7 Recipes Perfect for Breakfast in Bed

hello this is chef john from food wishes.com with quiche lorraine that's right mother's day is coming up and like i've always said if you like your mother take her out for brunch but if you love your mother you make her quiche so let me show you how to make this trust me mom is gonna be impressed so first step here we're gonna put a saute pan on medium heat i'm gonna throw in some thickly sliced bacon so we're gonna cook that basically all the way through all right this should be nicely browned you don't need to go all the way to like super crispy stage but just like that is perfect so i'm going to remove this with tongs to a plate to drain i'm leaving the fat in the pan so i can cook my onions and leeks but i don't need all that bacon fat so you know our trick we take a piece of paper towel with the tongs and we blot out some of that oil so i'm removing a lot of it i'm probably going to leave in a couple teaspoons and then over medium heat again we're going to add our onions and leeks along with a big pinch of salt and we're simply going to sweat those until they get kind of translucent and sweeten up and get tender all right and while those are cooking i'm going to go ahead and add a little cayenne that never hurts anything and some freshly ground black pepper and we're just going to keep cooking that until the onions and the leeks kind of sweeten up they're going to go a little bit golden brown and they're going to basically be almost tender all right so right there mine we're looking perfect i'm going to turn off the heat and just leave that on the stove until needed okay for the crust we're going to need a deep dish pie pan with enough pie dough for a single crust which is what i have right there of course we have a video recipe for pie crust go check it out it's super easy and what we're going to do here is we're going to heat our oven to 425 degrees and we're going to do what's called blind bake the crust which is basically pre-bake it a little bit before we add the filling so i want you to take a piece of aluminum foil and just shape it so it fits inside your crust so press it flat against the bottom make sure it's touching the sides and then we need to weight it down all right so generally i use dried peas or dried beans which i'm using here unfortunately that's all i had and it wasn't enough but luckily i also had some glass beads which work too what you don't want to do though is mix beans and beads because you know what you're gonna have to do after you bake this separate beans and beads so that really was not a smart idea but i had to do it we're gonna put it in a 425 degree oven for seven minutes after seven minutes you're gonna pull it out you're going to carefully very carefully gather up the foil and whatever you use to weight this down with you're going to pull it out and it's going to look like that you're going to put that back in the oven for another five minutes and when you pull it out it's going to look like that it should just start getting a little bit golden brown there's gonna be a little shrinkage not significant shrinkage but a little bit all right so we're gonna set that aside you're gonna lower your oven to 325 and then it's time for the filling which is very very easy i have three whole eggs plus two egg yolks we're gonna use cream and milk so i'm gonna dump that in you're gonna beat that until well mixed i'm gonna add a nice big pinch of freshly chopped thyme all right whisk that in and believe it or not that's done so on the bottom of your crust you're gonna put down two thirds of your onion leek mixture spread it out two-thirds save a third then you're gonna put down one-third of your bacon that's right one-third saving two-thirds then we're gonna dump in two-thirds of our cheese and of course we're using a beautiful greer all right so two-thirds of the cheese is in and then we're carefully gonna ladle in our cream egg mixture and why don't i just dump it all in pour it all in violently because i don't want everything to move around i'm carefully layering constructing this quiche so it has the perfect texture so i don't want to screw that up and then once that's ladled in we're gonna put the rest of the stuff on so we have a third of the onion leek mixture left sprinkle that over the top we have two thirds of our bacon left you may remember that bacon from such layers as the first one so we're gonna spread out the rest of the bacon and then you're gonna have one third of your cheese left which you're gonna sprinkle over the top all right that's gonna go in the reduced heat 325 degree oven for about 40 minutes or so until just set so i'm in the oven i'm giving this a little shake a little jostle a little jiggle and you see in the center how that egg is wiggling and it's very liquefied that's not set so it's getting set around the outside but it's not set in the center here it's just barely set see i can wiggle it it still moves just a hair in the center but it's not liquid so i let mine cool thoroughly in front of a window watch out for bears quiche is not something you eat piping hot it's something you eat just warm in my opinion but of course defer to mom there's the way mom wants it and the wrong way so don't forget that and you can see because we layered it so carefully there's exactly the same amount of bacon leek cheese and egg custard in every bite if you just dumped everything in the heavy stuff settles to the bottom and it's just not as good okay anyway there you go classic quiche lorraine named of course after probably a french woman named lorraine i didn't research that but it sounds right and by the way if your mother's name is lorraine come on i'm not gonna make this it's perfect so i hope you give that a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] the french omelet that's right you might not think you need a video for how to make an omelette but unless you've already somehow mastered this magical technique i really think you do and it won't be until you make one of these and try it yourself when you'll realize just how badly you needed