Hearty Breakfast Scramble with Roasted Red Peppers, Pepper Bacon and Yukon Potatoes

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Serves 2-4, About 35-40 minutes

This recipe is a really no-frills, easy to make breakfast/brunch. I've been making some version of this for years now, sometimes at the rate of every other weekend. It's easy, filling and satisfying to both make and eat. Your kitchen will smell amazing the entire time. The directions here are gonna be short on steps but lengthy on instruction, largely because there is a lot of waiting to do in between steps, so to shorten prep time, you can easily prep each ingredient before the step in which it is needed.

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Ingredients

2 Yellow Potatoes, cut into wedges
1 Yellow Onion, large, sliced
4 oz. Roasted Red Bell Peppers, sliced
4 Slices of thick-cut Pepper Bacon, diced
4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
2 Eggs lightly beaten
1 1/2 Cups of Cheddar/Monterrey Jack Blend, Shredded
Some Seasoning Salt/ Salt and Pepper, to taste

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Directions

1. Heat a 10" or larger pan on the stove on medium heat. Once sufficiently hot, cover bottom of pan with neutral oil. Once oil is glistening, drop wedged Potatoes.
2. Potatoes take awhile to get soft, so let potatoes sit for about 10 minutes, stirring around only every couple minutes. During this time, you can easily cut your onion, peppers and bacon.
3. After the 10 minutes have passed, add Onions and your favorite seasoning salt over whole pan, stir every couple minutes for 5 minutes.
4. After about another 5 minutes have passed and the onions have sweat a little, add Sliced Peppers, Bacon and Garlic. Again, leave to cook for another 5-10 minutes, stirring only every couple minutes.
5. While you're waiting, crack 2 Eggs into separate bowl or cup and lightly beat with fork until combined. Once time has elapsed, move ingredients to one side of pan and pour eggs into your now empty side. Let sit for a minute or so to start forming before stirring it into whole mixture. Cook for another 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Finally, throw your Shredded Cheese blend on top of your scramble, doing your best to evenly cover the top. Turn heat off and cover with a lid or foil. Let sit for about 10 minutes and enjoy.

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What I Could Differently

• This recipe is really just a base of potatoes, onions, egg and cheese. Without anything else, that is a solid, basic scramble. Everything else is customizable. That makes this the perfect "kitchen sink" recipe, where you can throw in anything else you have laying around that you think might work. Some deli turkey or ham diced, sliced mushrooms, asparagus and even eggplant would make fun additions or substitutions.

• Pepper Bacon is my most used meat, since I buy it in packs of 3-4 pounds and freeze them into separate 1-pound bags. I've made it previously with Breakfast Sausage, diced Deli Meat as mentioned above and Chorizo. If you want to go a more Mexican route, swap the Yellow Potatoes for Red and Bacon for Chorizo and add a teaspoon of Taco Seasoning for a Southwest-inspired scramble.

• For some heat, this dish also lends itself very well to a hot sauce. I use my favorite Barrel-Aged Sriracha.

Sharing Mini - Roasted Red Pepper Cream Cheese Dip with Sriracha and Garlic

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Serves 6-12, takes about 5 minutes

Another mini post here, a quick, easy and delicious cream cheese based dip that's perfect for chips and crackers. I make this just about every time I host a party at my place, and it's always a hit. Roasted red bell peppers make the dip slightly sweet and smoky, while the sriracha adds some heat that is well-balanced out by the cream cheese. You'll know it's there, but it's not gonna hurt you.


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For this recipe, you will need a food processor or mixer; hand or stand with whip attachment. Doing this by hand would be tedious and exhausting. I used a food processor.

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Ingredients

8oz. Cream Cheese (1 block)
4 oz. Roasted Red Bell Peppers
1 Tbsp of your favorite Sriracha
1 tsp. minced garlic (2 cloves)

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Directions

1. If Cream Cheese is from a block, cut into cubes so it will blend easier. Add cream cheese to processor bowl.
2. Add Roasted Peppers, Sriracha and garlic.
3. Pulse to combine. Once it looks like it's come together, use a rubber spatula to clean down the sides and push everything to the center of the bowl, then pulse until thoroughly combined.
4. Use rubber spatula to remove all the dip from the bowl into a resealable container and enjoy!

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Tips/Tricks

This will last about 2 weeks in the refrigerator, but it will harden up sitting in there. So if making in advance or saving leftovers, take out about 15 minutes before you expect to use it.
You can use any sriracha sauce. I used a barrel-aged sriracha that is less hot but more sweet than your average bottle of Huy-Fong.

