breakfast for dinner

hello! last night i scurried all the way to the upper east side, to an event thrown by decades to benefit sloan-kettering hospital's cancer center. basically, i got to sip champagne and feast my eyes on some of the most beautiful designer vintage clothing i've ever seen in person - none of which i could afford, of course. still, it was fun, and i got to catch up with a long-lost friend, which is always a good thing.
 

top: thrifted vintage
scarf: thrifted
boots & skirt: madewell
earrings: c/o charming charlie

 i got home and set straight to work on dinner - i'd scored some duck eggs and house-made corned beef hash from work, so i had a vague plan for breakfast for dinner. i heated up the oven, got some pizza dough rising, and set about chopping.

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breakfast pizza 

one batch pizza dough - i use this recipe
white or red sauce - i made a bechamel sauce (basic recipe here) with onions, mushrooms, ramps and fresh ricotta
toppings of your choice - i used baby heirloom tomatoes, duck prosciutto, avocado and an egg

heat your oven as high as it will go without broiling - mine was up to about 550. put your pizza stone or a sheet pan inside to heat up with the oven. make your sauce, then roll out your pizza dough on a piece of parchment so you can easily slide it onto your sheet pan/pizza stone. bake it for 2-3 minutes, then pull it out and spread your sauce over the dough, and add the toppings that need more time - for me, it was the tomatoes and prosciutto. bake these for 5-6 minutes, then pull out and add the egg and avocado; bake for five more minutes or so, until the white of the egg is fully cooked.
 

while everything was baking, i quickly threw together some corned beef hash.

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corned beef hash

 3 large idaho potatoes, scrubbed and diced
1 small yellow onion, diced
a spring of rosemary, finely chopped
1 cup of prepared corned beef hash (mine was dressed with some mustard and mustard seeds, salt, and pepper)
butter
3 eggs (i used duck eggs, just because.)

once everything is chopped, it's quite simple; use a cast-iron pan and add a couple tablespoons of butter. add the onion, and sautee until soft and transparent; add the potatoes, turn the heat down to medium-low, and just let those potatoes cook through. don't worry too much about them sticking to the pan; add a bit of butter if this happens (my favorite solution to any problem) and you'll just have some nice crispy bits. add the rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste, and the corned beef (chopped into bite sized pieces) once the potatoes have cooked through, and stir occasionally; i put mine in the super hot oven with the pizza, still baking, so they'd be ready at the same time. while the hash crisped up in the oven, i fried the duck eggs to place on top.
 

i didn't get home to start cooking until nearly ten o'clock, so by the time we sat down to dinner it was a rather unhealthy 11:20; it felt sort of right, though, eating breakfast in the pitch black, all sleepy-like. but instead of just waking up, i got to go to bed right after. bonus. have a wonderful week, and more from me soon -

xo audrey

brunch

sunday afternoon, four old friends from culinary school came over for brunch. in other words, five pastry chefs gathered at my apartment sunday and they all brought food. for my part, despite two late nights in a row - friday night was my going away party at work, and saturday night was a close friend's birthday - i roused myself at a reasonable hour (10 am is reasonable, right?) and started cookin'.













the apple cake i made can be found here; it was great, nice and light, not like a lot of apple cakes which end up really dense (also delicious, but when you're got a zucchini, asparagus & goat cheese strata, 2 kinds of eclairs, chocolates, a spice bundt with caramel icing to get through, you've got to keep it light any way you can.)

my other contribution (aside from some fresh-squeezed juice to house the champagne) was a smoked duck, beet and goat cheese hash, a variation on one of my favorite breakfasts of all time. it takes a bit of time (mostly for the beets to roast) but it so well worth it.


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smoked duck, beet and goat cheese hash

1 smoked duck breast, cubed
2 large beets, roasted until soft when pricked with a fork and cubed
3 medium sized potatoes, peeled, boiled and cubed
1 4 oz goat cheese log
4 thyme sprigs
salt & pepper

start a large saucepan on medium high heat; add duck. sear it on all sides, then add thyme, beets and potatoes; cook until crispy on the sides, remove from heat, and stir in goat cheese. salt and pepper to taste; serve with fried eggs atop if desired.

easy as pie! and so, so savory or delicious. you can really sub in any meat you like, but the duck did work great with the beets and goat cheese.

i started the new job yesterday, and i have to say, it's pretty incredible. now that i've emptied my camera of brunch photos, i'll be sure to document my goings-on in there. and i'm off work around 2 every day, so i should have some daylight time for an outfit post or two. . . as long as i don't fall asleep watching netflix at 3 like i may or may not have done upon arriving home today.