to know how to do this since quite simply put it's unlike any other omelette experience so with that let's go ahead and get started and as you may have heard to make an omelette you gotta break a few eggs three large ones to be exact and of course farm fresh or at least the freshest highest quality eggs you can manage please do not buy your eggs at the same place you buy your motor oil and then to our three large eggs the only other things we're going to add are a pinch of salt and a few drops of cold water like a half a teaspoon and other than a ridiculous amount of butter that's going to be it for our ingredients and then what we'll do at this point is grab a whisk and bust those eggs right in the yolks and we're going to whisk those for a minute or two or until they turn sort of liquidy right when you first start whisking they're going to be kind of thick and viscous but you'll see after about a minute or so the mixture is going to kind of thin out and you know you're done when the eggs drip off the whisk like this okay so we want to make sure our eggs are well beaten we want no visible egg whites at all so those are looking good and once that's been accomplished we'll simply set that aside and head to the stove to prep our pan and ideally we're going to use about a 9 or 10 inch non-stick which we will place over medium high heat and melt a tablespoon of butter except when a french chef is making an omelet and they tell you to put a tablespoon of butter in they always mean more like two tablespoons and what we'll do is let that melt over medium-high heat as we stand by armed with hopefully a large flexible rubber spatula one that's heat proof of course and what we'll do as soon as that butter's melted but before it starts to sizzle we will go ahead and quickly pour in our eggs at which point we'll begin a three stage process which is the scrambling the spreading and the folding so we'll dump our eggs in and we'll start working them over with a circular motion with our spatula and in culinary school they taught us to do this in a figure eight but i never did master that and i found it splashed eggs up the side of the pan so i prefer using more of the circular motion you see here while at the same time sort of shaking the pan and if you'll notice since these eggs are still very loose when i shake the pan it kind of levels them out well basically we're going to continue this scrambling stage until that stops happening okay when our eggs start firming up enough where we can't really do that and we sort of have to spread with a spatula even amount which is sort of where we're at right now what we want to do is turn our heat down to low and we will go from scrambling to spreading and all we're doing is sort of moving around the runny eggs to less runny spots and what we'll do is continue spreading that mixture around on low until our surface is wet but not runny which is what i have right here okay so we don't have pools of runny egg but the surface is still very wet very moist and once it reaches this point what we'll do is turn off our heat and fold it up so we'll start at the handle and roll perpendicularly to the other side but not all the way we want to stop a couple inches away from the edge because what we'll do is use our spatula to fold that edge towards the middle so that we somehow someway end up with the seam on the top and because these eggs are nice and soft and custardy they're very easy to shape and at this point you might think we're ready to serve but we're not what we're going to do is toss in a couple small chunks of butter not necessarily as much as i just did but a few chunks and what we'll do is let that melt and kind of push that under the omelet to lubricate it or at least that's what the french chef say they say it's going to be easier to get the omelet out of the pan if we do this but i don't think that's the real reason i really think it's because they want us to add more butter plus i think the texture of your omelet is gonna be better if this sits for a minute in the pan but anyway we're gonna toss in a little extra butter and kind of spread it over and push it underneath and what we'll do once that's melted is sort of push our omelette to the edge of the pan at which point we can carefully flop it over onto a plate making sure the seam side goes down because the ultimate goal of a french omelet is a perfectly smooth glistening surface and of course once it's on the plate you can shape it any way you want some people like to leave the ends open but i like to sort of taper them although maybe after this i will reconsider that but anyway we're going to plate our omelette and finally it's time to eat just as soon as we add some more butter no i'm not kidding the last official step for any real french omelet is to brush or spread a little bit of butter on the top to sort of give that surface a beautiful shine but once that's done finally we can eat with a little bit of watercress and of course some toasted bread and i was just about to say i could have made that a lot nicer if i wasn't filming it but you know what that's not actually true this is probably one of the better french omelets i've ever made which reminds me who cares what it looks like as people in the know know the true beauty of a french omelet lies within so let me go ahead and cut in so you can see what i'm talking about and no i usually don't need a fork and knife for my omelet but i wanted to get a nice clean cut so you would be able to see this because of our three stages of scrambling spreading and the folding we basically created layers and layers of beautiful custardy eggs this is like an entirely different food than your typical overcooked golden brown dry american omelet i mean look at that it's just so insanely creamy and delicious and by the way if you want to add some of your favorite fillings before you fold this up go ahead i mean you are the suzanne plichette of your french omelette but if you've never made one of these before i highly suggest you make it as shown just so you can taste the magic that is the pure and true french