recipe: almond french toast

Ben and Mandy came over for brunch a few weeks ago, and I wanted to serve something light. We ended up having almond French toast and yogurt with berries. This French toast is fantastic. I mean, I always love French toast - but the addition of the almonds elevates this version.

Almond French Toast

Via Cook's Illustrated

• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar, divided
• 8 slices Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse Hearty White. (Original recipe also recommends Arnold Country Classics White, Thomas’ English Muffin Toasting Bread or a challah loaf sliced into 1/2-inch pieces.) 
• 1 1/2 cups milk, warmed to the touch
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons melted butter, plus 2 tablespoons for cooking
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon Triple Sec
• 1 teaspoon orange zest

In a food processor, combine almonds and 1 tablespoon brown sugar until coarsely ground, about 15 pulses.

Place bread on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. Place in a 300-degree oven for 16 minutes to dry the bread, flipping halfway through. The centers should remain slightly moist.

(The first two steps can be done the night before.)

Place the wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet in the oven and warm oven to 200 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk milk, yolks, remaining 3 tablespoons brown sugar, cinnamon, 2 tablespoons melted butter, salt, vanilla, Triple Sec and orange zest. Pour mixture into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.

Soak bread in milk mixture for just 20 seconds per side. Pick up bread with a slotted spatula and allow excess milk to drip off. Transfer slices to a baking sheet.

Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the nut mixture over one side of each slice of bread.

Heat 1/2 tablespoon butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium-low heat. Place two slices of bread in the skillet, nut side down. Cook until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Flip bread and cook 3 to 4 more minutes.

Transfer cooked toast to the wire rack in the warmed oven.

Repeat with remaining butter and bread.

Serves 4.

dining out: batter bowl bakery

How about that weekend weather! Our neighbor told me that Sunday's gorgeous weather was only about 5 degrees above average, but it's been so unseasonably cold lately that it felt like a much larger reprieve.

Saturday, Tony and I took advantage of the nice weather to clean up the yard. And on Sunday, we met up with Ben for lunch at Batter Bowl Bakery on H Street. We followed that up with a game of bocce at Valerie's apartment with Ben. (Guys won.) And then Tony and I took advantage of the extra daylight to do some more yard work at home. (We're getting the backyard ready to put in a raised vegetable garden! We ... er, Tony, has started on the demo.)

Batter Bowl Bakery is at 4th Street and H Street Northeast. It's right next to Ethiopic, the Ethiopian restaurant, and in fact, the two restaurants are sister companies. Batter Bowl Bakery is a relatively new restaurant, and it's been on my list of places to try.

The bakery is beautiful inside, albeit a little crowded when the rush comes. And the food is great, which is really the most important part.

I originally had my heart set on a parfait with granola, fruit and SOY YOGURT. I feel like if a restaurant puts soy yogurt on its menu, I should order it regardless of the time of day, just to reward the restaurant for offering a dairy-free option. But alas, the bakery ran out of soy yogurt. So I opted for an open-faced sandwich of hummus, garbonzos, avocado and tomatoes. The flavors were wonderful. My only suggestion is that the bakery, being a bakery and all, serve the sandwiches on thicker, sturdier bread.

Tony also ordered an open-faced sandwich. His was tuna, and he loved it.

I ordered the fresh-squeezed orange juice, which was lovely. I'm not a coffee drinker, and Tony only drinks coffee occasionally at work. He really liked his iced coffee at the restaurant, though. "I forgot what good coffee tastes like."

Batter Bowl Bakery is a great neighborhood spot and a great addition to the area. We'll be back.

things to do: arboretum picnic

This weekend, we got a little bit of a break from our winter weather. (Although this winter has been admittedly mild.) So Tony and I took advantage of the nice temps with a picnic at the National Arboretum with Ben, Mandy, Valerie and Andrew. It's one of my favorite places to be outside in D.C.

It's striking in the wintertime with the bare trees.

After lunch, Ben busted out his bocce ball set. And I have to say, I did pretty well, considering I thought we were playing croquet at first and was wondering where the mallets were. (Bocce novice here.)

See? That's my red one.

Here's hoping spring arrives quickly, so we get more of these lovely weekends.

recipe: english muffins

Saturday morning, Tony and I had brunch at our house with Ben and Mandy. Tony suggested we have breakfast sandwiches, which I thought was a great idea. I wanted to make the sandwiches on some sort of homemade bread, and after a little Googling, I learned that homemade English muffins are pretty easy to make.

(That's a photo of one of the leftover muffins, which Tony ate with butter. During brunch, I got so caught up in trying my sandwich that I forgot to take a photo until it was half gone. Oops. They were delicious.)

I like this recipe, which I adapted from this blog, because you make the dough the night before. Then in the morning, all you have to do is cook the muffins.

English Muffins

• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon (1 packet) yeast
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• cornmeal

Heat the milk to almost boiling. Remove from heat and stir in butter and sugar. Add yeast and let sit 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix flour and salt in a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer.

When yeast mixture is bubbly, add to the flour and mix. I used the dough hook on my stand mixer.

Let sit for 15 minutes and then stir in salt.

Transfer dough to a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it sit on the counter overnight.

In the morning, use your hands to form six muffin-shaped patties. Drop muffins into a small bowl of cornmeal, then place in an ungreased skillet. I cooked two of the muffins in my small cast iron skillet and the rest in a teflon pan, and they all turned out great.

Cook muffins on the stovetop in the skillet over low heat for 10-20 minutes per side until browned.

Let muffins cool completely on a cooling rack. Split the muffins with a fork, not a knife. Toast before serving.