Bourbon Maple Syrup Brined Pork Tenderloin with a Bourbon Maple Syrup and Honey Mustard Glaze

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Serves 2-4I make Pork Tenderloin a lot for work, but I was actually nervous about making it at home because at work I'm making about 16 at a time and have never made just one. Truth be told, this recipe came about because I have roughly 7 different kinds of maple syrup at home and I wanted to use one for something that wasn't pancakes. While my usual go-to for pork tenderloin is an apple-based sauce (I'll be doing one for fall, don't worry!) I wanted to experiment with a slightly different style than I usually go for while still being an absolute flavor winner for pork. Brining the pork with maple syrup and a hickory smoked sea salt really make sure that hickory-bourbon-maple flavor was present throughout the meat and not just relying on the glaze to deliver that punch.

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Ingredients

1 Pork Tenderloin (1.5-2 lbs.)
1 Quart Cold Water
1/4th Cup Hickory Smoked Sea Salt
1/3 Cup and 2 Tbsp. Bourbon Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup
6 Cloves Garlic, minced or crushed
3 Tbsp. Fresh Ginger, Chopped
1 Tbsp. Black Pepper
2 Tbsp. Honey Mustard
2 tsp. Dried Rosemary
2 tsp. Dried Thyme
1 tsp. Red Pepper Flakes

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Directions

1.  Make the Brine. In a large bowl, combine Water with 1/3 Cup of the syrup, Garlic, Ginger, Black Pepper, Rosemary Thyme and Red Pepper Flakes and stir until thoroughly incorporated.
2. Add the Pork to brine bowl and make sure it is fully submerged in brine. Cover with plastic wrap or lid and leave in fridge 5-10 hours. More than 10 hours and it could end up being too salty.
3. Preheat Oven to 325 degrees and remove Pork from Brine and thoroughly rinse off in cold running water. Pat dry.
4. Quickly mix together in a small bowl the remaining 2 Tbsp. of Syrup and the Honey Mustard, set aside.
5. Heat up an oven-safe skillet on medium heat on the stove top and pour in just enough neutral cooking oil (Canola, Vegetable) to cover the bottom.
7. Season your pork on all sides with salt and pepper and place in your hot pan.
8. Sear your pork on the stove top on all sides, about 10 minutes, a nice golden brown color.
9. Once seared all the way around, take the whole skillet and place it in the oven. Cooking time will vary by size of the tenderloin, but we're looking for the perfect internal temperature of 145 degrees. For me, I had a 1.5 lb. tenderloin, and this took about 10 minutes.
10. Take your pan out of the oven and brush the Syrup and Honey Mustard mixture over the pork, return to Oven to let set, about 5-10 minutes. For me it was about 5.
11. Remove Pan from Oven, take pork out and place on cutting board, letting rest for about 10 minutes.
12. Slice pork into medallions and if you have any of the Syrup and Honey Mustard mixture remaining, drizzle over top of the sliced medallions.

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What I Could Do Differently

As previously mentioned it in my Apple Cider Brined BBQ Pulled Pork recipe, I picked up this Hickory Smoked Sea Salt from a specialty store. I believe if you have a cooking specialty store it might be available there, and I am sure you can get some online. However, I feel like this recipe will work just as good without it and you can just substitute in Kosher Salt in the brine instead if need be.

The bourbon barrel aged maple syrup is another craft specialty item, which I got from Costco. This recipe can be made without it as long as you have a good pure maple syrup, but if you're on the fence about buying a specialty-flavored pure maple syrup, you can just add regular pure maple syrup and put a shot of Bourbon in your brine instead.

As with most of my recipes, this is really just an excuse for me to play with different flavors I have laying around in my kitchen. If you know you like a flavor that goes well with pork, feel free to try out different variations. For example, I also happen to have a locally produced Apple Cider syrup from a nearby farm and while it's not going to give you the same flavor combo, I could see subbing in that Apple Cider Syrup and a shot of bourbon in the brine in place of this bourbon maple syrup for a similar profile and just as tasty tenderloin.

This recipe easily scales, as most of the ingredients are just in the brine. I know in my bowl I had room (and enough liquid) for at least a second tenderloin of similar size. More than that and you'll probably need to double the brining amounts however. As for glaze, just double the amounts of Syrup and Mustard for each additional tenderloin and for cook time probably add another 10-ish minutes per loin, but you should be using a meat thermometer to be the ultimate judge of time for pork. As long as you're pulling them out when they hit 145 degrees, you're good.