omelet but of course a little bit of kind never hurt sorry i couldn't resist but anyway that's it my method for doing french omelets which by the way is the only omelette we're allowed to have wine with at breakfast like maybe a nice cold glass of sauvignon blanc and i'm not sure if that's the best pairing but i do know how to pronounce it but anyway whether you're going to make this to impress someone at some fancy breakfast or you just can't figure out what to eat on some rainy weeknight i really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] the denver omelet that's right i'm very excited to show you the delicious answer to a question no one's ever asked and that would be what is the opposite of a french omelet and not only was this omelette one of the first things i ever learned to cook professionally is a short order cook in high school but it's remained one of my favorite all-time breakfast for dinners although this time it was technically breakfast for lunch but that's not an expression but anyway no matter when i enjoy this it's always a treat and this is how you put it together besides three large farm fresh eggs and some grated cheese what makes a denver omelet a denver omelet is the following three ingredients some nice diced up smoky ham some type of onion i'm using red but yellow will work as will scallions as well as some kind of pepper and traditionally green bell pepper are used for this and believe it or not those are one of the huge keys to this omelet success and i will attempt to explain why later but for now let's go ahead and continue on and take a fork and bust those eggs right in the yolks and we'll proceed to beat these up but not too much okay if you over bead these they're going to start to get thin and watery and that's not really what we want so we're only going to beat these until they're just combined at which point we'll stop and head over to the stove where we will add our ham pepper onion mixture to some butter we've melted over medium-high heat we'll also toss in a nice big pinch of salt as well as a little touch of freshly ground black pepper and what we'll want to do is cook this mixture for a few minutes until our onions and peppers start to soften and our ham starts to caramelize just a bit and exactly how long this is going to take is going to depend on how small you diced your stuff but keep in mind once we pour our eggs in here this stuff is not really going to continue to cook any further and since i really don't want crunchy onions and peppers in this i'm going to make sure i go long enough so those things soften and sweeten up so that's what i did i cooked that stirring on medium-high heat until eventually it looked like this and then what we'll do once we've decided that's gone long enough is reduce our heat to medium low and we will go ahead and pour in our egg mixture and unlike the french omelet where we do a little scramble first here we're not going to do that we're simply going to give it a little bit of a mix just enough to make sure our ingredients are distributed relatively evenly and we'll go ahead and clean up the sides of our pan but that's it we're basically just going to let this sit on medium low sort of cooking from the bottom up until our top is still wet but not runny and while we're waiting for that to happen we can go ahead and sprinkle over our cheese which for me was a beautiful local white cheddar but of course any of your favorite cheeses will work including the traditional american cheese so that's up to you you are after all the joan jett of your denver omelet and by the way if you're from europe and always wondered what american cheese actually was sorry we're not sure but anyway we'll sprinkle that over and maybe also add a little shake of cayenne to stay in shape and that's it like i said we're simply going to wait for this to firm up until the top still looks sort of wet but it's not really runny anymore and we'll just monitor that with our eyes and with our spatula and by giving it the old shake a shake at once in a while and right here it's getting close but still a little bit wet so i gave it another minute until it looked like this at which point i determined it was ready to fold which we will do exactly right in half and that's it our denver omelet is done and we can go ahead and transfer that onto a plate and start to enjoy what is a completely different omelette experience to the french omelet we've made before since like i said it really does have a firmer texture and a lot more caramelization and then since i am doing this as a breakfast for dinner and by dinner i mean lunch i'm gonna add a little bit of a salad and of course some nice toasted bread and i'm gonna grab a fork and go in for a taste and while i very much enjoy the soft colorless french omelets once in a while i really love this as a change of pace right because this is firmer and much more browned the taste and texture are completely different and not better or worse just different all right sometimes i feel like a steak and other times i feel like a burger okay same idea here and by the way if you're not a fan of green peppers and you're thinking i should use some red ones because they're sweeter and more flavorful don't do it right one of the keys here is the way the bitterness from that green pepper brings out the sweetness in the ham and onions so for me that's one of the things that makes this combination of ingredients so perfect together and another thing to remember just because this style of omelette is not soft doesn't mean it's hard all right while much firmer this omelet is still moist and tender and then just in case you were thinking to yourself i bet when he turns the camera off he's gonna put ketchup on this well you know what you're right in fact i'm gonna put some on now hey don't judge me especially if you haven't tried it like this i mean you might be pleasantly surprised or horrified there's only one way to find out but anyway that's it my take on the iconic denver omelet made exactly how i learned back when i was 15 years old whether you're gonna make