Tiramisu French Toast

I was talking with Trish somewhere last month and she told me about this awesome cafe in Philly that serves breakfast all day and has a such thing as Tiramisu French Toast. Tiramisu is probably one of my favorite desserts ever, so obviously, the next logical step was to find a recipe so I could make my own. :O Recipe adapted from here! Neither of us really drink coffee, so we didn’t have any instant coffee powder and subbed that with Kahlua…nor did we manage to get our hands on any marscapone cheese, so we subbed it with nonfat Greek yogurt to make it slightly healthier!

Tiramisu French Toast

Ingredients:
-4 slices of white bread
-4 eggs
-1/8 cup cream
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-2 tbsp Kahlua
-1 tbsp honey
-2 tbsp butter
(Topping)
-handful (or two) of frozen berries
-sliced almonds
-1/2 cup Chobani nonfat plain yogurt
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-sprinkle of unsweetened cocoa powder

Instructions:
1) In a large aluminum tray, combine the eggs, cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon and 1 tbsp Kahlua. Whisk together and let the bread soak in the egg mixture for ~30 seconds on each side.
2) Heat a grill pan on medium heat and add 1 tbsp of butter. Add french toast and brown. Fry on other side and repeat with remaining slices of bread.
3) Mix Greek yogurt with honey and Kahlua. Spread on french toast slices and top with cocoa powder, berries and sliced almonds.

I’m really just camwhoring this because I thought it was super pretty. :D

Banana Almond Oat Waffles

Jun and I decided to go for a hike on Christmas morning since both our families would likely still be sleeping. Both of us had been binge-eating like no other and not working out all that much so we were pretty out of shape. We did manage to make it up Mission Peak in about an hour though, so not too terrible? (I like to be a “glass half full” type of gal.) The world is filled with all kinds of intense human beings–there are some regulars that seriously put us to all kinds of shame (e.g. the guy who runs up there every morning with his dog, the girl that hula hoops all the way up…). But imagine our surprise when we came up to find this!

This means someone carried a tree up there. Complete with blinking lights and a power source and everything.

It was super cute and festive. :D

Sunrise! Although I guess by this point, it’s technically already risen.

On the way down, we came across a rebel. It would’ve been awesome if there’d been a cow there or something.

 

We also came across a cow herding a bunch of turkeys!

When we finally got down the mountain, we took showers and set out to make an awesome (and for once, appropriately-portioned) breakfast. This waffle recipe (obtained from a friend at church!) makes 2 waffles. We modified it from 1 3/4 cups of water to throw in cottage cheese for extra protein and some soy milk so it’d be more liquid batter-y. :O It worked well for our breakfast after our Christmas morning hike. :]! It’s a little burnt because I couldn’t find the happy medium for my waffle iron (haven’t used it in way too long ;_; ). One of these days, I’ll perfect the technique!! I will likely make an unmodified version at some point.

Banana Almond Oat Waffles

Ingredients:
-1 cup oats
-1 cup cottage cheese
-1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
-1 1/2 bananas, mashed
-1/2 tsp almond extract
-cinnamon, to taste

Instructions:
1) Preheat waffle iron.
2) Mix everything together until smooth.
3) Pour into waffle iron. Use more batter than expected since it doesn’t rise much.
*Don’t worry as much about over-cooking it, since a crusty waffle will soften under  a towel (steam!) whereas a doughy one is yucky.