Sharing Mini - Cinnamon Honey Butter

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Originally I intended this to be part of a larger series of compound butters, but it didn't come together in time. Instead, I decided I'd break these compound butters down into their own mini posts as I make them, so that I don't have like...6 different butters in my fridge at one time.

So today's recipe is very easy and delicious. A butter infused with cinnamon, vanilla and honey. Compound butters, sweet and savory, are an easy way to impart flavor on something without doing much work. Make the butter ahead of time and wham! you have it ready to use whenever you feeling like adding some to a meal. This butter, a cinnamon and honey butter, is my most made and used, as my breakfast most weeks includes English Muffins. Perfect as a topping for my Mexican Chocolate Banana Bread as well as cornbread and even melted and tossed with carrots. Without further ado, let's get down to it.

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Ingredients

1 8oz Stick Butter, room temp
1/4th Cup Honey
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract

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Directions

1. Take your room temp Butter and place it in a small mixing bowl and whisk
2. Once butter is broken down a bit and whipped up, add your Honey, Cinnamon and Vanilla
3. Whisk together to combine, making sure no butter has gone un-mixed
4. Transfer your butter to a sealable container. Can be stored room temp for about two weeks or in the fridge for about a month.

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What Could I Do Differently

Really in this case, you can play around with what kind of honey you're using to great effect, as each one has it's own flavor. I'm using a hyper-local wildflower honey, made about 7 miles from my house. Want more floral notes, use a lavender infused honey. Want more citrus notes, use an orange blossom variety
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Three Layer Chicken Enchilada Casserole

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Serves 6-12

I've been playing around with this recipe for a few years and I think this version hits all the notes I'm looking for in this Mexican-flavor inspired casserole dish. Like a lasagna, you're building the layers up and then baking until it's all one nice set rectangle. Brining the chicken before cooking gives the chicken just a little bit more of it's own character instead of being a filler in this dish. If you like enchiladas and/or ugly cheesy messes, this casserole is for you. 

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Ingredients

15-ish Corn Tortillas
1 Can Refried Beans, 16 Oz
1 Can Mild Diced Green Chiles, 4 Oz
1 Can Medium Red Enchilada Sauce, 12 Oz
2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, Shredded
4 Cups Mexican Cheese Blend, Shredded
1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Container Mexican Style Sour Cream, 16 Oz
Taco Seasoning, to taste

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Directions

1. Start by brining the chicken breasts. In a medium sized bowl, bring 1 1/2 quarts of very cold water together with 3 Tablespoons of table salt and once mixed together, add in Chicken Breasts and let sit in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour. Any longer and the chicken will absorb too much salt water.

2. Once Chicken has been brined, wash off breasts and pat dry. Cover chicken breasts in Taco Seasoning and some ground black pepper, heat skillet, and begin to cook chicken breasts in a lightly oiled pan.

3. While doing step two, also pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees, pull out a 9x13 (or similar sized) pan, lightly grease it and prep your other casserole ingredients (Tortillas, Refried Beans, Chiles, Enchilada Sauce, Cheese) so that layering the casserole can be quick.

4. Once chicken hits 165 degrees F, take out of pan and shred with your preferred method. I use my stand mixer with a paddle attachment. You can also use a hand-mixer and also the ol' two-fork separation method. If you use the fork method, best to let it sit for like five minutes so you don't burn yourself. Once chicken is shredded to your liking, put (or keep) in bowl and bring it over to your other prepped ingredients.

5. Now the assembly. Essentially you just want to cover as much space in the bottom of your casserole dish with tortilla as possible, without a ton of overlap. This will be different for everyone based on what your pan looks like, but with mine, I was able to fit 5 standard six inch corn tortillas in the bottom layer of the pan; one full tortilla in each corner and then one ripped in half and laid in the center. If you want to cover more space you can rip them up smaller, but the smaller you make them, the harder the next step will be.

6. Next, use a spoon to drop about half of your can of refried beans into the center of the tortillas. Use a rubber spatula to gently push them around until you have them covering as much of the tortilla layer as possible. The beans are our glue in this casserole.

7. Once beans have been spread, layer your other ingredients evenly across the beanfield like so; half your can of Diced Green Chile, half of your shredded chicken, one cup of shredded cheese and about a third of your enchilada sauce.

8. Once your first layer is complete, start anew with tortillas, trying to cover as much space as possible with as few tortillas as you can. For me, that was once again 5 tortillas. Then layer your ingredients the same as in step 7.

9. Time for the top "crust" layer. Cover your second layer of toppings with your favorite tortilla covering pattern. Then distribute remaining two cups of shredded cheese across the top as evenly as possible. Next, try to evenly drop the last third of your enchilada sauce. Then pour the Heavy Whipping Cream across the top, trying to get it as evenly distributed between the top and the sides.