this for breakfast or brunch or breakfast for dinner for lunch i really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] cheese blintzes that's right i thought i'd sneak in one more brunch idea before mother's day and this gorgeous cheese stuffed crepe has the four things all great brunch recipes must have it looks amazing it tastes great it's easy and you can make it ahead of time and by the way those last two are very important since there's a very good chance we may be enjoying mimosas and bloody mary's during the festivities but anyway let's go ahead and get started and first up we want to make the batter because we need to let this stuff rest about 30 minutes before we start making the crepes so into a blender we will add three large eggs along with some whole milk and just for nostalgia's sake i'm going to use the old-fashioned kind that comes from a cow but i'm pretty sure things like almond milk or soy milk would work also we're also going to need some all-purpose flour and a little bit of sugar but not too much i don't like my blintzes too sweet we're also going to need a little bit of salt as well as some vegetable oil and a splash of water and then last but not least a little touch of vanilla and believe it or not that is it so a pretty basic batter and then what we need to do as i'm sure you've gathered from the blender is blend this until completely smooth and if you don't have a blender you can totally do this by hand or if you have a blender and you just want to show off you can do this by hand but it is a heck of a lot easier if you mechanize this step and by the way i didn't show it on camera but i did scrape down and mix in that flour you see stuck to the side so if that happens to you you should do the same thing but anyway like i said we're going to blend that until completely smooth and when you're done your batter should look something very similar to this all right you don't want it too thick you don't want it too thin what you want to shoot for is something perfect and then as i mentioned earlier we're just going to let this sit on the counter for 30 minutes before we start making our crepes and if you're wondering yes you can make this ahead and just leave it in the fridge but since i am going to use my now i'm just going to leave it on the counter for 30 minutes while we move on to make the filling a filling which is going to feature not one but two kinds of cheese the first of which would be some ricotta cheese full fat none of that low fat stuff please and then to that we'll also add some cream cheese and just the regular kind will work great but because i wanted mine a little more fancy i'm going to use that amazing italian cream cheese known as mascarpone oh that is some good stuff and then we're going to add just the tiniest tiniest pinch of salt as well as some sugar and this time we're going to go with the powdered and again just like the batter not too much okay something like this we want to straddle that line between sweet and savory so we don't want to overdo it with the sugar and then because i'm going to serve this with some fresh berries i decide to add a little bit of lemon zest and then the only other thing we need in here is one large egg and then we need to go ahead and mix this up thoroughly and a great tip here if you have a few extra minutes to kill use a spoon not a whisk oh yeah if you use a whisk it'll be too fast and easy so i went with the big spoon and it took me like five minutes and of course i spent most of that time wishing i'd used a whisk so do as i say and not as you just saw me do use a whisk it'll be much easier and then once we get that mixed up all we're going to do is cover that and keep it in the fridge while we make our crepes so assuming our batter has now rested at least 30 minutes we'll head over to the stove where i have a 10 inch non-stick pan set on medium high heat which as you saw we're going to spritz with some vegetable oil you can also brush it in and when the pan's hot we're going to pour in about a quarter cup of the batter and quickly as soon as you pour it in you want to swirl it around tilt the pan until it coats the bottom at which point we're just waiting for the crepe to cook which is going to happen really quick all right this is only going to take you about a minute and all we're waiting for here is for that surface to become completely dry so as soon as that surface no longer looks like wet batter your crepes should be ready to remove from the pan okay traditionally these crepes are only cooked on one side but breaking with tradition i do like to flip mine over for just a couple seconds mostly because i like to play with my food and it's also going to let me show you what the other side looks like so as you can see it got a little bit golden brown but anyway like i said this is very quick and as they cook and come out of the pan you can just pile them up and from this much battery you should get about 10 to 12 decent looking crepes and once we've cooked all our crepes we're ready to move into final assembly so let's place one crepe down on our work surface and then we want to spoon between three and four tablespoons of our filling about an inch or so from the edge closest to us at which point we'll fold that side over like this we'll kind of flatten it out just a little and then we'll fold in both sides flip it over like that and just simply roll that into a nice neat package and what you really want to try to have happen is for that seam to end up on the bottom which mine did so you can watch that part a few times but it's pretty basic as long as your sides are tucked in and you end up with a seam on the bottom it's going to work and at this point if you want you could wrap these up and pop these in the fridge until you're ready to serve but you know what i'm ready to serve so what we want to do is brown these in some butter over medium heat and you can use melted butter but i'm using something called clarified butter and i'll explain what the difference is on the blog post but like i said we're going to brown these in butter on both sides