Mama's Brunch

I love watching Food Network, I gain a lot of my inspiration for cooking from here. Bobby Flay is a pretty incredible cook, I love his show Brunch at Bobby's. Brunch is my all-time favorite meal. I absolutely love it. When I became a mom I knew I would want to host a brunch with all the mamas and babies. After a few months to get my bearings, I was able to do so. I utilized one of Bobby Flay's brunches as my foundation and tweaked the recipes just a bit to fit in my cooking style.

Orange-Ricotta Pancakes with Fig Compote

3/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp  baking powder
salt
1 cup ricotta cheese
3/4 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp vanilla
orange zest
butter

Fig Compote
12 oz figs
4 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup trail mix (or any nuts you have around)
salt
pepper

Mix dry ingredients together. Then combine ricotta, milk, egg yolks, vanilla and zest in a separate bowl until smooth. Beat the egg whites in a standing mixer until stiff. Add dry ingredients to the ricotta and milk, fold to combine. Whisk in small amount of egg whites to lighten the batter, then fold in the remaining egg whites. I heated up my griddle and brushed the surface with butter. Use 1/3 cup to scoop batter onto the griddle. When bubbles start to appear, flip.

Add all ingredients for compote together in a small sauce pan, cook over high heat and stir frequently. Should take about two minutes for the figs to soften and break down. Pour into bowl for serving.




Italian Home Fries

3 Tbsp butter
3 cloves garlic
1 small onion, sliced thinly
1 small red bell pepper, diced
1 small yellow pepper, diced
1 1/2 lbs small new potatoes, diced
8 oz Italian hot sausage, remove from casing
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
drizzle olive oil
salt & pepper

The night before (to save time) I chopped everything up and put it into a ziploc bag. I stuck it into the fridge and the next morning, heated up the butter on the griddle and poured the ingredients onto the griddle pan. I added the fresh herbs once the onions, peppers and potatoes started to cook. The smell is incredible! Once the sausage is browned, cooked through and potatoes are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, your home fries are done!

Soft Scrambled Eggs with Italian Cheese and Tomato Bruschetta
1 loaf of Italian bread
olive oil
salt & pepper
3 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
handful of basil, julienne
10 large eggs
4 oz Italian cheeses

Preheat grill pan over medium heat, slice bread, drizzle with olive oil and place down on pan. While bread toasts, toss tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper and julienne basil in a bowl. Once bread is toasted, mound the tomato mixture on top.

Melt butter into a large saute pan over low heat. Crack eggs into a separate bowl and whisk until fluffy. Add in coarse black pepper. Add eggs into the pan, mix gently with rubber spatula. Fold in cheese and after a few minutes remove from heat. Serve eggs with bruschetta.

Orange-Pineapple Mimosas
champagne or prosecco
orange juice
pineapple juice

I love changing up mimosa flavors, find any yummy juice or nectar and top that off in your champagne glass.

Blueberry-Fennel Ice
ice cube tray
water
blueberries
fennel sprigs

I decided to jazz up my ice for serving water, so I put a few blueberries and fennel sprigs in the cube tray. Freeze and it looks pretty with the color. You can use any fruit, herbs, etc.


It was so wonderful to get together with my great mama

friends and to see their babies. Our little ones played and we took some adorable pictures. This brunch is great for any gathering.

Enjoy! xo Lo

Baby Shower for Morgan and her little dove Cora Elizabeth

One of my favorite things to do is plan a party and of course make food for that party. Every day there is a new reason to celebrate. This past Saturday was my wonderful friend, Morgan's baby shower for her baby girl on the way: Cora Elizabeth. I signed myself up right away to make a few savory and sweet items for the special day.

Morgan's friends did an incredible job, decorating, creating fun games and putting together some additional tasty treats. For Morgan's shower I wanted to take a large onion tart that I had made before and make tartlets. I wanted to do the same for a citrus cake I had made previously, make mini cupcakes. And what good is a baby shower without some onesie cookies...right? Here are my recipes below.