Makes 6 muffins.

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The breakfast sandwiches were very easy to put together in the morning. Each sandwich got two eggs, and on the table I put out white cheddar, lettuce, tomato and mayo. (By the way, this was Dec. 1, and the lettuce and tomato are from my garden ... how awesome is that to be eating garden tomatoes so late in the year?)

Oh, and I also put out French's onions for the sandwiches ... to keep it classy. 

On the side: roasted rosemary mini potatoes. And to drink: Bloody Marys. Yum all around.

entertaining: brunch on the grill

After a summer of unrelenting humidity and temperatures topping 90 degrees most days, yesterday most definitely was a welcome break. The humidity and high temperatures took a vacation -- like most everything else in Washington in August in an election year. And the beautiful weather was a reminder that summer won't last forever and that fall will be here eventually. 

Tony and I spent most of the afternoon outside with Ben and Mandy on the pool deck of their apartment. We came for brunch and stayed to swim -- two of my favorite weekend things. Ben made brunch on the grill at the deck, which was fitting for the day. 

First up, grilled French toast, which was soaked in a batter that included Grand Marnier. Topped with strawberries, also mixed with Grand Marnier, and Cool Whip.  

On the side, grilled nectarines and plums, served over spiced yogurt. That's Greek yogurt, cinnamon, honey, toasted walnuts, and orange zest. 

And this watermelon wasn't grilled, but I have to mention it because this is the first watermelon I've seen in I-don't-know-how-long that actually has seeds. Ben and Mandy got it from their CSA, and I can't say that it tasted any different than seedless watermelons I buy at the grocery store, but it was nostalgic. It brought me back to my childhood, when I would eat the seeds and worry about watermelons growing in my belly.

Rounding out the meal were grilled Canadian bacon and homemade Bloody Marys. A fine meal. And before anyone realized it, it was 4 o'clock. Sunday, you were perfect.

recipe: brigadeiros

I impressed myself with these little chocolate candies. They definitely taste amazing, but they also look so darn good. It's not very often that what I make looks just as good as the picture in the cookbook.

Brigadeiros are a Brazilian chocolate candy, named after a World War II brigadier who popularized the bite-sized treats, and now they're served at birthday parties.  

It was too hot to turn on the oven in our house last week, and the recipe, which I adapted from America's Test Kitchen, cooks on the stovetop, so I gave it a try. 

Brigadeiros

• 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• sprinkles (about 2 ounces) 

In a saucepan, mix the three ingredients. Cook on low heat, stirring frequently with a spatula, for 20-25 minutes. 

Cool chocolate in a greased 8-by-8 dish in the refrigerator for at least a half hour. 

Roll the chocolate into balls, using about 1 tablespoon of chocolate per ball. 

Pour sprinkles into a small bowl. Roll each ball into the sprinkles to coat completely. Makes 32 candies. Store in the refrigerator.

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This batch of brigadeiros turned out to be a threefer. I put out part of the batch when Ben and Mandy came over for cocktails Friday. I put some more out for brunch Sunday for Camille and Matt. And the rest I packaged up to bring to Scott and Michele when we met their new baby, who is absolutely adorable. Don't you agree? Introducing ... Baby O!  

entertaining: rickeys on the patio

Ben and Mandy, college pals who live in D.C. now, came over Friday evening for cocktails on the patio as a belated birthday celebration for Ben. I was expecting we'd have to move the party indoors because several things were working against us: (1) the heat (2) the rain and (3) the mosquitos. Turns out, the temperature dropped to the 70s, the rain left as quickly as it arrived, and we successfully repelled the mosquitos.

Ben's a gin guy, so we had a bottle of Tanqueray on hand and mixed up some gin rickeys, which were the perfect citrus-y drink for a summer evening. As I was reading about gin rickeys last week, I learned they're actually a take on the less-well-known Joe Rickey, a bourbon drink that seems to have been created here in Washington. And since Mandy is a bourbon girl, we had rickeys all around. 

Gin Rickey / Joe Rickey

• 2 ounces gin for a gin rickey OR 2 ournces of bourbon for a Joe Rickey
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• Club soda (or tonic water) 
• Ice

Fill glass with ice. Add gin and lime. Fill with club soda or tonic to taste. Garnish with a lime.

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We drank our cocktails out of these fun striped glasses, which I picked up earlier this month at a flea market. The colors made it easy to keep track of whose drink was whose. 

To snack on, I put out a plate of veggies with hummus and ranch dip on a cool lunchtray I bought at a sweet little vintage shop in Phoenix earlier this year.

And anyone who lives in D.C. knows that mosquitos can ruin a night on the patio. They love this city's humid climate, and this is supposed to be particularly bad year for mosquitos. The good news is that I came inside Friday night with exactly two bites. Not perfect, but it wasn't the bloodbath I'd expected.

I took several repellant techniques, throwing everything I had at the buggers and seeing what stuck. I'm not sure whether my success can be attributed to one particular technique or some combination of them. I set out a citronella candle, of course, and I also put seven votive candle holders around the table, hoping the extra smoke may be unattractive to the mosquitos. And apparently the little guys hate the smell of several plants. I have garlic and rosemary growing in our backyard, and I also put a marigold on the table and surrounded ourselves with four big basil plants. On a whim, I also crushed up some basil leaves and rubbed them on my arms and Tony's arms. I'm not sure if that was the action of a crazy woman or whether it's a legitimate mosquito-repelling technique, but, hey, I'm going to try anything.

Despite the two bites, I'm counting Friday as a win for me.

Jessi: 1. Mosquitoes: 0.