before finishing briefly in the oven so we're going to give those a couple minutes per side or until they're a gorgeous golden brown i mean look at those you're going to want to eat those right at this point but don't do it and by the way be gentle with these you'll see i kind of dropped this one and a little bit of our cheese filling squirted out and started splattering all over it ended up not being a problem but please be gentle anyway and then once those have been browned on both sides we're gonna carefully transfer those into a lightly buttered baking dish because i think these are much much better finished in the oven all right you can serve them straight from the pan but if you do that the filling tends to be a lot runnier and looser so what i highly recommend is popping these in a 325 degree oven for about 12 minutes at which point they're gonna look pretty much exactly the same but that filling will have firmed up just a little and at this point they are technically ready to serve but if you can try to wait 10 minutes i know you want to eat them now i don't blame you but you will get a better flavor and texture if you let them sit a little bit so i did let mine sit for 10 minutes before plating up and there are so many incredible ways to serve these but i'm going to show you my favorite which includes some freshly made raspberry sauce which we did a video for not too long ago so check that out i'm also going to use some fresh fruit so i'm going to randomly scatter on some blueberries as well as carefully hand placing some raspberries and then i'm going to finish this off with some blackberries three of the most gigantic blackberries i've ever seen which once placed gives me the perfect spot to put this sprig of mint and i know you've heard if something's not used in a dish you can't use it to garnish with like the mint well you know what that is technically true but just like promoting yourself on twitter it's only wrong if somebody else does it and then as brunch tradition would dictate we will finish this off with a little bit of powdered sugar but not too much okay a very light dusting is considered elegant and classy whereas a heavy dusting is considered tacky and gratuitous so please use a light touch and at that point our cheese blintzes with fresh berries is done and i'm assuming you've had these before but if you haven't oh man are you in for a treat this is one of the most delicious brunch items ever we have those beautiful tender crepes and that gorgeous creamy cheesy center with just that touch of sweetness and of course both the crepes and the cheese just absolutely perfect with the fresh berries in that berry sauce i mean for how easy that crepe batter and that filling is the results really are spectacular and really a treat for all the senses except hearing but you know what we could take care of that by playing some adult contemporary during the brunch or maybe some of that jazz nobody likes but anyway whether you make these for a special occasion brunch or not i really do hope you give them a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy lemon ricotta pancakes that's right remember that time you went to make one of your favorite pancake recipes but you were out of milk so you had to use water and somehow someway it actually came out better than the original version well that's what happened to me and it's one of the main reasons i'm sharing this the other reason is that apparently i said one of my new year's resolutions was to up our brunch and breakfast game which totally sounds like something i would say and now that we've covered the reasons why we're doing this we can move on to the how we're doing this so let's get started by adding some cold water to this mixing bowl and yes for the first time ever water is the secret ingredient which reminds me use milk if you want but i really did prefer this and then to that we're going to whisk in a little bit of baking soda no not baking powder that's going to be in our self-rising flour we're going to add some baking soda which of course is going to react with our acidic ingredients producing hopefully lots of bubbles so we'll stir in some baking soda followed by our ricotta cheese and please use the full fat kind i don't like cheese made with skim milk nor do i trust it but anyway once our cheese is in we'll continue on with a whole bunch of freshly grated lemon zest and even though we're going to add a little bit of the fresh juice later this is where most of that lemon flavor is going to come from we will also at this point add a little bit of vegetable oil as well as a little touch of vanilla extract and please keep it real use the pure extract we will also go ahead and toss in a spoon of sugar which as the tv chefs like to say is going to add a little bit of sweetness and then we will finish this portion of the program by throwing in one large egg and we'll go ahead and grab a whisk and mix this till smooth which will require a combination of breaking up the cheese while stirring and this is one of those steps that halfway through it looks like he did something wrong but you didn't just keep stirring and after a minute or two everything should smooth out and hopefully your mixture looks something like this and then once that's been accomplished we'll go ahead and finish this off with our last three ingredients which are some melted butter some freshly squeezed lemon juice and last but not least our self-rising flour and by the way as usual if you don't have access to self-rising flour i'm going to tell you how you can make your own since it's just regular flour with baking powder and salt in it but anyway we'll add the last of our ingredients and give it a mix and as usual with most batters we're only going to stir until the flour just about disappears okay we do not want to over mix this so we will simply stir until about 97 of that flour disappears which is just about where mine is now and that's it our lemon ricotta pancake batter is done but not ready to use yet what we want to do is let this sit on the countertop for about 15 minutes to give