hope all is well, and more from me soon -

xo audrey

bitty benedict

good morning! this is part II of the stuffed-grape dinner - the day i made all this food was pretty slow at work, and i spent much of the day dreaming about different teeny-tiny courses i could make for one regular-sized meal. i ended up making mini quiches (about 3 inches each,) bite-sized caprese salads, and quail eggs benedicts. in case i wasn't getting every single dish in my kitchen dirty, i made three different types of benedicts - a sampler, if you will.






first thing first - i had to make biscuits for the benedicts. i thought about buying brioche and just cutting out little circles, but i DID have all that buttermilk in the fridge from my morel butter, so i just went ahead and made buttermilk biscuits from scratch. much tastier that way, anyhow! i made a full batch, rolled out about 1/4 of it to get the biscuits i needed, and then wrapped the rest tightly and saved it (it ended up being the base of some biscuits and gravy over fourth of july weekend, so none went to waste!)




baby biscuits, brushed with cream.

next up i sauteed the mushrooms, cut & fried the ham, and sliced some smoked salmon and set them aside. time for hollandaise - i used my hollandaise for one recipe. at the same time, i boiled a small pot of water and poached 6 quail eggs. this was easier than i expected - really the same as poaching chicken eggs: drop 'em carefully in boiling water, wait for them to float to the top, scoop 'em up and let them rest for a second in a bowl.

i'm realizing now i didn't really provide much for scale - but the mushroom is a baby bella, abbout the size of a dollar coin, and covers the biscuit, if that gives you an idea.

i dressed them all differently - fresh cracked pepper on the mushroom benedict, a dash of smokey paprika on the classic ham, and some little tomato chicken juice caviars on the smoked salmon. that's right - too cheap to spring for caviar, i created some in my kitchen with a little molecular magic.



the caprese salads were easy - just buy the smallest mozzarella balls and cherry tomatoes, and dress them with the smallest basil leaf you can find. salt, pepper, and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic. these were delicious (of course - not many salads can beat a caprese, in my book) and surprisingly elegant - i think at my next dinner party i'll serve these as appetizers, with cute toothpicks holding them together.





and that's it! dinner was absolutely delicious, but our friends surprised us by coming over with gifts of beer and cheese and we ended up getting kinda drunk - mini dinner is not enough when up against surprise friend-beer time.





too small, perhaps, but bite-sized and delicious. i'll definitely make these again - just with less beer next time.

i hope you had a good breakfast, and have a lovely day -

xo audrey

breakfast of champions

aaaaaaaah friday. you have certainly taken your time to arrive this week, and boy did you wake up kicking and screaming this morning! fridays usually mean bagels in my office, but given the slow, foot-dragging nature of this week, i thought we deserved something a little better for making it this far. so i skipped over to the grocery store across the street from my little soho office, pulled out the pans and mixing bowls (i happen to be the luckiest pastry chef slash studio manager in all of lower manhattan - my office has a full kitchen with fancy stove and oven) and started mixin' up some scrambled eggs and french toast. we had some bananas on the brink of extinction, too, so i sprinkled them with some sugar in the raw and threw them in the oven to broil.



super easy french toast:

one loaf french bread (mine was a half-size.)
3 eggs
~ 2 T sugar in the raw (or, in my case, 5 packets)
some nutmeg (the only sweet spice we had on hand)
enough milk to make it runny & pale yellow (probably a 1/2 cup or so? i eyeballed.)
a couple cinnamon sticks (i have no idea why we have these.)

cut the bread into 1 inch thick slices.
mix the eggs, sugar, milk, and nutmeg together well; throw the cinnamon sticks in there. (truthfully, i don't know if these really did much.)

heat a pan on medium heat. put a decent pat of butter in there and let it melt until it starts to sizzle. soak the bread well in the egg mixture and then throw it on the pan; once it starts to brown around the edges, flip it, brown it, and repeat. heat up some syrup if that's your jam. fruit if you like! whatever! delicious.



my one piece of advice would be to not wear a silk blouse while doing so. today really shoulda been a sweatshirt and jeans kinda day. oh well. hindsight.

blouse: karen walker
skirt: old h&m dress i chopped off at the waist
tights: c/o stylefind
shoes: devotte
belt: thrifted
necklace: thrifted

my tripod died unceremoniously the other day, and while i have a backup, it's stowed away in sam's car, so for this (somewhat rushed) morning i had to balance my camera precariously on the stove. thus the cut-off face and nervous toes.

well. friday! partyin', partyin', right? sam and i have a date night this evening so i'm thinking dinner and a movie is in order; i've also got a brunch planned, a dance/skateboarding party (i will be on the dancing side of things,) and hopefully some baking thrown in there somewhere.

happy friday, everyone!

xo audrey