Joy the Baker » pecans

Breakfast Polenta: Two Ways

joythebaker — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:41:03 +0000

Dear Future Husband,

I got your email yesterday… the one with the subject line “To My Future Wife”.

Um….. can I be honest? That was sweet… but a little creeptown.

I know… I know… you’re probably going to say it was all a joke and you were just kidding and blah blah blah.

Listen. You may get the impression from this blog that it’s all sunshine and lollipops here at my end of the world.

Here’s some things you should know:

Sometimes I run out of toothpaste and forget to buy more. Irresponsible. I’m sorry.

I only have 168 Facebook friends. That’s not a lot.

I adopt stray cats… even the ones with dirty, matted fur. And I love them. And I talk to them in my cat voice.

I have a voice I use specifically for cats.

I put my feet on the coffee table. I’m demanding and unreasonable when I get stressed out. I text too much. I don’t want a pet bird. I don’t want to pretend that I like your mother’s pet bird. Oh.. and I’ll lose my everloving mind if you get pee on the floor and don’t clean it up. I will.

So… yea. I understand if you want to retract that email now. If you don’t, you’re nutso.

I made breakfast polenta this morning. Since I couldn’t decide if I wanted it sweet of savory, I made it both ways.

Then I ate both bowls.

Then I realized that I wanted savory breakfast polenta… but the sweet polenta was a lovely warm up.

Polenta… if you don’t know… is ground cornmeal. When boiled with water, milk and butter, cornmeal cooks up into a creamy, warm, super comforting bowl of good.

Sweet Breakfast Polenta

Makes two large or four small servings

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3 cups water

1 cup yellow polenta

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1/4 cup milk

1/2 ripe pear, sliced thin

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped pecans

small handful dried cranberries

1-2 tablespoons honey

milk

add cinnamon and nutmeg if you’re feeling spicy

Check the directions on your particular box of polenta, as the coarseness, ratios and cooking times may vary. This was my experience.

Bring water to a boil. Add salt and turn burner down to a simmer. Add dried polenta in a stream, whisking constantly so no lumps form. Polenta will begin to thicken immediately. Whisk occasionally for about 6 to 8 minutes. Add butter and milk to the polenta and whisk over flame until your desired consistency is reached.

Top polenta with pear slices, nuts, cranberries, honey and as much milk as you like. Delicious!

Savory Breakfast Polenta

Makes two large or four small servings

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3 cups water

1 cup yellow polenta

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup milk

3 slices bacon, cooked crisp

1/4 cup diced onions

1 small garlic clove, finely diced

3 tablespoons grated cheese

2 to 4 large egg, fried, depending on how many people you want to feed

Check the directions on your particular box of polenta, as the coarseness, ratios and cooking times may vary. This was my experience.

In a medium skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Remove cooked bacon and place on a paper towel to drain. Cut into large bits when cool enough to handle. Cook the diced onion in the bacon fat until browned and soft. Add the diced garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Remove onions and garlic and place in a small bowl. In the same skillet over medium heat, fry the egg. Fry is easy or hard… however you fancy your eggs.

Place polenta in a bowl and top with cheese, onions, bacon and the fried egg. Hot sauce and black pepper are highly recommended.

Buttered Pecan Oatmeal with milk and sugar in the raw

joythebaker — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:45:28 +0000

I’ll be the first to admit, that I’ve been breakfast obsessed lately. I fall asleep thinking about the breakfast. I wake up thinking I better hurry to the kitchen to get breakfast and tea started. I eat breakfast standing in front of my kitchen window watching my morning get brighter and brighter with the sun and listening the the morning’s news on the radio. It’s a ritual I’ve become attached to. Oatmeal is my no fail breakfast treat, and I’ve had pecans on the brain lately. This buttered pecan oatmeal is rich, earthy and filling. The warm, sweet and nutty combination would be great with fruit too- any fruit- bananas, apples, peaches, berries. It’s the kind of breakfast my dreams are made of.

Buttered Pecan Oatmeal

Print this Recipe!

serves 1, but it’s a lot of filling yumminess.