our ingredients a little bit of time to react to each other plus as it sits that batter is going to thicken up a little bit so i let my batter rest for about 15 minutes and as predicted bubbles formed and our mixture tightened up a little which means we could grab some kind of portioning tool like this ice cream scoop and head to the stove where i like to cook these over medium-high heat in a lightly greased cast iron skillet or griddle and these are roughly going to take about two to three minutes per side but we don't go by time we go by appearance which is way more accurate and as the michael jacksons of our chemical reactions we understand that when you combine alkaline and acidic ingredients bubbles form and when those bubbles are heated they expand which is what makes pancakes rise and speaking of the king of pop when we see those bubbles popping up through the surface and the edges of our pancakes start to look dry that means they're ready to flip and if everything's gone according to plan your pancakes should rise nicely and as this low angle helps illustrate mine did so we'll go ahead and let that second side cook for a couple minutes before removing these two plates and of course we're always going to save the best looking pancake for the top i mean come on what kind of crazy person is going to put the least attractive one on the top and then speaking of the top let's go ahead and finish these off with a little bit of butter as well as possibly a little bit of lemon zest and then last but not least i'm going to finish up with a drizzling of maple syrup which i believe many of you pronounce maple syrup but whatever i'm not paid by the syllable so i prefer syrup and that's it my new and improved lemon ricotta pancakes are done and quite lovely if i do say so myself the texture is very close to your classic diner style pancake although thanks to the cheese they're even more tender and moist and then as far as the taste goes we have that beautiful brightness from the fresh lemon and when we combine that with our ricotta and that little bit of sweetness we actually get a very very subtle cheesecake like effect so i really do love how these come out oh and one last thing i pretty much put maple syrup on any kind of pancake but with this particular version which features the fresh cheese and lemon a fruit based sauce is actually more traditional raspberry blueberry blackberry boysenberry elderberry you name a berry sauce and it would be good on this but anyway that's it my little twist on lemon ricotta pancakes so whether you're looking for something new and exciting for your next fancy brunch or you're just going to make these on some random week night when you want to do breakfast for dinner which everybody loves i really do hope you give these a try soon so head over to food wishes dot com for all the ingredients in mount san maria info as usual and as always enjoy monte cristo benedict that's right this could be the biggest and best thing to happen to brunch since bacon and while that may be a little strong you have to admit the alliteration was pretty good but anyway i've gotten a ton of requests for new brunch ideas and this beauty based on the famous stuffed ham and cheese sandwich invented by the count of monte cristo was truly delicious so let's get this started step one we're gonna make a batter because we gotta make some french toast so in a bowl we're gonna add two whole eggs along with some cream we're also gonna add a spoon of sugar it's very important this component has a little bit of sweetness to it so some sugar we're also gonna add a pinch of salt a little pinch of cayenne this is after all a savory dish and then finally we'll spice it up with a little bit of cinnamon and a little bit of allspice all right we're going to take a whisk and pop that egg in the yolk and mix that up very thoroughly okay so give it a good whisking and then we're going to go ahead and cut four nice thick slices of day old french bread i like to go center cut so they're all about the same size and then we're gonna toss those in the batter one at a time all right let it absorb some of the batter toss in the next one repeat the process until all four have been soaked and by the time you have all four in there and tossed most of the batter should be absorbed it depends of course on how thick you cut it and how dry your bread is but most of it should get sucked up i'm not sure if it's capillary action or inertia although it could be osmosis but anyway it'll all be drawn into the bread and you might have a little bit extra but what i like to do is let it sit on the counter for about 10 minutes give it a toss every couple minutes and you'll see it will absorb just about everything so that looks good next up we're going to go over to the stove where i have a large skillet set on medium heat i've melted about a tablespoon of butter and we're going to brown those on both sides for about two or three minutes now very much like our famous restaurant style french toast video these are going to get finished in the oven that's really the secret we want to make sure the custard in the center of that bread is cooked so we don't have to worry about cooking these too long here we just want to get them nice and brown on both sides when that happens we're going to remove those to a baking sheet and then we will begin to build the monte cristo okay but before we start since our pan's hot i'm gonna go ahead and sizzle our ham slices for about a minute per side i mean the pans right there on the heat already dirty you might as well use it so i'm gonna throw in the ham just give it a quick sizzle that's gonna dry it out just a little bit and i think give the sandwich a better texture so that's just half of it i did eight slices and once our french toast bases are ready and our ham has been heated we are ready to start assembly so i'm gonna use two cheeses cheddar and havarti so i'm gonna lay down the cheddar layer first and despite my many letters to the cheese industry they still don't make oval slices so i'm just gonna break it up to fit all right after the