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huevos rancheros bake.

December 30, 2011 in Main Dishes, Weekend Brunch with 7 Comments

Huevos rancheros is high on the list of my all-time favorite breakfast dishes.

And it’s a super-simple concept: Fried eggs, corn tortillas, and some type of tomato sauce. There are, of course, a few variations you can toss in there – like black beans, or salsa instead of a tomato sauce – but those are the building blocks.

When I discovered Deb of Smitten Kitchen‘s way of frying the egg on top of the tortilla over a layer of cheese, I fell in love with this breakfast. Daniel really fell in love with this breakfast. In fact, on any given weekend when I ask him what he’d like to eat in the morning, this is probably his most frequent answer. Sometimes if I have store-bought salsa on hand, I’ll make it with that – though I do prefer the homemade stuff.

Now that I’ve created this new way of making huevos rancheros, however, I have a feeling I’ll be making it much more often.

You heard the story – one of my bestest girlfriend’s also loves her some huevos rancheros, so it’s really her and Daniel you can thank for inspiring this idea. I wanted to make this dish for a group, without frying eggs to order. As I surfed around for a recipe, I couldn’t find what I was looking for – but I did stumble upon this recipe using chipotle and an avocado salsa. It wasn’t a bake, it was still going the traditional fry-to-order route, but I figured I could take the same flavors and create a recipe for a bake. So, that’s what I did – and here it is.

champagne {margarita} brunch.

December 28, 2011 in Cocktails, Complete Menus, Weekend Brunch with 2 Comments

As a person who adores both margaritas and champagne, you can imagine my excitement when I discovered the brilliant idea to combine them.

This is beyond brilliant. This is the stuff people should win awards for coming up with… Is anyone surprised it was Rick Bayless’ creation? Didn’t think so.

Champagne is a perfect match for my beloved margarita, because it adds just the right amount of sweetness – and the bubbles provide a great balance against the 1:1:1 ratio of tequila, Cointreau, and lime juice. Plus, we now have an excuse to drink tequila at breakfast.

And my, oh my – champagne margaritas open the door for endless Mexican brunch menu opportunities, don’t they?

the perfect {spicy} bloody mary.

November 30, 2011 in Cocktails, Recipe Arsenal, Weekend Brunch with 1 Comment

Today, we’re bringing sexy back.

C’mon…you know a bloody mary is totally hot. Hot as in spicy. Sexy = hot = spicy. Are we on the same page? Good.

Today, I’m bringing sexy back in the form of the perfect bloody mary. This is not a new recipe to these parts, but because I make these *so* often, I felt compelled to take a shiny new picture and share it with you and remind you how awesome they are.

So you can make them. Like, this weekend. Or today. I surely wouldn’t judge you for imbibing on this fine Wednesday morning.

I love a good bloody mary for so many reasons. Most importantly, it’s usually the sign of a great weekend. This goes for both the “hell yeah, the weekend is here!” bloody mary and the “I had too much fun this weekend” hair of the dog bloody mary. I equally love that it’s considered totally normal to enjoy one (who are we kidding – several) before noon. In fact, having a bloody mary at any other time of day just seems downright wrong.

pumpkin spice {baked} donut holes.

October 14, 2011 in Obsessed, Weekend Brunch with 7 Comments

Call them mini muffins, call them donut holes…

Call them whatever. I call them delicious. Way delicious.

These little-mini-pumpky-babies are so moist, and so packed with spicy pumpkin flavor. For me, this is fall – all wrapped up into one little…donut hole….or mini-muffin. Whatever.

homemade cherry pop-tarts.

September 27, 2011 in Sweets + Treats, Weekend Brunch with 5 Comments

This is not something I’m proud of.

Or maybe it is. Yes, it is something I’m proud of. I got confused for a second, because sometimes when I explain to people the lengths I go to to make something from scratch, they think I’m nuts.

And I am. So, I suppose I’m proud of being nuts. Or something like that.

I’d like to tell you these weren’t a total pain in the ass to make, but they were. The dough had a hard time staying cool enough to work with, and then there was the tiny problem that occurred when I ran out of parchment paper mid-dough-roll – which let me tell you, is actually a big eff-ing problem, because this means that your dough is now going to get super-warm in the time it takes Dan to run to the store to pick more up – but hey, at least I have someone as incredible as he is, that will stop what he’s doing and do anything for me, even though I more likely than not just got back from the store and never had a thought to check to see if I needed more of something as important as parchment paper…

blackberry {sour cream} coffee cake.

September 22, 2011 in Sweets + Treats, Weekend Brunch with 4 Comments

It’s time for blueberry sour cream coffee cake to take a back-seat.

Because there’s a new coffee cake in town.

It’s not that I have anything against the blueberry version. I actually quite like it. Anyone who knows me also knows that I adore blueberries. I eat them like candy, I eat them in smoothies… I love my blueberries.