For the Pecans

1 scant Tablespoon unsalted butter

1/4 cup chopped pecans

pinch of salt

For the Oatmeal

1 cup of water

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup of old-fashioned oats

sugar in the raw

milk

Melt the butter in a skillet. When butter is melted, add the chopped pecans and pinch of salt. Cook pecans, stirring often, until they are browned and fragrant. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil, then add salt. Add the oats to the boiling water and turn flame down to low. Cook the oatmeal, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes. Once oatmeal is sufficiently thickened, mix 1/2 of the buttered pecans mixture into the oatmeal.

Put oatmeal in a serving bowl, add the remaining buttered pecans on top, sprinkle with sugar in the raw to taste, and add milk if you’d like.

Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

joythebaker — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:11:46 +0000

These Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits take me back home. I come from a biscuit loving family. We take our biscuits rather seriously. My Dad makes what he calls Mile High Biscuits. They’re light and buttery, a beautiful golden color, and we always ate them hot with dinner. We were generally a happy family of 4 sitting around the dinner table, sharing a meal, laughing, and talking about our days. Biscuit night was always a different story. On biscuit nights, there was, without a doubt, scandal and conflict.

Why? Well Dad always made a recipe of 12 biscuits. Now let’s do the math- 12 biscuits for 4 people, that’s 3 each. The problem is, no one never ended up with three biscuits. Three words- my little sister. My sister, the biscuit strategist, would cunningly place the biscuit basket at her side of the table, and with great stealth, gather about 8 biscuits for herself over the course of dinner. I must admit, the girl is clever. And with her darling smile and endless charm, she always got away with the lion’s share of biscuits. Always! I’d stomp my feet, outraged, pleading “But Mom…! It’s not fair!” Mom would calmly reply “Joy, who said life was fair? Now eat your broccoli before it gets cold.”At that point, defeated, I usually just ate my one biscuit slowly, while trying to shoot my sister down with the evil eye. Mom was right though- life isn’t always fair, sometimes your sister just gets more biscuits than you, and steamed broccoli once it’s cold, is just wretched.

As always, my Tuesdays are dedicated to Dorie Greenspan, and the Tuesdays with Dorie ladies. This basic biscuit recipe is dressed up with brown sugar, toasted pecans and sour cream. The biscuit is slightly sweeter than a traditional biscuit, and the toasted pecans add a delicious crunch. They will certainly satisfy any biscuit craving. This recipe yielded about 14 biscuits. I ate every single one with strawberry preserves. And that’s fair.

Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

Print this Recipe!

Dorie Greenspan

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar

5 Tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into 10 peices

1/2 cup cold sour cream

1/4 cup cold whole milk

1/3 cup finely chopped pecans, preferably toasted.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Get out a sharp 2-inch diameter biscuit cuter, and line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda together in a bowl. Stir in the brown sugar, making certain there are no lumps. Drop in the butter, and using your fingers, toss and coat the pieces of butter with the flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips (my favorite method) or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You’ll have pea sized pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes, and pieces the size of everything in between- and that’s just right.

Stir the sour cream and milk together and pour over the dry ingredients. Grab a fork and gently toss and turn the ingredients together until you’ve got a nice soft dough. Now reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick gently kneading- 3 or 4 turns should be enough to bring everything together. Toss in the pecans and knead another 2 or 3 times to incorporate them.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour and pat the dough out with your hands or roll it with a pin until it is about 1/2 inch high. Don’t worry if the dough isn’t ocmpletely even- a quick light touch is more important that accuracy.

Use the biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can. Try to cut the biscuits close to one another so you get the most out of the first round. By hand, or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to a baking sheet. Gather together the scraps, woring them as little as possible, pat out to a 1/2 inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer to baking sheet. (The biscuits can be made at this point and frozen on the baking sheed, then wrapped airtight and kept in the freezer for up to 2 months. Bake without defrosting, just add a couple more minutes to the oven time.)

Bake the biscuits for 14-18 minutes, or until they are tall, puffed and golden brown. Transfer them to a serving basket, and serve immediately.