I was so excited to wake up this morning purely for the following reason:

Brioche French Toast with mascarpone and berries.

Do I hear angels singing? Did the clouds part and the heavens open?
You might remember that I ate this amazing dish on the way home from Chicago a couple of weeks ago. It was glorious and I could not help myself but to try to recreate it. I can happily tell you it was a great big fat success.

Brioche French Toast with mascarpone cheese, strawberries, powdered sugar and maple syrup and a side of Applegate Farms Organic “Sunday” bacon

A.K.A. the best breakfast I have ever made in my life. No joke. AND the first time I have ever made French Toast! Fact!

Here’s the ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• dash salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (you could use vanilla, nutmeg, or cardamon instead)
• Butter, as needed
• 4 slices of bread

Let’s look at it in collage form, shall we?

It actually makes me jealous of myself looking at it. I want it back. Now.

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 200F. Put a large griddle or skillet over medium-low heat while you prepare the egg mixture.
2. Beat the eggs lightly in a broad bowl and stir in the milk, the salt, and the sugar and cinnamon.
3. Add about 1 tablespoon butter to the griddle or skillet. When the butter is melted, dip each slice of bread in turn in the batter, letting it get good and soaked and put it on the griddle.
4. Cook until nicely browned on each side, turning as necessary, for no more than 10 mins or so total.
5. Serve immediately, or keep warm in the oven for up to 30 minutes.
6. Add slices of strawberries (or other fresh fruit), dust with powdered sugar, add a small scoop (about a tablespoon) of mascarpone to each slice of toast and drizzle with maple syrup.
7. Et voila!

I got the basic recipe for this from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything
and then just added the topping ideas myself. The mascarpone is actually very rich so you only need a little – probably less than I used. Also, you can use virtually any bread, as you probably know but soft thick slices of brioche makes truly decadent French Toast.

The end result was unbelievably luxurious and incredibly sweet, which made the salty bacon a wonderful side note.

Spicy Summer Salsa

We bought four corn cobs (is that even what they’re called?) last week at the princely sum of 25 cents a piece! Holler! According to Mr. Mark Bittman, late summer is the best time to make my favorite corn salad/salsa so tonight I got down to it!
I’ve been making variations on this salsa all summer long and I love it! You can eat it as is over salad greens, use it as salsa with tortilla chips, add it to a wrap, or include it in a Mexican plate of love (alongside, say rice and grilled chicken). It’s super versatile.
A side note worthy of mention is that I buy my beans dry and cook them myself. I highly recommend doing this folks! Why?
1) It means there’s no added salt or whatever
2) It’s cheaper
3) It’s better for the environment (no can to throw out)
4) It’s easy!

Do you need another reason? They taste better!

Seriously, it’s super easy though:

• Before you go to bed place one cup dried beans in a pan, cover with about an inch of tepid water and put a lid on it. Go to sleep!
• In the morning, drain the beans (they’ll have expanded and turned the water all black – my fave part!) and rinse them in a strainer.
• Cover them with the same amount of water again and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down so that the water is simmering and cook for 45 mins – an hour.
• Voila! Makes about 2 cups cooked beans.

You can’t get more simple than that. So, hit up your bulk food section friends!
Here’s tonight’s Spicy Summer Salsa:

Pretty as a rainbow.

This included:

• 4 tablespoons diced raw onion
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 cup sweetcorn, fresh off the cob
• 1/2 cup diced green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 chipotle peppers, diced and in their adobo sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon diced hot peppers
• 2 cups black beans
• 1/2 a fresh tomato
• salt and pepper

I’ll most certainly be adding fresh avocado when I indulge as well. Happy days.

What simple recipe have you turned to time and again this summer?
This is mine!

Yep. I just sang John Denver to you. You’ll recover, I promise. I couldn’t even fit the end of our Chicago extravaganza on yesterday’s post since I was already writing a complete essay. So, here I am ready to fill you in on the last of my adventures!

We tried to start off early so as not to get home super late, which ended up meaning we left at 10:00am and then decided to stop for breakfast. We reasoned that it was better to fill up on good food at the start than to get hungry later when only Maccy D’s was available.

We headed to this place called caffe De Luca, where Sara (our host) used to work. It was super cute:

The inside was gorge too:

I love all the little details. I didn’t get a picture, but there was also faux laundry hanging from the ceiling. Weird. But cool.

Dan and I ordered up some grub to share – I love that we can do that! You get the best of both worlds. We ordered the Breakfast Burrito:

Scrambled eggs, tomatos, onions, cheddar cheese, jalapeno peppers, avocado, refried beans, served with roasted potatoes, and house made ranchero sauce.

Um. Yum! When I reached the avocado/refried bean bites I was in heaven.

Those roasted potatoes were bomb too with the salsa. I had to restrain myself from eating more than my half!

Now get ready for the creme de la creme, peeps. I am salivating at the memory of this plate of wonderment:

Yeah. This was incredible! Best. French Toast. Ever. Hands down. Back flips round the block. Hula hoops and high fives all round. I nearly peed my pants.

The mascarpone was out of this world in its creamy, gooeyness. That picture made it look like a measly amount but there was enough to smother over the whole lot of toast and it was aces. The French Toast itself was just gorgeous as well – perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. Dan and I couldn’t get over this stuff and I did briefly consider moving to Chicago permanently for this alone.

And then we hit the road and made it back in 8 hours. And now we’re home. And I need sleep…