And probably because of that, I like the idea of switching up a coffee cake to include blackberries instead. The next time you get your hands on a package of those lusciously fat, sweet blackberries, I highly encourage you to give this cake a try.

truffled wild mushroom frittata.

September 21, 2011 in Main Dishes, Weekend Brunch with 0 Comments

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

In many cases, this is true. But such is not the case for this frittata, and I’m sure other frittatas would feel the same way. A photo can’t do this frittata justice. It’s big, it’s brown, and it’s not very pretty. There is no colorful smattering of veggies, no dusting of bright green herbs. Even if there were – I’m not sure it would make much of a difference.

And it doesn’t need to. Because the taste is where this frittata shines – and isn’t that the most important part? Of course it is. Yes, I do feel that food should be beautiful. But certain foods to me – I like thinking of them as rustic – are beautiful in their own right, like this frittata. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for mushrooms. Maybe it’s the fact that this frittata contains my new favorite secret ingredient to sneak into eggs: Cream cheese. OMG. The cream cheese gives it this lush, well…creaminess…that I’ve never experience while eating eggs. Maybe, though, just maybe – it has something to do with the fact that there are four other cheeses in this frittata.

mimosa bar.

September 13, 2011 in Cocktails, Weekend Brunch with 1 Comment

Add it to the bucket list: Host brunch with mimosa bar.

Unless you’re not into hosting, in which case you might change it to: Get invited to brunch with mimosa bar. It shouldn’t be that hard. I mean – you do know me, right?

The first ladies-only {more affectionately known as bitches} brunch I hosted became infamous because of the mimosa bar. It’s a brilliant concept, really. Everyone brings a bottle of champagne, and you provide the mixers. You can keep it as simple as buying a variety of juices at the grocery store, or you can be mental like me and make it all from scratch, like I did this second time around. The choice is yours, and I promise – no matter which way you go, everyone will be impressed. And happy.

I’m going to call this the holy-trifecta of champagne mixers: Orange-Pineapple Juice, Fresh Peach Nectar, and Strawberry Lemonade. I used three 1-quart capacity glass carafes that I was *so* excited to snag from work. Let me tell you – it’s a beautiful thing to now have access to every kitchen utensil or serving piece you can imagine!

annual summer brunch menu.

September 8, 2011 in Complete Menus, Weekend Brunch with 3 Comments

Two years ago, I hosted a brunch. It was right around the time that I started seriously getting into cooking, and it was probably the first time I entertained for a group of more than 4. I remember making Paula’s French Toast Casserole and Ina’s Smoked Salmon Spread. I also did a beautiful tomato and mozzarella salad, an egg white frittata with mushrooms and spinach, and chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. But what made my brunch so infamous was the mimosa bar. I got all sorts of mixers, like peach nectar, orange juice, and pink lemonade – and each guest brought a bottle of champagne. Seven hours later… We were still going, to say the least.

{2nd annual summer brunch crew}

I think that brunch impacted me in a big way – I learned that not only did I love entertaining, I *loved* the process of putting together a great menu. I’m proud to say that my cooking has come a long way, and I’ve really come into my own in terms of what I like and what I’m about in the kitchen. And what I’m about is creating a truly special experience for my friends and loved ones – and even though the food must be nothing-short-of-fabulous, I like for everything else about the day or evening to be super-relaxed.

The following year, I let life get in the way as it has a habit of doing and I missed my opportunity to host a second annual brunch. This year, the end of August rolled around and I was determined not to let that happen again. And so, I hosted my second annual brunch a year late…

whole lemon-nut muffins.

June 26, 2011 in Project Pastry Queen, Weekend Brunch with 1 Comment

They’re called “whole” lemon muffins for a reason, you know.

I’ve been intrigued by these muffins since I first saw the recipe: A whole lemon, skin – everything except the seeds – and all, goes into this muffin batter. The end result was promised to be a deeper lemon flavor, and it was. I love this idea – as a matter of fact, I’m already thinking about making whole orange muffins.

These muffins are incredibly light and fluffy, and I even opted to replace one cup of regular flour with whole wheat, making for an even “whole-r” muffin. I also love that these muffins aren’t overly sweet. You have the option to add a simple glazer of confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, and a touch of vanilla, and there you can control how much sweetness you want to add. If you do opt to use this glaze, I would be sure to add enough sugar to thicken it enough, or let it sit and harden a bit before you try to use the glaze.

The recipe says it yields 12 texas-sized muffins at the top of the page, but when you read the instructions, it says to use 8 muffin cups. I’m not sure which is supposed to be correct, but I used regular-sized muffin pans and I got 18. I also had a problem in one of the pans with getting the muffins out safely after baking – not sure if it was the pan, but you may want to use muffin liners to be safe.

Head over to Tara’s blog for the complete recipe!