 1/5-cupfuls) of batter into the pan. You don’t want them to be too thick because you want them to cook through and get a little crispy on the edges. Fry, turning once, until golden and cooked through, about a minute per side. Serve hot with jam, sugar, and/or syrup! Enjoy!

Easy Peasy Cranberry Scones

Cranberry Scones

Cranberry Scones
Cranberry Scones

The other morning, before Jonah went to work, I decided to whip up some cranberry scones. There is no better way to start your day than with a fresh, warm, baked good. I found an easy recipe on Martha’s website (marthastewart.com) that didn’t require me to go out and buy anything, so it’s the one I went with in the end. Although, I’ll tell you it did call for fresh cranberries, but I substituted dried because it’s what I had.

Cranberry Scones

Makes 8 scones

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more rolling out
5 Tbl sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for sprinkling atop
1 Tbl baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbl chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2/3 cup, plus 1 tablespoon milk or half-and-half
1/2 cup cranberries (halved if fresh, or dried)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. I used my food processor, and combine flour, 5 Tbl sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add in the butter and pulse until you’ve got coarse crumbs. Now pour in 2/3 cup milk and pulse again until the dough comes together.

At this point, I dumped my dough out onto a floured surface and folded in the cranberries by hand by throwing them on top in a pile and then kneading the dough a few times. Now pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick disc. Cut the disc into 8 wedges and put the wedges on a baking sheet a couple of inches apart. Brush the tops of the scones with the remaining milk and sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Bake them for 12-15 minutes or golden brown.

After removing the scones from the oven, transfer them to a wire rack to cool. But don’t wait too long to eat them! These are best warm with some butter, jam, and accompanied by a nice mug of tea. Enjoy!

French Toast (with a secret ingredient)

French Toast

French Toast
French Toast

This past weekend my mom came to town to hang out, and we had her, her boyfriend, and his son over for breakfast on Sunday morning. I thought it would be nice to make the french toast that she used to make for me growing up. Hopefully my mother doesn’t kill me for posting her secret ingredient online for all the world to see.

French Toast

Ingredients

Bread of some kind – we used a baguette cut into thing pieces at a diagonal so they were bigger. If the store had challah, we would’ve used that, but they didn’t.
VANILLA ICE CREAM
Eggs
Cinnamon and whatever other spices you want – we used a pinch of nutmeg.

Instructions

Melt 1 1/2 – 2 scoops of ice cream in a wide, shallow bowl (like the one Jonah is using in the pictures above and below). Wait until the ice cream soup has cooled from melting, and add 2-3 eggs. Whisk together. Add 1/2 tsp cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg. Soak your bread in egg mixture: we press it down to make sure it gets nice and wet. Melt butter in a pan over medium heat, and add bread. Cook until lightly browned on both sides.

The key, in my opinion, is having the toast perfectly done on the outside but still making sure that all the eggy stuff is cooked on the inside. Sometimes it helps to pop them in the oven on a low temperature: 1) it keeps the toast warm while you’re finishing up the cooking and 2) it helps cook the inside.

We served the french toast with syrup, greek yogurt, and fruit. It was quite delicious, and I think everyone enjoyed it thoroughly. I can also see replacing the ice cream with eggnog for the holiday season (because what isn’t good with eggnog?)!