The Holiday Experiment: Eggnog French Toast

Since I've been at my parents' place for the holidays, I've been indulging in a few vices: sleeping in, avoiding work, eating a lot, cooking in their nice kitchen, and, of course, watching the Food Network. Last Sunday I was watching one of the Iron Chef Christmas specials (secret ingredient: eggnog and ice) when Iron Chef Morimoto did an eggnog french toast.
I was flabbergasted and astounded. What an epic idea! Why can't I come up with ideas like that?
Anyways, as those of you who watch Iron Chef know, the cooking speed and video editting make it impossible to really know how they're cooking anything. Regardless, I decided that I would try my hand at making my own eggnog french toast. I checked my regular recipe sources online, but I was singularly displeased with what I was able to find. French toast itself is not that challenging to make, so I thought I would try my hand at working out the eggnog version on my own.

The trick to a good french toast, at least in my opinion, is getting the ratio of egg and liquid correct. Usually when I make french toast (one serving), I'll use two eggs and just a splash of milk. Obviously this wasn't going to work for eggnog french toast, since just a splash of eggnog wouldn't be enough to get that rich egg flavor. I also used nutmeg and cinnamon to flavor the batter and amp up that Christmas-y spice aroma.
My mom also had about half a cup of milk that she wanted to use up, so she talked me into adding it to the batter. This was a mistake. It really thinned out my batter, and the extra liquid (considering that you already have to add eggnog), which creates some issues for the texture of the finished product. Don't add any extra milk.
This is what my finished batter looked like (before I mixed in the spices):


In the end, based on how things turned out, this is the recipe I would recommend:

1. 3 eggs
2. 1/3 to 1/2 c. eggnog (this will be based on how thick your batter is and how much of an eggnog flavor you want, just be sure not to add so much that the batter is too watery)
3. 1 tsp nutmeg
4. 1 tsp cinnamon
5. 6 slices texas toast (you can use regular bread if you want, but you'll get better results with thicker slices)

Use a dish that is amenable to dipping your bread in later. In other words, don't use a bowl with a super narrow bottom, or you're going to have a real hard time dipping your bread as you run out of batter. A good option is to use a pie dish.

Start by beating the eggs together until frothy. Some recipes I've seen for french toast call for lightly beating the eggs, but the more you beat them, the more air you're pushing into the mixture, which results (in my opinion) in fluffier french toast. Add the eggnog, nutmeg, and cinnamon; beat together thoroughly.

Heat a medium sized skillet on medium heat. Try not to use a skillet that's too much larger that the heating element, since it's better to get even heat distribution. Add some cooking oil or margarine to the pan; if you're using a non-stick skillet you can use a little less oil.

When your skillet is nice and toasty, dip your bread one slice at a time into the batter. Personally, I like to dip my bread relatively quickly, not allowing too much time for the batter to really soak into the bread (I find that makes the inside of the toast perpetually soggy). Do make sure that the bread is completely and evenly coated, and that you allow the excess batter to drip off before dropping the toast into the pan. I like to use chopsticks for this step, but tongs or a set of spatulas would work just as well. You'll find that if you oversoak the bread, it'll start to come apart.

Fry your toast two slices at a time. If it's browning too quickly, lower the heat. Cook for at least two minutes per side; don't forget that even though you've browned the outside, you also need to cook through any batter that's soaked into the center of the bread as well. 5-8 minutes total should be more than enough, based on how hot your stove is, and how much batter you've used on your bread. When you're done, your toast should be golden brown on both sides.


For a special treat, melt a bit of butter in the pan instead of oil and sprinkle in some brown sugar. This will create a sweet, caramalized crust on your toast (great on regular cinnamon french toast).

The result to my experiment was pretty tasty. My results were a little compromised because of the added milk, and the skillet I used was too big.

The addition of nutmeg and cinnamon really brought out the subtle eggnog flavors, probably making the eggnog aroma stronger than it actually was due to the associations between nutmeg and eggnog I've had since childhood. It was ridiculously rich for breakfast, but hey, what's Christmas for, if not for indulgence and adding a couple inches to the waistline?

If anyone decides to try this and has any suggestions to improve this experimental recipe, let me know! I won't be trying this again until next year. On to the Christmas cookies!

Merry Christmas (or, to be PC, happy holidays) :)

Spaghetti Carbonara (aka the pasta with the raw egg sauce)

I've always been afraid to make spaghetti carbonara. I made it once when I was maybe eleven, with my mom: we followed the instructions on the inside of an egg carton. Needless to say, the dish turned out to be a disaster (the sauce turned into a lumpy custard), and I never tried making it again... until now. I've always thought of Spaghetti Carbonara as a classic Italian dish, one that's good to know how to make even if you don't eat it often. It can be a crowd pleaser when it's done right, probably because it's essentially bacon and eggs with pasta, and who doesn't love that? (Well, maybe two people I know whose names start with J... but you like bacon don't you???)

