Magic Wineglass Tours

Tag: cooking

Recipe for Annette’s Wedding Breakfast

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)

October 26, 2011
Blueberry Scones for Larry

Larry’s recipe for blueberry scones:
“Take one part Red head, add sad puppy eyes and viola! Scones appear!”

Well. Ok. It works for Larry, anyway.

October 21, 2011
Fresh Blueberries!

We’re blessed with the most wonderful friends. Thank you, Rick & Judy, for the gorgeous just-picked blueberries from your garden!

July 25, 2011
The most beautiful eggs!

We are firm believers in the value of local food, slow food, organic food, freshly harvested. I once had a friend tell me that eggs are just miniature chickens, with all the nutrients packed in there, so you’d better be careful about what the hen was eating when she made the egg. Insightful! And it’s been our good fortune to know Beth Wooten, for so many reasons, not the least of which is her wonderful eggs.

Beth’s eggs are not just local/organic/fresh, they are gorgeous. Check it out – blues, greens, cream, and deep brown. She tells me it’s because of the types of chickens she has, but I never retain that information. I can just tell you that the yolks are the deepest creamy orange you’ll ever see, they rise like nobody’s business, and they taste the way an egg should.

Stolen in a parking lot

These chickens are livin’ the life, I can tell you. They have a run that surrounds Beth’s garden, so when she’s picking vegetables, any stems and leaves and such go right into the top of the run, where the chickens can feast on a lovely salad for lunch. The run goes all the way down to a cool mountain spring. Every so often, Beth gets an email from me, “Dost thou have eggs?” And she finds out how many I want, and we set up a plan for transfer – usually I just break into her car and steal them out of her cooler. 😉 Well, ok, she tells me where I’ll find the cooler, ok? But it’s pretty fun to think of it as getting my egg fix from a dealer in a parking lot… Ghetto eggs… And they are addictive, after all, because once you’ve had farm-fresh organic eggs, you won’t want to settle for anything less.

Once, I asked for pictures of the chickens. You can imagine my delight when Beth sent me the chickens eating a watermelon!! Her caption was, “Everyone loves watermelon on a hot day.” I guess those girls enjoyed it. So, they eat well, they make really pretty eggs, and you can be assured that all the nutrients you wish were in your omelet are right there. Recipe follows.

For individual baked omelets, try the following. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. For a single omelet, use one au gratin dish, spray it with Baker’s Joy (oil & flour nonstick baking spray), arrange add-ins in the dish. Beat 3 eggs with a splash of milk, pour over the add-ins, sprinkle with herbs, and bake for 30 minutes. Ok, “What’s an add-in?” you ask. Well, that’s where the fun comes in!

I always include some kind of cheese:
cheddar
swiss
pepperjack
chevre (a *must* if you’re using roasted red peppers, swoon!)
gruyere

Paired with at least one veggie:
fresh asparagus tips -I fan them out in the dish, but you can chop them if you prefer
spinach chiffonade (which just means thinly sliced into shreds, folks)
onions, sauteed first
bell pepper, sauteed first
roasted red peppers
sliced new potatoes, cooked (slice, wash, cover and steam in the microwave approx 3 minutes!)
mushrooms, sauteed first, in butter and a pinch of the herb you’re using later
diced green chilis (fresh roasted, or canned)
fresh tomatoes, seeded and diced (seeding is necessary or you’ll have too much liquid)

And meat, if you like:
diced ham
cooked, crumbled bacon or sausage
shredded roast chicken breast (this is surprisingly wonderful)
crab meat

Sprinkle with herbs – and I like to use only one, so that it’s showcased:
tarragon
rosemary
dill
basil (see note about parmesan, below)
coarsely ground black pepper

Now, if you use more than one veggie, you may need to cut back to two eggs. If your eggs are fresh like mine, you’ll see your omelet rise two inches above the rim of the dish! It will fall within a minute or two, but it’s fun to watch. If you don’t have fresh eggs, you may want to top your omelet with a sprinkle of cheese before baking.

A special note about parmesan cheese: this is a strong flavor, and something that you’ll want to use on top of the omelet, about halfway through baking. And finally, my-son-the-chef, Nick, likes to brush on just a touch of white truffle oil before serving.

Be creative. Try something new. Send me a picture!

–Sandee

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June 9, 2011
Kitchen Organization, Reorganization, and Treasures

If you think the title of this blog post is ambitious, you should see what we’re doing in the kitchen. Ok, what I’m procrastinating about doing in the inn kitchen,today…

This is what we’re dealing with: a fifty year old summer cabin, with a kitchen squeezed in where it would fit. Later, the original builders (a truly delightful couple, Pug & Mickie Pugmire, who could make me laugh until my face hurt) added on to make a spacious home, but the kitchen remained the same – hardwood floors, odd corners, low ceilings, exposed beams, mismatched cabinets, and a charm that I find so appealing that I never want to settle for another dry-walled boring kitchen as long as I live.