Caramelized Onion Tartlets with Manchego Cheese
3 pie crusts (premade or homemade)
2 medium/large yellow onions
3 pieces of cooked ham (or bacon or proscuitto)
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1/2 stick butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup manchego cheese
1 cup half & half
1 egg
salt
pepper

First you want to take your pie crusts and use a 3 inch biscuit cutter to cut out some circles. Grease you mini (or regular) muffin tin. Then put the pie circles inside so they look like mini tart shells. Bake these at 425 for about 15 minutes.

Next, heat up your pan or skillet and drop in the butter and oil. While that heats up, peel and thinly slice your onions. Place them in the skillet to caramelize, this will take about 15 or so minutes. Keep your heat to medium low because you don't want them to get crispy. Keep stirring every few minutes. Then chop up your ham (or bacon) add that to your onion mixture. You want to chop up your fresh parsley very finely and add that to the onion mixture as well. Add a bit of salt and pepper and mix around. Remove from heat and once your pie shells are cooled spoon the mixture into your mini shells.

Grate your manchego (you can also use gruyere) cheese and place about a spoonful on top of each tart. Then beat your egg and add in the half and half, add about a spoonful of that onto each tart (this creates your custard for the tart). Bake these at 350 for about 20 minutes. They will be a bubbling golden brown.

Lemon-Chiffon Cupcakes with Citrus Buttercream Icing

Lemon-Chiffon Cupcakes with Citrus Buttercream Icing
Topped with Candied Grapefruit and Cranberries
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
5 large eggs separated
3/4 cup orange-banana juice
3 Tbsp orange, grapefruit & lemon zest
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350. Combine first four ingredients in your standing mixer, in the center add in egg yolks, oil and juice. Beat on a medium speed for 3-4 minutes until the mixture becomes smooth. Stir in zest. Remove from mixer into a large bowl. Clean mixing bowl and add in egg whites and cream of tartar, beat on high until you see stiff peaks (like whipped cream or meringue). Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Spoon into your greased mini cupcake tin and bake for about 15 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before adding the icing.

Citrus Buttercream Icing
1/2 cup soft butter
3 Tbsp orange, grapefruit & lemon zest
2 cups powdered sugar
3 Tbsp fresh Meyer lemon juice

Beat the butter with the zest on medium speed, when the mixture becomes creamy start slowly adding in your powdered sugar (about 1/3 cup at a time). Then add in your fresh lemon juice. You will begin to see the consistency turn into a frosting. Apply to each cupcake.

Candied Grapefruit and Cranberries
1 grapefruit
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup sugar
3 cups water

Add water to a medium sized pot, put heat on medium and add in sugar. Stir until sugar has dissolved. Slice up grapefruit into small pieces (rind intact). Add in cranberries whole. Stir so the sugar water coats each piece of fruit. Let the water come to a gentle bubble. Occasionally stir the fruit around, keep in sugar water for about 30 minutes. This will remove the tartness from the berries and the sourness from the grapefruit rind. Use a piece of parchment paper or foil and spoon the fruit onto the paper to cool. After about 10 minutes check them, they should be sticky, like gummy candy. Place on top of your cupcakes for a unique, delicious topping.

Onesie Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies with  Orange Icing
1 cookie cutter (any shape)
3 1/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 package of cream cheese
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsps vanilla
1 egg

In your standing mixer add in butter and cream cheese. Cream until smooth. Meanwhile add, flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside. Add sugar into butter mixture, beat for about two minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. On low speed, gradually add in flour mixture. Dough will be soft and sticky.


Divide dough in half, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. Preheat oven to 350 and grease cookie sheets. Once dough has chilled, roll out and use cookie cutter to cut out 1/4 inch thick cookies. Spread out about two inches apart and bake for about 12 minutes. Let cool before icing.

