Tasty Tuesdays: Puff Pastry Bacon Egg and cheese Braid

Well the fair cooking is over   Luke made it to state!   That will be in another post.  I have to say that his cooking days are not over though.  Each kid has a week that they are responsible for helping with the cooking.  It has been that way for a while here.  We share all the responsibilities to some extent with everyone!   It wouldn’t work here if we didn’t.    I did however make this recipe on my own.  As I know that I have said before we love breakfast food around here.  Bacon is the food of choice, however we all know that it doesn’t serve as a balanced meal.  I came across this recipe a few years ago.  I wasn’t sure how it would turn out the first time however it was well loved and quickly became a favorite.  I have tried all the breakfast meats in it and I have to say that the bacon is the favorite!  I was not surprised.  I think that ham looks the best, however it is too watery when you add that.  Here are the ingredients:  Puff pastry, eggs, cheese, breakfast meat of choice, salt and pepper to taste. Sounds pretty easy doesn't it?  When cooking for the family I use both puff pastries that come in the package, a dozen eggs and a pound of bacon.  You may want to cut that in half for a smaller family. The first thing that you want to do is get your pastry out to thaw.  It says it takes about 40 minutes to do so or you can put it in the fridge the night before.  Who has time to do that, right?  I usually get it out first and we are good to go.  I open the package and set both on the parchment lined cookie sheet that I am going to bake it on.  Next I go for the bacon and pop it in the oven to cook.  Once that is done I start with the eggs.  You want to scramble the eggs in the skillet, however stop cooking them about 2 minutes early, or leave them slightly wet.  Don’t worry you are going to cook them with the puff pastry so they will be done when you are going to eat them.  I then take the cheese and heavily sprinkle it on the eggs.  I like sharp cheddar, however you can use any kind of shredded cheese that you like, or have on hand.  When the bacon and egg/cheese mixture is finished you are ready to assemble.  First open up your pastry.  This time I left the bacon in strips however I usually crumble it up and add it to the egg/cheese mixture.  It turns out better that way.

                                                                                                                                        Of course we had to add a couple more pieces of bacon to it.  My family loves bacon!  On top of the bacon you add the cheese/egg mixture.  Now when I usually make it I just divide the bacon, egg and cheese mixture between the two pastries and lay in in the center of each.




                                                                      The eggs are still a little on the wet side.  Like I said earlier though you are getting ready to pop it in the oven so they will be good and cooked! Next you want to cut the sides of the pastry.  You want to make about 1 inch slits on each side.  Once this is complete you start to fold them up rotating sides.  My daughter calls them fingers, so you wrap the fingers to make the braided look.  I know a lot of times with pastries we brush the tops with butter or something.  I haven’t done that with this and it looks so pretty.  You cook this for about 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees.  You want it to be a nice golden brown.  You are finished!  This picture doesn’t do justice to the golden brown color that the pastry has.  Sorry I took these with my cell phone.   We serve this with home fries or hash browns and fruit.  I can’t wait until our cantaloupe and watermelon are picked from the garden to add to this!




What else can you do with puff pastry?  We have tried this with all breakfast meats like I previously mentioned.  We have also opened one up, brushed it with butter and sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar and baked that for a yummy snack.  We have apples on our tree this year for the first time an I am going to try to make apple dumplings with it.  Of course I will post that when I do.

Hope you enjoy!
Blessings from the Clubb Farm!

Tasty Tuesday-Grilled Desserts!

  Luke was at it again at the grill this week!  One of the recipes in his 4-h grilling book was for grilled bananas with chocolate and marshmallows.  When he picked this recipe we had very different opinions of whether or not we thought we would like it.  I for one was all for it! How can you go wrong with a banana, of course when you add chocolate everything is better, right? Now Joe doesn’t like bananas at all. He has tried them several times and just doesn’t like them. He says it is a texture thing, however he doesn’t like anything flavored with bananas either so I think he just doesn’t like the flavor.  Anyhow, I talked with Luke and we decided to make the bananas as well as a traditional s’more for Joe.  Earlier this week I was reading a magazine where I came across a recipe for grilled peaches with honey.  We love peaches here as well as almost any fruit, so we decided to add this to the desert menu.  How do you grill fruit?  You need aluminum foil for starters and then pam or a non stick spray.  We grabbed our supplies and our ingredients and started to work.  

Here is of course the banana, chocolate chips and the marshmallows.  The recipe called for like 1/8 cup of chips and 10 mini marshmallows.  However what kid doesn’t like chocolate chips?  We didn’t follow the recipe exactly with the chips or the marshmallows.  Luke then  made the s’more for Joe and the peaches.  Have you ever tried to slice a peach?  It was difficult to get the peach into two halves with the seed removed.  So he had wedges instead of halves.  When this was complete to the grill we went!

 
    I have to say I just love grilling with foil packs.  I personally am so excited that Luke chose to take this project because we have grilled so much and with the foil packs it is really easy to clean up.  I know that you can use them in the oven too, but I just haven’t tried that.  We let the food cook for about 3 minutes and took a peak.  They were not ready yet.  It took about 11 minutes for the peaches to soften.  The bananas and s’mores we just left on the grill away from the main heat.  After we were finished Luke drizzled a little honey on the peaches and we were ready to taste.  Don’t the peaches look delicious?


                                                                                                                                           The chocolate marshmallow bananas didn’t look as appetizing to me. 

  I made a few suggestions for the next time….maybe we should cut the banana up, or use Reese’s cups?  Overall the taste wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, however it wasn’t bad.  The peaches were really good!  Joe also liked his s’mores!