Fifi’s French Toast Casserole

Yuletide comes early to the Recipes, thus my favorite Holiday brunch-ish recipe.

WARNING: ONCE YOU MAKE THIS, YOU CANNOT TURN AWAY FROM THE DARKSIDE.

Thanks Fif!

Only ONCE Per Year French Toast Casserole

Day 1
Combine
1/2 c whole milk or half & half
1 1/2 c dark brown sugar
3/4 c unsalted butter
1/4 c + 2 tbs light corn syrup (Karo)
pinch salt
in a heavy suacepan over medium heat and stir constantly for 5 minutes. Pour into a lightly greased 13″ by 9″ dish. Fit slices of challah, brioche, Sally Lunn, french or stale Texas Toast bread over syrup. Combine
4 eggs, beaten
2 1/2 c whole milk or half & half
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
and pour over bread. Cover and chill overnight.

Day 2
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sprinkle 3 tbs of cinnamon sugar over casserole, cover with foil and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes and then remove the cover for the rest of the cooking time.

Take aspirin or have another Bloody Mary. Your arteries need all the help they can get!

In honor of my Honey’s 85th birthday

I present Capers:

The last time RockStar, BabyDaddy, and I saw my grandmother for a visit at home (the very last was at the hospital right before she died) we went to the Kroger in her town and got a regular Sunday morning schmear. Lox, capers, onions, tomato, the works. Out of the blue, she took a caper out of the jar and popped it into her mouth. She was in love with them. Every time I talked to her on the phone after that, she told me how good they were and how she loved to eat capers on her salad. It makes me very happy to know that life has pleasant surprises for us, even in your 80’s with dementia.

Happy Birthday Miss Mary.

(Here’s another pal we met on that trip.)

Ok peeps, this is the last post over here.

From now on, barring technical issues, I’ll be posting at SketchyRecipe.com . Head on over to see what debacles I’ve concocted.

Kids, we’re still unpacking at sketchyrecipe.com

My homey Colleen is working her booheiner off to get us up and running, but all change takes time. In the meantime, feel free to check out the new catagory widgit I put on the left side of the blog. You can find all of the posts that way.

Technical difficulties will be a thing o’ the past soon. See you at sketchyrecipe soon.

I Miss my Honey

She was my grandmother, but so much more.

A real life force, Honey was the best person I’ve ever known. She was so kind, so gentle, so honorable. The last 10 years of her life were a blur of trying to keep her happy, in a good way. She loved her great grandchildren so much. It was almost more than she could take. She paid Mary, Mary and me to pick worms off of her Catawbas when we were kids. She was number one in the grandparent department, unconditionally. BabyDaddy knew it. We all did.

Miss Mary made horrible food, but she was the best person I’ve ever known. Fifi is allowed to have issues with her mom, but she was good nail polish, cheap paperbacks, terrible gossip rags, diamond watches, dirty Playskool toys, and white picket fences to me.

What a legacy.

The Last Thing Honey Made for Me

1 avocado, mashed

1 onion, diced

1 c mayonnaise

Mix all together. Let turn gray. Inform your grandchild you have made her favorite dish. Heap a 2 c scoop on her plate with saltines. Take 24 different prescriptions.

I love my Honey, but this was a Therapy Worthy meal. She would love that, lol.

Here she is, holding a bunch of random stuff a 4 year old gave her:

Monday is Movin’ Day

We’re moving on up. To the East Side. To a deluxe apartment in the sky-high-high.

Mooovin on up. To the East Side.

We finally got a piece of the pi-i-iii-iiiie, yeah-eah-eah.

You kids can drop the wordpress from the site name. We’ll now be just http://sketchyrecipe.com.

See how happy we are?

This Just In: Super Lazy Enchilada Rice

I made this tonight. It was not a total success. I think it would be in a rice cooker.

Much Lazier and It’s From a Can Enchilada Sauce Rice

1 c mild red enchilada sauce

1 c white rice

1 c water

2 tbs oil

Warm the oil in a skillet. Add the rice. Stir to cook a bit and then add water and then sauce when you can smell the rice toasting. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 10 minutes, covered. Add 2 parts water for 1 part sauce to the mix if you need to. Cook for 10 more minutes, adding water and sauce, until cooked.