Orange Poured Fondant Icing (Naturally colored)
1 Tbsp milk
1/4 tsp of orange extract
3-5 tsp light corn syrup
1 1/3 cups confectioners sugar
1 Tbsp beet juice

In your standing mixer, add in milk, corn syrup and 1/3 a cup of confectioner sugar at a time. If you need to use more add more, if you need to add more milk to keep the icing smooth add a bit more. Add orange extract and beet juice. The beet juice is a natural way to color your icing instead of using chemical-laden dye. And you can't even taste it! Plus the color was perfect. Use immediately. When you apply to cookie the icing will dry pretty quickly so decorate right away.


The baby shower was a huge success! Delicious food and wonderful company. It is a precious time watching all my friends transform from beautiful women to beautiful mothers.




These recipes would be perfect for any party. Your guests will feel incredibly special and your guest of honor will feel showered with love. Enjoy! xo Lo

Wingin' It Football Style

When the NFL playoffs start my husband craves wings...there is something about football and wings that just go together like biscuits and gravy. Well instead of purchasing the overpriced, extremely fattening and greasy wings...I chose to make them myself. How hard could it be? Turns out, it wasn't hard at all.

First you want to come up with an easy appetizer that you can entertain with before you serve up the delicious wings. Then choose which kind of wings you want to make. I decided I definitely wanted to do buffalo wings but wanted another option as well, I settled on sesame-soy sauce wings.

When you go to the grocery store you can either purchase regular wings or you can choose drumettes, which I did. I chose two packs of 30 drumettes for each flavor. Then the next most important part is your marinade and giving your wings enough time to marinate.

My easy appetizer was homemade raspberry jam and brie.

I served this on a beautiful cutting board, sliced some pieces of brie and placed a small dollop of jam on top with thin crackers...yum!

Sesame-Soy Sauce Wings
1 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 bunch of fresh cilantro
1 Tbsp of freshly crushed ginger
2 cloves of minced garlic
1/2 fresh lemon (juiced)
salt
pepper
1/2 cup agave nectar
2 Tbsp olive oil
sesame seeds for garnish

Place wings in a deep bowl and pour over soy sauce, ginger, garlic, lemon and cilantro. Use your hands to coat the marinade all over the wings. Cover with plastic wrap, refrigerate and let marinate for two hours. After the first hour re-mix to make sure the marinade is coating each wing evenly.

While those wings are marinading start the other set of wings:

Buffalo Wings
2 cups hot sauce
2 Tbsp worchestire sauce
cayenne pepper
salt
1 Tbsp olive oil

With the next batch of wings, place them in another deep bowl and pour over one cup of the hot sauce, worchestire and salt. Use your hands to make sure they have coated the wings, then cover with plastic wrap and let marinate in the fridge for two hours. Same as the first batch, after one hour re-coat the wings. Once the buffalo wings are done, place on a greased baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes on 350 degrees.

Bleu Cheese Sauce
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayo
1 Tsp white wine vinegar
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1/2 minced shallot
1 clove of minced garlic
1/4 lb bleu cheese
salt
pepper
celery sticks

While your wings are marinating, make your bleu cheese dip. Mix all the ingredients together and let merry in the fridge until ready to serve. Super easy! If you think the sauce is too thick, add more sour cream/mayo to thin it out.

Once the sesame wings are done marinading, place them on a greased baking sheet  and pour agave nectar on top to create a sticky sauce while they bake. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

When the buffalo wings are done, pour the remaining hot sauce on top and coat evenly. When the sesame wings are done baking sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Once all wings are cooled place on two platters for serving.

Simple Salad
arugula
dried cranberries
roughly chopped walnuts
goat cheese

For a simple salad with your hearty wings, mix all these ingredients together. Make sure to wash your arugula and get rid of the root. Add as much of the nuts, cheese and cranberries as you like. Serve with a simple lemony-olive oil dressing and voila a meal that will please any football watchin' man as well as his better half.

Enjoy! xoxo Lo