When I had the bed and breakfast, there was always a fruit course… and it was usually dessert! These little apple roses from Pepperidge Farm were a hit. I only changed it up a little bit – I liked using blackberry jam instead of apricot preserves, and I always (always) sprayed the muffin tins, whether they were silicone or not. That way, they lift out easily with a spoon without breaking the puff pastry or tearing up the apple slices. And I found them best received either in a puddle of warm caramel, or with a big helping of just-whipped cream on the side.
They’re really easy to make, but ignore the directions about reheating (ick) and serve them hot from the oven. No better way to eat an apple, in my opinion!
I have been remiss. With eleventy bazillion photos of the Creek House all over this website and also www.maggievalleycottage.com, I didn’t realize I skipped pictures of my hands-down favorite place to be – in the kitchen!
Now, this is not a dream house magazine spread designer gourmet kitchen. Far from it. It isn’t snazzy. But it makes you feel so *welcome*. It’s a cook-in-your-socks kind of kitchen. And after making breakfast in here for the past eighteen years (how in the world did that much time fly by?!) I confess that I never want to spend any time in another drywall ho-hum boring kitchen. I love my mismatched cabinets, hardwood floors, low ceiling beams covered in mugs. The hooks are horseshoe nails fashioned into cup hooks for me by a blacksmith, back when we had one of those in Maggie Valley.
There are treasures in every corner, and little odd places to tuck in another bit here, another bit there. I’ve filled it with things I love to use, and it’s an easy place to work.
So this week, when a very nice lady asked for kitchen pictures, I was stunned to find out that in my many tens of thousands of pictures on my computer, I couldn’t find any of the kitchen! That’s because… wait for it… guess what: when I’m in the kitchen, I’m COOKING, not taking pictures haha!
Without further ado, voila: The Kitchen, before and after…
Confessions of an Innkeeper: I’ve had my B&B since 1998, I’m 58 years old, and today I poached an egg for the first time in my life. I’m astonished how fast, how simple, how easy – and why in the world have I been so intimidated by this??!?
Nevermore! Break an egg (cold & fresh) into a small bowl. Put an inch of water in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil and then ease it off to a simmer. Add a teaspoon of salt, two of white vinegar, swirl to make a whirlpool. Ease the egg right into the center of the whirlpool. Cover and remove from heat. NO PEEKING for five minutes. Poof. Egg. I didn’t trim edges, cherry pick the best ones, or anything. This is how they came out. I took them out of the pan with a slotted spoon, laid momentarily on a paper towel and put them in the bowl. That’s it. Oh, and I ate them. With pleasure.
Buttermilk Pancakes – light as air and lots tastier
The whole entire secret to making good pancakes -really excellent pancakes- is eggs. You can use a recipe, you can use a mix. But if you use a mix, you have to ignore the part where it doesn’t call for eggs. Separate a couple of eggs, and beat the egg whites – you want them pretty stiff, like a meringue. I sprinkle in a bit of sugar toward the end because I’m impatient and it makes them peak faster. (‘Peak’ as in, when you lift the beater out of the egg whites, it leaves a nice peak.) Now, set these aside and mix up your regular pancake batter, and fold in that meringue. I’ve used lots of recipes, but none of them make better tasting pancakes than Krusteaz buttermilk pancake mix. Now, I do add Mexican vanilla and the eggs to that mix. If you’re a purist who wants a recipe, here’s mine: 2 eggs, 3 C flour, 2 T baking powder, 1 t baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 2 T sugar, 1 T brown sugar, 2 C buttermilk, 1 T Mexican vanilla, plus whole milk as necessary. Whip egg whites, adding 1 T sugar to help them hold their peaks. Set aside. Mix everything else, including egg yolks. Add milk in small amounts until you have the consistency of very heavy paint. And then fold in the egg whites. They don’t need to be blended in completely. Cook on a preheated 350 griddle.
The reason for the first tablespoon of sugar is to make the meringue. The second is to sweeten the batter. The brown sugar adds depth. The meringue makes the pancakes say, “Poof!” when they hit the griddle, and puffs them up light as air, while the sugars combine to make them brown so prettily.
The reason for the Mexican vanilla is two-fold. First, it’s really good vanilla. The second is that, when I’m out of vanilla, Larry has to take me back to Mexico. If you are tempted, now, to tell Larry where I can find Mexican vanilla closer to home, I’m going to have to do something about you. So… don’t… Ok?
If you just really don’t like to cook, that’s ok. I’ve got this one. Come on down, and I’ll make you up a mess o’ pancakes.
Ok, so I bought the teeny tiny itty-bitty micro mini squishy marshmallows to make scones. Because I was buying raspberry chocolate chips for scones, and lemon drops for scones, and cinnamon bits for scones, and I already had milk chocolate chips and graham crackers at home… so when I spotted the teeny tiny itty-bitty micro mini squishy marshmallows, I thought, “Aha! S’more scones!”
But this morning wasn’t about scones. We were having Cherry Chapelure (my version of oven French toast) with a pecan praline topping, and I had these lovely apples for the fruit course. I really (really) didn’t want to make baked stuffed apples. And the t.t.i-b.m.m.sq. marshmallows were just sitting there… trying to look all innocent… temptation in the making… irresistible…
So, I peeled, cored and sliced the apples. This next step will revolutionize your morning, if you haven’t figured it out already: put the apple slices in a bowl with a healthy splash of orange juice (toss ’em around in it). The OJ will keep them from browning. Now cover and steam them in the microwave until they are just tender. They get a head start on cooking, and it helps them keep their shape.