Creamy Avocado Doria

I completely misheard Jun on the phone when he said to make 1 cup of rice and made…3 cups. …oops. It was amazing though, so I regret nothing. :O Recipe adapted from here! This recipe was enough to make 2 pie tins! The two of us devoured a whole one. :x We have a serious problem, but I like to say it was because we were carb-loading for our hike the next morning. Yeah, that was definitely it. >_>

Creamy Avocado Doria

Ingredients:
-3 cups brown rice, cooked
-1 lb. ground turkey
-1 onion, diced
-1 green pepper, diced
-1 carrot, diced
-5 cloves garlic, minced
-salt, to taste
-freshly ground black pepper, to taste
(Avocado Cream Sauce)
-2 avocados, cut into bite-sized pieces
-3/4 cup vanilla soy milk
-3/4 cup water + ~1 tbsp chicken essence (can sub with consomme soup)
-2 tbsp cornstarch
-4 tbsp flour
-1 bay leaf
-1 tbsp butter
-garlic salt, to taste
-freshly ground black pepper, to taste
-mozzarella cheese

Instructions:
1) Cook brown rice. (I use a rice cooker, so I can’t really help you with this.)
2) Dice all the vegetables. Heat butter in a pan on medium heat. Cook the meat until lightly browned, then add the onion, carrot, green pepper + garlic and fry until soft.
3) Add rice, mix well and season with salt and pepper. Preheat oven to 475.
4) (Avocado Cream Sauce) Dice the avocado. Put chicken essence, flour and cornstarch mixed with water + soy milk into a saucepan. Add the bay leaf. Put on low heat, stirring constantly, and cook until the sauce thickens.
5) Stop the heat, add the butter, remove the bay leaf and add the diced avocado.
6) Put on the heat again for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt + pepper.
7) Put fried rice into a pie dish and spread avocado sauce evenly over the rice.
8) Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for 20 minutes or until top is lightly browned.

Creamy Vanilla Cashew Milk

I’m sure this would be even more awesome with vanilla bean, as suggested in the original recipe, but…they’re really expensive. :/ This is the first time I’ve ever tried making a nut milk, but it was surprisingly easy! :] We decided to use the pulp to make a “crust” for another dessert that I’ll probably post about in a couple days.

Creamy Vanilla Cashew Milk

Ingredients:
-2 cups raw, unsalted cashews
-5 1/2 cups water
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1 1/2 tbsp honey
-pinch of salt

Instructions:
1) Place cashews in a large bowl and cover with water, soaking overnight. Drain in the morning and rinse until water runs clean.
2) Combine cashews + water in a blender and puree until completely combined.
3) Put a fine mesh strainer (or doubled-over cheesecloth, if you have one) over a large bowl and strain the cashew milk. Use the back of a spoon to press all the liquid out.
4) Set cashew “pulp” aside.
5) Add cinnamon, vanilla extract, salt and honey (might help to microwave the honey a little to combine) to the “milk” and mix! You could also throw it back into the blender to mix it.

It should stay fresh in the fridge for about a week, but…we drank it all, so there’s that.

Baked Yam with Apples

Earlier this year, I went over to a church friend’s house to help brew up some apple butter!

I’m really proud of myself for finding it because I pretty much went by, “After you go under the tunnel, follow the road for 4 miles. When you see the county sign, make a right and then drive for about 2 miles. Make another right there.”

This cauldron (kettle) is about a century old. :O

Anyway, a whole lot of apple butter was made that day and packaged into mason jars to sell for the school fundraiser. I bought two from the pastor’s son so I could bring one back here to share with my family/friends. Jun and I decided to use it as a topping for a dessert we wanted to make. I know yams and sweet potatoes are different things, but I tend to use them pretty interchangeably. :O Our Google doc basically consisted of 3 things per day (something with a bunch of protein, something with a bunch of veggies, a dessert) that we met up. :O

This is an excerpt from our Google doc. The green is Jun; the blue is me.

Baked Yam with Apples

Ingredients:
-2 yams
-2 apples
-cinnamon
-pecans, chopped
-drizzle of honey
-apple butter

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Slice a yam 3/4 the way through in ~1/2 inch sections. Place sliced yam + sprinkle with cinnamon.
3) Dice an apple and place on top of potato. Drizzle with honey + finish off with chopped pecans.
4) Bake for 1.5 hours or until yam is tender.
5) Top with apple butter and serve!