10. Time to bake. Set the casserole on your middle rack and let bake. Exact time will vary based on what dish you used, but I think a good rule of thumb is to check it at 20  minutes and check again every 10 minutes after that until the cheese starts to brown. For me, it was about 40 minutes.

11. Once cheese is sufficiently golden, pull out of oven and let sit for about ten minutes before serving. Cut yourself a slice and top with a dollop of Mexican Style Sour Cream and voilà.
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What Could I Do Differently

This is another recipe that will hold up to experimentation if you keep your flavor base in the same wheelhouse. You can swap your red enchilada sauce for green or for a hotter red sauce. You can choose your own blend of shredded cheeses, hotter diced chiles, adding a layer of a mexican hot sauce in as well.

You could swap the chicken out for a Mexican style pulled pork to I think great effect. I'd be really interested to try a Cuban Mojo Pulled Pork in place of the chicken.

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Loaded Baked Potato Soup

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This recipe started it's life as a slow cooker loaded baked potato soup I found online. You were supposed to use the slow cooker to boil the potatoes for hours, and then towards the end combine it all to make the soup. I almost immediately found that while that works, it was actually much more convenient for me to just boil the potatoes, and do the whole thing on the stove top in under two hours. If you want an even faster cooking time, this is a great way to use a couple cups of leftover roasted potato wedges from a previous meal. The original recipe was also more about giving you a potato soup that had loaded baked potato toppings served as a garnish, whereas overtime, I found that actually incorporating those flavors into the soup just...tastes better. And, if you do happen to have some leftover cheese, bacon, chives and sour cream, you can still do a fun loaded baked potato look on top of your individual bowls of soup.

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Special Equipment

You will need an Immersion Blender for this recipe. This can be substituted with a regular blender, if done in small batches and pulsed a couple times.

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Ingredients

6 Large Russet Potatoes
1 White/Yellow Onion
1 Quart Chicken Broth
4 Cloves Garlic
1/4th Cup Butter (half a stick)
2 1/2 tsp. Kosher Salt
1 tsp. Black Pepper
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Sharp Cheddar, Shredded (More for Garnish)
1/2 Cup Colby Jack, Shredded
3 Tbsp. Chives, Chopped
1 Cup Sour Cream (More for Garnish)
8 Slices of Thick-Cut Bacon

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Directions

1. Dice your potatoes, leaving the skins on. Cover in a pot with cold water until potatoes are fully submersed. Add 1 tsp. kosher salt for each quart of water used. Bring to a boil and then simmer. It should take around 20 minutes, or until a fork will easily pierce a potato, but check in around every 5 minutes or so until done.

2. Once you get your potatoes boiling, fry up your bacon. You want it to be fairly crisp, but not burnt, we're going for bacon bits here. Once it reaches that perfect consistency, pull out and leave to drain on a plate covered with some paper towels to remove excess grease. Drain out excess bacon grease from your pan (you can save it in a mason jar in your fridge like I do!) and set aside.

3. Dice your onion, hopefully while the potatoes are boiling and your bacon is frying, or before you started. Get your pan with leftover bacon grease back on medium heat, and once hot, throw in your diced onion and season to taste with your favorite seasoning salt, I use Johnny's. Cook the onions until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.

4. Take your bacon strips and set them as best as you can on top of each other. Use your knife to chop them into small bacon crumbles. Set aside.

5. Once potatoes are fork tender, drain them and dump the water. Use this pot to make your soup. Add to your potatoes the Chicken Broth, Butter, Onion, Garlic, Salt and Pepper, put this pot on medium heat. Bring to a boil, then turn down to low and let simmer for about 20 minutes.

6. At this point stir in the Heavy Cream, Shredded Cheeses, Sour Cream and about 3/4ths of your Bacon bits. Cook for another 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure everything gets to know each other.

7. Turn off the heat and use your Immersion Blender to gently blend your soup up. It will go from one shade of beige to another shade of beige, but thicker. Blend for short bursts to help break up some of the potatoes and bacon, but you're looking to leave some intact as well.

8. Once blended, stir in about half of your chives and you are ready to serve.

9. When serving, top your individual bowls of soup with a dollop of sour cream, and a sprinkling of  shredded cheddar, reserved bacon bits and chives.

10. Enjoy!

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What I Could Do Differently

Lots of ways to vary up this recipe, as a creamy soup base with cheese and bacon can go a lot of fun ways.