This never cooked fully for me.

What I will do next time? Cook the rice in the rice cooker with the same 2 parts water to one part sauce plus salt.

I will update! (Because we celebrate the failures here too!)

Tag: Tomatoes

This is how I found an interesting recipe on another blog, Karma-Free cooking. Madelyn has very kindly given me permission to recreate her recipe with some Recipe changes. There are a few more steps than I generally like in a pasta bake, but the efforts are interesting. RockStar and I think that we’ve come up with some changes to the next incarnation of Madelyn’s brainstorm.

Karma Free Pasta Bake, Recipe version

1 onion, diced

3 tbs butter plus 1 tsp oil

1 box Barilla Plus pasta

1 box frozen chopped spinach, thawed

1 c chopped tomatoes OR 1 c chopped carrots

1 c shredded medium chedder

1 c shredded Monterey jack

1 quart half & half

2 tbs mustard

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg or mace

salt & pepper

Step One: Melt butter and heat oil in a small skillet. Add onion, sprinkle with salt, and saute until onion is transparent. Pour into the bottom of a 9 inch by 13 inch baking dish. Add pasta and stir in onions and fat to coat pasta.

Step Two: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Press spinach in colander or twist in a towel to remove most of the moisture. Spread over pasta. Scatter tomatoes or carrots over spinach. Spread cheese over the top of the dish.

Step Three: Pour half & half into a bowl. Add mustard, nutmeg, pepper, and at least 1 tsp of salt. Whisk until mustard has incorporated into mix. Pour liquid over the pasta and veggies slowly. Cover dish with foil and bake for 40 minutes, covered. Uncover and bake for 10 more minutes.

This was good, but a bit, um, curdy. Here’s what we’re trying next time:

In a large saucepan, melt 4 tbs butter. Add onions & salt. When onions are transparent, add 4 tbs all purpose flour and saute for one minute. Slowly add 1 quart milk to make a bechamel (fully explained here). When bechamel coats a spoon, add mustard, nutmeg, pepper, and 1 tsp salt. You can also add the cheese to this sauce if you want it more uniform and less stringy.

You will have to boil the pasta for this version because the sauce won’t release enough moisture to cook the dry pasta. Otherwise, layer cooked pasta, spinach, tomatoes/carrots, cheese, cover with sauce, and bake as directed.

I will keep you informed about the version Recipe 2.0

I have no pictures of this, but I did find an old pic of RecipeDog looking like the camera is sketchy. So cute!!!

I can’t think of a witty title for Turkey Enchiladas

I also cannot tell you how they were, as I don’t eat turkey. I’ll give you the recipe and then BabyDaddy will have to give you the critique later.

Turkey Enchiladas in Hatch’s Green Sauce

2 turkey thighs, baked and meat pulled in bite sized pieces

8 flour tortillas

shredded pepper jack and colby cheese, about 1 cup of each

1 diced yellow onion

Hatch’s green enchilada sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Put tortillas in a stack in the oven while it warms up. Pour about 1/4 cup of the sauce into the turkey and stir to coat. Remove tortillas from oven and cover with a kitchen towel. Take your first tortilla and put about 1/4 cup of turkey on it, sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt, sprinkle on onion to taste, add a sprinkle of both cheeses, fold and put seam side down in an 8 inch square baking dish. I can get 4 enchiladas per dish and it takes a can of sauce per pan of enchiladas, plus the rest of the cheese on top. I like to bake 2 and freeze at least one (don’t put sauce on these) pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Now, I do these with just cheese and onions for the RockStar and me and they are Migh-T tasty.

Street legal crack in sauce form:

Tomorrow at 10am sharp, I’ll post the Bag Contest entry

The winner of the Bag contest is Leigh! I’ll be sure to share pictures of the horror that the Recipes create.

That wins the poorly decorated canvas bag by yours truly. Really. (Maybe)

You need to find the original post and put a comment there.

Good luck, hippies.