cheddar's down i'm gonna lay two of those very thin slices of ham on each you can see i cut mine in half to make it a little more geometrically friendly so two thin slices of ham on each one and then last but not least we're gonna top with some havarti cheese so i'm gonna put a slice of havarti on each but instead of just laying it on top i had this brilliant idea to cut them in strips and do like a lattice pattern on top which i thought looked incredibly cool of course after we baked it i couldn't tell but that's okay it's the thought that counts so once those are set we're gonna pop that in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20 minutes like i said we really want the custard in the bread to cook completely through and of course we want our cheese to be all melty and caramelized so that looks perfect and then i'm pretty sure you figured out the rest i'm gonna throw that on a plate with a little salad and top it with two perfectly poached eggs and of course we have videos on how to do those i'll provide links and there'll be more info in the blog post and to finish i like to sprinkle on a little bit of kosher salt and then a little bit of cayenne and fresh chives for some color and there you go moni christo benedict and of course there was no way this video was getting done without the gratuitous popping of the yolk shot oh yeah that is borderline inappropriate right there and no of course you don't need any hollandaise the poached eggs are the sauce and how did it taste well imagine the best french toast you ever had combined with the best ham and cheese sandwich you've ever had topped with perfectly poached eggs that's how it tasted it was fantastic so whether you're going to whip this up for a mother's day brunch or one of those always appreciated weeknight breakfast for dinners this really was spectacular and i hope you give it a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] spring vegetable frittata that's right mother's day is coming up soon and i can't help but think if you make her something this delicious this nutritious and this beautiful for that brunch she's gonna be extremely proud or at the very least definitely less disappointed and by the way even if you have no interest in making this for mother's day how to put together a vegetable frittata is one of those things every cook needs to know all right so pay attention anyway and to get this started what we're going to need of course is some spring vegetables so what i'm going to be using this time is some green zucchini i also have one large leek some gorgeous spring asparagus one jalapeno a handful of baby spinach and some yellow potato and by the way very important if you're going to put potatoes in your frittata which you really should those need to be fully cooked ahead of time and off camera i'll go ahead and peel that skin off and slice those up and then as far as the rest of the veggies go let me show you real briefly how i'm suggesting you prep these so for the zucchini very simply we're going to cut those in half lengthwise and then just slice them across like this somewhere between a quarter and a half inch thick and you know what we say around here it's not the size that matters it's the consistency so pick a size and try to stick with it so that's how i'm doing the zucchini as far as the asparagus goes what i want to do is cut off the tips and try to leave those whole but then for the rest of this beer we'll just kind of cut across like this and again we're making these cuts as even as possible so they cook evenly okay so that's looking good and it's on to the leak and as usual we're only using the white parts and the lighter green parts so i'm going to split this in half cut off the root end and then we'll slice those down the middle so the leak is quartered and then our final cut will be across like this and then once our leak is chopped up we'll transfer all that into a large bowl of cold water and we will swish it around thoroughly oh you heard me swish it and swish it good because what's going to happen here any of that dirt and sand we missed in the first rinse is going to fall to the bottom the leak pieces themselves of course are floating on the top so as long as we swish that around thoroughly enough as we're skimming these cut leaks off the top they should be perfectly clean and any dirt or sand is going to be laying at the bottom of the bowl so that's our official method for cleaning leeks so our leeks are set i went ahead and i seeded and diced our jalapeno and as i already mentioned sliced our cooked potatoes and at this point what we want to do is turn all this into a frittata so let's head over to the stove where i have a heavy duty 10 inch skillet set on medium heat with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and we'll go ahead and we'll dump in our chopped leeks with a nice big pinch of salt and we're going to cook those stirring occasionally for about five or six minutes until they kind of soften up and the white parts start to turn a little translucent and the strategy here is we're going to cook one vegetable at a time starting with what takes the longest which in this case is the leeks so like i said we'll cook those on medium until they soften up and look something like this at which point we will add our diced jalapeno and sliced zucchini and we'll mix that into our leeks and with each new addition we're going to season again with salt all right i think adding a little bit with each vegetable is just easier than trying to season everything at the end at least in this recipe so we'll add another pinch of salt and continue cooking on medium until the zucchini turn from kind of white and raw looking into something that's much more tender and light green in color all right not completely cooked through but starting to get tender don't forget these vegetables continue to cook as we add new ones and by the way if you're new to cooking this is a fantastic recipe to practice with and we'll talk about that in the blog post but this is one of those dishes that really helps you hone your observational culinary