I sprayed ramekins and layered the apple slices with a sprinkling of t.t.i-b.m.m.sq. marshmallows. Not too many. Just enough to make the apples say ahhh. Then I put graham crackers and vanilla wafers into a big baggie, sealed it shut, and rolled them just like a pastry with my rolling pin, until I had nice coarse crumbs. Added just a hint of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves to the baggie, shook it up, and topped my apples. Then I melted way too much butter and drizzled it over the top. Off it went into the oven to bake with the Chapelure and sausage patties, and voila – breakfast.
This was all packed into the breakfast basket along with cinnamon-vanilla syrup, maple syrup, orange juice, and everything they needed to make a picnic breakfast happen, covered in pretty linens, flowers tied to the basket, and delivered to the cottage door.
And voila. S’more Apples. A new addition to my breakfast repertoire, for sure!
After a request for a ‘plain’ breakfast, and a bit of discussion, guests have had a breakfast basket delivered daily with ‘plain’ food. Today’s was a pretty crystal tray of fresh cut fruit (nectarines, kiwi, and grapes) with no dressing or yogurt or sauce, per request. Frittatas made with eggs and ham, potatoes, peppers, onions and herbs (and a little cheddar because I can’t help myself). Cheese grits, by request, and yes there’s a little jalapeno in there because, well, I’m pretty sure there’s a law about that… And some decidedly un-plain cherry scones. I just love this Southern man to pieces – he wants sweet tea at every meal. How precious is that?
I took the wedding fairies to the Disney World EPCOT Food & Wine Festival for a little team-building. Oh, fine, all right, ok, it was an excuse to go be foodies in Florida now that wintry weather has set in. And it was fabulous! Photos and recipes and inspirations to follow. Just a heads up: anything you can serve for dinner can find its way onto a breakfast plate, with just a little bit of creativity. Stay tuned… There’s more to come…
This morning, a bride requested the recipe for the Blueberry White-Chocolate Chapelure she enjoyed here on her wedding day. My reply is included below. Just so you know, Chapelure is just French for ‘bread crumbs’. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else calls their oven-baked French toast ‘bread crumbs’, so if you’re offered chapelure anyplace besides Timberwolf Creek… well… you might want to get more information! Ok, here’s my answer for Annette:
It’s sooo easy. And I just typed it up for Letitia – so, voila! If you’re using commercially frozen blueberries, you’ll need to rinse off the juice oryou’ll have grey food. The blueberries you had here were from my Uncle Carroll’s garden, and picks them “in the morning before the sun hits them” and then dries them on cookie sheets so that they are “neat”. Best when using commercial to tuck in the berries *after* pouring the egg/milk/sugar/spice mixture over the bread, the prevent them from smearing.
Berry White Chocolate Chapelure
Baker’s Joy cooking spray
4 slices of bread (approximate!)
2 croissants
1/4 cup berries (either frozen blueberries, or dried cranberries)
1/4 cup white chocolate chips
4 eggs (if using ‘medium’ eggs, you’ll need 5)
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
dash of nutmeg, mace, cloves
maple syrup
Using individual ramekins, spray with cooking spray.
Into a big mixing bowl, cut leftover bread into cubes. Be careful not to ‘smoosh’ the bread. Use more than one kind of bread (French, sour dough, oatmeal). Tear the croissants. Toss the bread to mix it up. Distribute randomly into the dishes. You want the dishes to be over-full. Don’t press it down.
Tuck in frozen blueberries OR dried cranberries, and then add white chocolate chips.
Mix eggs and milk with brown sugar, spices and vanilla. Pour carefully over bread mixture.
Put in the refrigerator, and then cover lightly with plastic wrap -don’t tuck it in around the dishes, just lay it over the top. You want the bread to lift as it soaks up the eggs & milk. Refrigerate overnight.
In the morning, remove from the fridge, take off the plastic, and let stand at room temp for 20-30 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees about half an hour. It should be puffed and lightly browned. Serve with warm syrup on the side.
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Note: this adapts really easily to whatever ingredients you have on hand. You’ll want two add-ins… like
–Raisin Walnut
–Blackberry Pecan
–Apple Cinnamon (peel the apples & chop small, sprinkle the top of the chapelure *lightly* with cinnamon and then sugar, before baking)
–Brown Sugar Peach (this is added AFTER the chapelure comes out of the fridge, in the morning – drain a can of peaches and toss with a little brown sugar and lay the fruit right on top of the bread, and then bake)
So, we have this really wonderful breakfast. It’s delicious. You start with a giant muffin tin, and line each ‘cup’ with thin slices of Black Forest ham. Then you want to melt a little butter in a saucepan and add cooked spinach (well-drained), cream cheese, and some good parmesan, plus a dash of nutmeg. Once that’s thoroughly heated and blended together, spoon it into the ham. Now, carefully break an egg over the spinach. Pour a bit of heavy whipping cream over the top of the egg. Bake until the eggs are set and the edges of the ham get crispy.
Put some pepperjack cheese grits on the side – preferably coarse stone-ground grits from a local mill (we like the one in Cherokee) and serve with raspberry-chocolate scones.
Now, we’ve been trying to come up with a name for this lovely meal for ages. When my son, Nicholas, was cooking, he actually pioneered the dish and put the ingredients together to get just the right flavor. (He also makes another version with diced portabello mushrooms in a creamy shallot sauce in place of the spinach -swoon!) He dubbed them ‘Eggs Nicholas’. Today, I was told that with the spinach filling in there, they should be called Green Eggs and Ham.