For the prep:

• I spent: $4-6
• Ingredients: 5/5

It's hard to say exactly how much this recipe cost to make, mostly because the ingredients are things you're likely to already have in your fridge. I personally don't eat or cook with a lot of bacon, but I had some in my freezer from when I made another dish a few weeks ago and didn't use up the entire pound of bacon you're forced to buy everytime you want a few slices. The optional white wine cost me around $12, but the recipe calls for such a small amount, that you can barely say that the wine was a real cost. Plus, wine can be used for other recipes. Or drinking. Your choice.
The most expensive item for this dish was the block of parmesean cheese I got, which cost me $7, but I only used about half in this dish.

Cooking

• Easiness: 2.5/5

I followed the recipe on Allrecipes that can be found here. Here's what I used:

1. 1 box of spaghetti (454 g) (On a side note, I tried Catelli's "Smart Pasta" which is supposedly whole wheat while tasting like white pasta. I hate whole wheat pasta, so I was a little nervous, but although I could taste a slight difference from my regular pasta, it was still pretty good)
   
2. Olive oil
3. 4 slices of bacon, diced
4. 1 onion, chopped
5. 2 cloves garlic, minced
   
6. 1/4 c. white wine (I used a sauvignon blanc)
7. 4 eggs
8. 1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
9. Fresh ground pepper
10. Nutmeg
11. Milk

I used half the bacon that was cited in the recipe, and added the items of nutmeg and milk.

Despite the simplicity of the ingredients, there are a few things you have to watch out for during the cooking process.
Start out by putting a pot of water on the stove so it'll be boiling when you need it. Season it with salt. The recipe suggests that you cook the pasta first and then set it aside, but no matter how much olive oil I've used, I can never keep the pasta from sticking once it cools. Also, having hot pasta is going to be a vital point later in the recipe, so don't cook your spaghetti just yet.
Use a large, sturdy skillet to cook the bacon until it's crisp. This is one of the most annoying things to do, because not only does bacon takes forever to cook in a skillet, the amount of fat that comes out of the stuff is kind of disgusting.
Whatever you do, don't get impatient and turn up the heat and try to cook the stuff faster; it seems like a good idea at the time, but the bacon WILL burn. Your smoke detector WILL go off, especially if you have a tiny little apartment like me (yes, I know this from personal experience). Keep your heat at a low to medium-low level.
Since the bacon will take a while to cook, use this time to beat the eggs together (and chop your onions and mince your garlic, if you have not already done so). Based on recommendations from other cooks on Allrecipes, I added the grated cheese to the eggs and mixed well. (Definitely use the real parmesan for this recipe, I think it would taste really odd with the green can stuff.) I also added ground pepper and about half a teaspoon of nutmeg to the egg-cheese mixture. Some users were adding heavy cream to their eggs as well, but since I'm not a big fan of heavy cream (for more than one reason... damn you, lactose intolerance!), I added some milk (yes, lactose-free :p). Just a splash.

Whenever you notice the bacon is done is a good time to throw your pasta into the boiling water, but now you'll have to be time aware to get everything going at the right time.

Take the bacon out and drain it on a double layer of paper towels. You want to have about 2 tablespoons of bacon fat in the skillet, so if you've got too much in there, you'll want to carefully spoon out some of the fat into a glass jar or something to throw out later. BE CAREFUL, it'll be really hot, and grease can give you some nasty burns.
Add the onions to the skillet (with the remaining fat) and cook until the onions become soft and translucent. Add your garlic and cook for another minute. If you're using wine, add it now and cook for another minute. Return the bacon to the skillet.
If you've time it right, your spaghetti should be about done. Turn the heat off from your skillet. I use a slotted pasta scoop to transfer the cooked pasta directly from the pot to the skillet. I added a very small amount of olive oil to discourage pasta stickiness then tossed to mix everything together.
This is when my anxiety kicked in. To make a good carbonara, YOU CANNOT COOK THE SAUCE. Since the sauce is almost entirely egg based, too much heat will cook your eggs and you will end up with scrambled eggs and pasta, not a creamy, saucy dish. Based on the consensus of other reviewers on the site, I hoped that the heat from the freshly cooked pasta and remaining heat in the skillet would be enough to set the sauce, but not cook it.
I took the skillet off the heat and added the egg mixture and immediately began tossing the pasta. Lo and behold, no scrambled eggs! Saucy goodness! Yay!
Serve immediately with some parmesan sprinkled on top. I skipped the parsley in the recipe because I don't like parsely and wasn't going to buy an entire bundle to use just a little as garnish.