Peeking into the Kitchen

So, how do you go about organizing this? You need a few things, like organization skills, determination, stamina, follow-through. Good grief, I’m doomed. Instead, I opted for Letitia. She’s got all those things, and she’s a slave driver. I mean, she says, “Sandee, make a decision. Throw this away or tell me where to put it.” It seems that all I really needed was a couple of days without guests, and Letitia. I may call myself Queen of the Kitchen, but that makes Letitia the Prime Minister. Unless I’m cooking, I’m just a figurehead. I am Purely Decorative, if you will. (Nod to Melinda Redshaw, the bride who introduced me to that wonderful phrase.) So. Letitia. (See how easily I am distracted? Oooo shineee.)

Oh yeah! The kitchen! And Organization! Here’s what’s happened thus far. Every single thing has been dragged out of the cabinets, the cabinets cleaned, the stuff cleaned, and it’s ready to go back in the cabinets. (And in case you’re wondering, NO it doesn’t all fit, if you try that. It’s like putting something mechanical back together. There’s always that extra screw lying around, making you wonder where the heck does THAT go… ) Meanwhile, every item is subject to Letitia’s brutal scrutiny. “Do you need this? Do you use this? How often do you use this? Should it be in storage? Do you want to donate this? Surely you don’t need THAT.” I’m telling you, that woman is worth her weight in gold. We’ve weeded out and removed and consolidated and donated all over the place.

Everything finishes going back in, today.

Most everything is back in place. The remainder has been allocated its proper space. And while we’ve uncovered treasures (my organization skills lend themselves to the occasional Christmas-like, ‘Oh wow, I forgot I had this!’) during this process, I do believe the angels sang when we found ourselves with that most treasured of all things, in a kitchen: a completely empty cabinet.

Seriously. There is one cabinet that nothing is slated to fill. Three shelves. You can’t tell me that’s not a treasure. (There’s not one person reading this, who’s got a kitchen and uses it, that wouldn’t love to have just one more cabinet.) And it’s killing me, here. I mean, I can’t just LEAVE it empty, for heaven’s sake. And Letitia won’t let me put anything useless in it.

There’s only one thing to do. I just don’t see any other option. I’m going shopping.

–Sandee

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June 3, 2011
The Perfect Coffee Mug

We leaned forward to listen, as one of the ladies prepared to tell us about her requirements for a Perfect Man. He would be tall, she said, and employed. Funny and smart go without saying. She restricted his age to 35-43, and begging your pardon, he simply cannot be a democrat. We sat back and laughed, and discretely surveyed the dining room. Hey, you never know.

So here I am this morning, preparing to tell you about my notion of the perfect coffee mug. Like my friend’s ideal man, it must be taller than round. It must also fit on my cup warmer. Even though it takes me an hour in the morning to savor that first cuppa, I enjoy my coffee scaldingly hot, so a cup that fits on the warmer should have a flat bottom (I’ve no idea what my friend’s requirements are in that area) so that it will actually keep the coffee hot. Most commercial cups, which bore me to tears, have a concave base that doesn’t make contact with the warmer, and I’m back at the microwave every few minutes. That said, it really can’t be a commercial cup. There are just too many really fine potters out there that can make a beautiful coffee mug, and these North Carolina mountains are right smack in the middle of clay heaven.

A brief aside about our clay… It’s so special that Wedgwood China imported it in the 1700s. It was taken to port via the Indian Road (now I-26) to the port of Charleston and shipped to England. Josiah Wedgwood pronounced it remarkable and called it Cherokee Clay. There you are, a special nod to today being Earth Day.

Back to the Perfect Mug. It should have a pleasing appearance, that evokes some uplifting emotion. It should feel wonderful – the handle should be easy to use, your thumb finding just the right place, and the rim should be thoughtfully crafted so you don’t get that aggravating drip down the side. It should be exactly the right size to hold a bit more than a tea cup, but not so large that your coffee’s bound to cool. It should invite you to lean back and wrap your hands around it on a chilly morning. Decorative, certainly, but being decorative can’t outweigh function… like those silly handles your fingers won’t fit in, or square for the sake of being square, or squat, just in case that’s adorable. Flared rims may be unusual, but that’s because they’re difficult to use. As in architecture, form follows function. And it should be hand-crafted. I don’t want to ‘make do’. I want to Enjoy. I want to Savor. I want to Appreciate -both the coffee and the mug it’s in.

I’m just guessing that my friend would also like to find a man crafted here in these Smoky Mountains, with a pleasing appearance, who feels wonderful, and is just the right shape, who works flawlessly and is prepared to help her enjoy a cup of coffee every morning. I hope she finds him. I’ve found my mug.

Here it is.

Made in America. By hand.

In case you’re wondering, our mugs are handmade by the good folks at Deneen Pottery. And the coffee that goes in them is Elida Estate, from Panama. We’ll be happy to send you home with both. Come enjoy your next cup on the porch by the stream, under these tall trees, at Timberwolf Creek.

April 22, 2011
Recipe for Success – Start the day with dessert!

Jamie’s strawberry parfait (layers of fresh strawberries, vanilla custard, and strawberry glaze) would make a wonderful dessert, but it’s an Oh So Wonderful way to kick-start your morning. We’ve all heard the saying, “Life is short, so eat dessert first.” But Jamie takes it seriously. Eat dessert first, all right: first thing in the morning!

Strawberry parfait

March 23, 2011