1. Experiment with cheese combos: I always use cheddar, but the other half cup I like playing with. I listed my second 1/2 a cup as Colby Jack because it's ol' reliable, but I've also had a lot of success with shredded Smoked Gouda. Any cheese that melts well can be tried as a substitution.

2. Experiment with Bacon: Same idea as cheese, most bacon will taste good here, might as well play around with different flavor profiles and see which one you like the best. When I make this, I am almost always using a thick cut, Applewood Smoked Pepper Bacon.

3. Use different/roasted potatoes! This was born out of me working in a kitchen that often has a surplus of leftover roasted yellow and red potato wedges and not wanting to waste them. I listed Russets in the recipe because they are the cheapest to get and taste great in this recipe...but yellow potatoes can really give you an extra "buttery" flavor in the soup. They would work great either half and half with russets or fully substituted for an extra rich flavor. Also, if you want to simply roast potatoes for a dinner side dish, dice up your potatoes of choice, combine olive oil, some thyme, rosemary, parsley and a little kosher salt in a bowl and toss potatoes to combine. Roast at 425 degrees for about an hour and bam! easy dinner side dish, and if you end up with at least two cups of leftovers you can save yourself 20 minutes in this recipe and just start at Step 2.

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Mexican Chocolate and Toasted Sugar Banana Bread

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This is a twist on a family banana bread recipe. I only needed 3/4ths of a cup of sugar for the chocolate chip cookies so I used some of my leftover Toasted Sugar for this banana bread recipe to add an extra caramel-y note. Much like chocolate chip cookies, banana bread is so good, easy and mellow on it's own that it is rife with opportunities to make little twists and turns to make it your own. This will probably not be the only banana bread recipe I post either. Bananas are both cheap and easy to forget about until they're too brown to eat, so it's a perfect match for turning something lost into something gained. Mexican chocolate, for those unaware, is a flavor profile that's very much up my alley. Commercially it's sold primarily as round discs from brands like Abuelita and Ibarra, and is spiced with cinnamon and intended to be melted into milk to make a hot cocoa. It's a lot more grainy than your average chocolate bar, so instead of chunks you get mostly shavings and powder from chopping it up, giving this loaf a continuous but not overpowering taste of chocolate and cinnamon.

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Ingredients

1/2 Cup Melted Butter
1/2 Cup Buttermilk
2 Room Temp Eggs
1 Cup Toasted Sugar
1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/4th tsp. Kosher Salt
2 Cups flour
3 Very Ripe Bananas (as close to black as you can get without being moldy)
1 Disc Mexican Chocolate Shaved


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Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Whisk Butter and Sugar in a fairly large bowl until thoroughly mixed together
3. Add eggs one at a time into mixture, making sure they are fully combined before continuing
4. Add buttermilk to batter
5. Add Baking Soda, Salt and Flour, being sure to slowly whisk flour in so that everything is fully combined without overpowering the batter with flour
6. Add Bananas and Chocolate shavings. Banana will be lumpy, but should be soft enough that a good couple hits with the whisk fully integrates them into batter
7. Pour into well-greased loaf pans. (should make two loaves with a standard 1.5 qt loaf pan. I use one large 3-ish qt. pan.)
8. Bake for around 45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean in center.
9. Take out of oven, set whole loaf pan on wire rack to cool and run a butter knife around the edges to make sure it comes out easy.
10. After cooling for about 30 minutes to an hour in the loaf pan, turn out and leave to cool completely on wire rack, then cover and store.

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What I Could/Would Do Differently

Like I said up top, this is a pretty versatile recipe base for banana bread if you just take out the Mexican chocolate. Adding in a cup of toasted and finely chopped walnuts or a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips are both easy and fun variations.

If you do not have Buttermilk, you can do what my family's original banana bread recipe says to do and make "sour milk" by combining 1/2 cup whole or 2% milk with 1 Tbsp. of Distilled White Vinegar and leave that mixture sitting for 5 minutes before use. Not exactly the same, but it gets the job done.

I have a large 3-ish quart loaf pan and only one 1.5 quart standard size loaf pan, so I tend to make one large banana bread loaf instead. If you also want to do this, follow the recipe until you get to 45 minutes in the oven, at that point open it, cover the loaf pan with foil so it won't get any darker while still cooking, and let cook for around 20 more minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test.

While banana bread is good on day one, bananas share this magical property with pumpkin where it tastes more like itself in the days following the initial bake. So it can be very difficult, but I highly recommend waiting a day or even two to eat the banana bread, as you get so much more of the banana flavor on the second and third days. I often won't even cut my banana bread open until it has sat for a day.

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