The Result

Thanks to some of the reviewer advice on the site, I think the dish turned out pretty well. However, it didn't taste exactly like I expected it would for a carbonara; that's probably because this recipe isn't a true carbonara recipe. "Real" carbonara would use pancetta, not bacon, and does involve some heavy cream in the sauce. Despite this, the meal was satisfying, but it's probably not something I'll make often.
In the future, I'll probably add some mushrooms and possibly frozen peas to increase the amount of vegetables in the dish. If I can track some down, I'll try out using pancetta (and maybe... even heavy cream).

• Guilt factor: High. Especially if using heavy cream in the sauce, I find it hard to justify the amount of fat and lack of vegetables in the dish. I mean, sure bacon and eggs are both proteins, but does bacon fat do anything good for you? And I felt kinda uneasy because the eggs don't cook all the way through (even though I know the risk factor is actually quite low).
• Servings: 4-6. You're getting a lot of food for what you're paying.
• Leftover rating: 4/5. I wouldn't freeze it, but the flavors do hold in the fridge for a reheating. Just make sure when you're microwaving, you use medium heat and you don't over do it, or you're going to cook the sauce in there too.
• Taste: 3/5. Not unpleasant, but definitely felt like it needed something to boost the flavors a bit.

Overall rating: 70%

• The good: Ingredients are cheap and easy to find, makes a decent amount of food that keeps well and can be eaten later in the week.
• The bad: Can be tricky to make, and not particularly healthy. Not a "real" carbonara recipe. Flavors, although pleasant, fall a little short.
  

The Cheesecake Conundrum

It all started with a craving for cheesecake.

I wrote my statistics term exam on Friday morning, and spent the rest of my evening polishing up my final assignment for the same class. For those of you who don’t already know, my stats course has been the bane of my existence for the past 3 months, and I have another 4 months of it to look forward to L. Anyways, while I was studying for my exam on Thursday, I told myself that as a reward for getting through the first half of my course, I would indulge in some cheesecake on the weekend. Another friend of mine who’s in Toronto, J, had taken me to Future’s (on Brunswick and Bloor) for cheesecake a few weeks before, and I announced plans (on Facebook, where else?) that this would be my caloric poison for the weekend.

I almost immediately got a response that I should “skip the mundane cakes at Future’s” and try out Dessert Trends (on Brunswick and Harbord, two blocks south of Future’s) instead. J was quite outraged at the derogation of Future’s and insisted that there was no possible way the Dessert Trends could be superior. A mutual friend suggested that we do a blind taste test of the desserts from both stores before passing verdict.

I picked up two cakes from Dessert Trends (the Bailey’s cheesecake and the dulce de leche chocolate cake, $6 per minicake) and one slice of cheesecake from Future’s (crème brulée cheesecake, $6).

In retrospect, I should have chosen the same kinds of cheesecakes from both stores (maybe we need to do this test again?). J then proceeded to submit to blindfolding and randomly sampled all three cakes. Our test revealed that she ranked the cakes in the following order (from best to worst): the crème brulée cheesecake, the dulce de leche cake, and the Bailey’s cheesecake.

So, what’s the verdict?

For J, there’s no question that Future’s reigns supreme. I’d also say that next time I want cheesecake in particular, I’m probably going to be heading to Future’s. The vibe there is more casual. The word that comes to mind is café-pub; they do serve food and beer at a counter across the way from the cake display. The lighting is dim, and there’s always a constant buzz of activity. They have a ridiculous variety of cheesecakes to choose from, all equally rich and delicious, as well as a good selection of tortes, cakes, and pies (which I have yet to try). I would be comfortable going there with a book or some articles to work through while I enjoyed my cake.

Dessert Trends feels a little more like a trendy bistro. The restaurant is well-lit with big windows, and the cake display really wows you when you walk in: there’s no doubt that a highly skilled pastry chef is at work here. I personally really enjoyed the dulce de leche chocolate cake that I tried with J; it was incredibly rich and creamy. All of the pastries at Dessert Trends are absolutely gorgeous, but it’s obvious that their focus is not on cheesecakes. Overall, it felt like a more formal setting; I’d rather go there with company than linger over coffee and cake by myself. I’d rather go here than Future’s for a nice coffee and chat, just because it’s so crowded in Future’s, I can sometimes feel like I just want to get out of there.

I did return the next day with my friend, C, for brunch. The brunch menu ranged from $11-$14 for most items. I had their coconut waffles with blueberry compote and lemon curd; she ordered the lemon dill scramble with smoked salmon. We were both quite pleased with our selections; my waffle was light and fluffy, and all the flavors worked together quite well to leave my tummy very satisfied.