skills but anyway i cooked the zucchini for about five minutes at which point we're going to add our asparagus along with another pinch of salt and we'll stir those in and continue cooking until those turn bright green and all we're doing here is taking the raw edge off the asparagus so you can check my taste in one of the tips and it should still have some texture to it but it no longer tastes raw which is exactly how mine was so i moved on to the next step which is stirring in our handful of baby spinach which will stir in just until it wilts which is only going to take a minute and once that's happened we will add the last of our vegetation our already cooked and sliced potatoes and we will stir those in until just heated through along with yet another pinch of salt and at that point our vegetables should be ready to meet the eggs and by the way it should be noted is the reason a frittata exists in the first place is to use up already cooked vegetables if you ever do have leftover potatoes and vegetables from a previous meal you could just heat them up and start right from this point and continue on but anyway like i said once all our vegetables have been cooked and or heated through we will introduce the eggs so in a bowl we want to crack 12 large eggs and of course we have to season our eggs up a little bit and we'll do that with a little bit of cayenne you remember that time you overheard your mom on the phone telling her friend she really wanted to spice things up a little bit this is probably what she was talking about we'll also do some freshly ground black pepper and some salt i know we seasoned the vegetables we have to season the eggs also and then we'll take a whisk and we'll beat this up thoroughly okay so take your time and whisk that for at least half a minute and when your vegetables are ready which ours are of course we will pour that into the pan which is still on medium heat by the way and once our eggs have been dumped in we will go with the last major ingredient a nice big handful of crumbled cheese now personally i couldn't decide whether i wanted to use goat cheese or feta cheese so i ended up compromising and using a goat feta cheese but the good news is spring vegetables go with any cheese and what we'll do is we'll stir in about three quarters of the cheese and then we'll save a little bit for the top so we'll take our spatula and we'll poke that down in and we'll make sure everything's fairly evenly distributed and we'll finish this by topping with the rest of our cheese and one more shake of cayenne for a little extra color at which point we're gonna break with tradition and turn off the heat our traditionally frittata is only cooked on the stove it's usually cooked halfway and then flipped over and put back in the pan which is risky and usually messy so we're not gonna do that we're gonna finish ours by baking so let's go ahead and pop this into the center of a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until the eggs are just barely set and you should probably start peeking about the 10 or 12 minute mark so i took a look and it was getting close it was firming up nicely and if you give it a little wiggle there's not a lot of jiggle okay so mine was very close it was just a little bit wet and loose on the top so this needed to cook a little longer which you could just continue doing in the oven but how i like to finish is by turning my oven from bake to broil which is going to finish the cooking and as you can see brown the top beautifully so like i said you could just keep it in the oven until it's set but i do like to do that little extra broiler step and at this point technically our frittata is ready to serve but i highly recommend you let it cool down a little first all right in my opinion a frittata is it its maximum flavor served warm i just don't think the taste and textures is good piping hot and while you're waiting for it to cool one idea which i think makes a beautiful garnish i'm going to stir a little bit of pesto into some mayonnaise and do a quick little aioli to garnish the top and no this is so delicious you don't really need it but come on it's mother's day let's go ahead and make it a little extra special and then once our frittata's cooled down a little bit we can go ahead and slice it up and we'll serve it with a dollop of that pesto mayonnaise and then to put this over the top i'm going to garnish with an edible flower in my case a gorgeous gorgeous nasturtium so beautiful and so edible those petals kind of taste like watercress but of course ironically i will now move it and not eat it but only because i want to focus on the official tasting here i'll eat it later don't worry and above and beyond how great this looks this is one of the most delicious vegetable and egg dishes ever invented alright while the eggs are set and fairly firm this frittata is still very moist and tender mostly thanks to that high vegetable content and like i said that goat feta cheese i used was absolutely perfect just beautiful little salty tangy tidbits interspersed here and there it's just a beautiful plate of food that i really think your mother will enjoy and i know a lot of you are thinking sure it tastes good sure it looks good but that seemed like a lot of slicing and dicing and sauteing that for a simple brunch entree that's a lot of work well that might be true but you know what else is a lot of work giving birth so if anyone deserves a little extra effort it's the moms out there all right so i really do hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 230,627

Keywords: chef john, food wishes, mothers day, mother's day, mother's day brunch, breakfast in bed, mother's day ideas, quiche recipe, quiche lorraine, french omelette, french omelet, how to make an omelet, how to make an omelette, denver omelet, denver omelette, cheese blintzes, pancakes, best pancakes, lemon ricotta pancakes, ricotta pancakes, monte cristo, eggs benedict, spring vegetable, frittata, frittata recipe, easy, simple, cooking

Id: xJ9hVm9sV8Y

Length: 42min 6sec (2526 seconds)

Published: Sun May 01 2022