We agreed to try the raspberry chocolate tart, and I have to say I was less impressed with it than the cakes I had from there the day before. Furthermore, they seem to charge more for desserts that you eat in-house (rather than you take to go)—it was $7.50 for the tart, perhaps due to the plating? It was good, but I wasn’t really wowed. But, I’d still go back to try some more of their food menu, as well as sample some more of their pastry creations… although I may stick to cakes, and skip the tarts next time.

Out of the frying pan and into the... bagna cauda?

So for my first recipe review, I thought I would do one for the dish I made this week that prompted me to start this blog: tilapia with citrus bagna cauda (you can find the full recipe in Giada de Laurentiis' cookbook Giada's Family Dinners).

For the prep:

• I spent: $8
  
• Ingredients: 3.5/5

The most expensive item for this recipe was definitely the fish (I paid $4.50 for that fillet, which weighed in at around 250g). Not only was almost everything easy to find in my supermarket, I had many of the other items on hand (a big plus because I was forced to do my grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon last weekend...avoid this at all costs!)
The only ingredient I didn't bother looking for that I didn't have in my pantry was anchovies. Anchovies don't strike me as the kind of item you'd use in everyday cooking (do people keep anchovies in their pantries?) so this recipe lost ingredient points for that reason. It also lost points because it wasn't enough of a meal on its own to constitute a dinner. It suggested potatoes as a good pairing for the sauce as well, so I decided to add on boiled potatoes with steamed green beans to round out this meal on my own.

Cooking

• Easiness: 3.5/5

Since I cut out the anchovies, my ingredients in the bagna cauda (sauce) were:

1. 3 tbsp butter
2. 2 tbsp olive oil
3. 3 cloves garlic, minced (she wrote 1.5 tsp... but really, no one is going to measure garlic that way unless they're using it from a jar)
4. 2 tbsp orange juice
5. 1 tbsp fresh basil
   
6. 1 tsp lemon zest
7. 1 tsp orange zest

Essentially you want to combine the first two ingredients together, stirring until the butter is melted. Add the garlic, and after 30 seconds take the mixture off the heat. Add the rest of the ingredients. (I didn't have fresh basil, but I did use the equivalent amount from a squeeze tube bottle of "fresh garden basil"; the taste isn't as sharp as the real thing, but it's not a bad substitute if you can't afford to buy fresh basil when it goes bad so quickly).
They say you learn something new about yourself everyday; the day I made this sauce I learned that I suck at zesting citrus fruits. Either I need to invest in a citrus zester or learn to use my grater more efficiently. My zests came out as small amounts of orange and yellow mush stuck to my grater.
One thing I really liked about this sauce is she says you can make it up to a day in advance and keep it in the fridge; reheat to serve. But then, I really had to wonder: why only cook the garlic for 30 seconds then? When you reheat, you're going to cook the garlic for even longer.
For the veggies, I boiled some yellow fleshed potatoes cut into bite size pieces in hot water for about 8-10 minutes. I drained most of the water out and left about an inch of water left in the pot before I added the green beans. I'd found half a red pepper in my fridge, so I threw that in too. I left it on high heat for an extra 3-4 minutes, until the beans were bright green, before draining everything off and setting it aside.
The fish is straight forward. Season on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat some olive oil in a pan, cook on both sides on medium-high heat for about 3 minutes a side, depending on the thickness of your fish.
I served this with the fish on the bottom of the plate, then the vegetables arranged around it. I spooned a generous amount of sauce over everything to finish it off.

The Result
I was actually pleasantly surprised by how this turned out. I'm wary of panfrying fish because I think it dries it out, but the fish turned out crispy on the outside, and moist on the inside. The sauce worked really well with the fish and vegetables I had. I wouldn't use the sauce on any fish that has a really strong taste to it since I think it could be really easily overwhelmed. The sauce is really the star of the show, it plays up the flavors of what could otherwise be some mundane ingredients.
I would probably increase the amount of basil I used in the sauce, and would consider throwing in more garlic and citrus zest. I might also add a tsp of lemon juice to bring up the citrus flavors in the recipe.

• Guilt-factor: Low. The sauce is a little guilt inducing with all its oil and butter, but you're not supposed to be using the entire pot on yourself. I had a lot of sauce left over (the recipe was for 6 servings, but if you're using it on the vegetables on the same meal, I would say it's closer to 3 servings).
  
• Servings: 1. I avoid having fish as leftovers. I mentioned I had a lot of sauce left; if you've got a boring veggie side coming up soon in your meal rotation, you can use it for that... but a sauce won't give you a meal.
• Leftover rating: n/a
  
• Taste: 4.5/5
  

Overall: 80%

• The good: It's healthy as long as you use the sauce in moderation. The sauce is versatile and can be made in advance. It tastes really great. Recipe is easy to follow, and ingredients are easy to find at home and in the supermarket. Any remaining ingredients were easy to find other uses/recipes for.
  
• The bad: Kind of pricey, and there are no leftovers.