An Ordinary Happy Girl: toast

Showing posts with label toast. Show all posts

Monday, 18 January 2016

Healthy French Toast

This is the perfect breakfast or brunch to spoil yourself with on the weekend, and it's a lot healthier than the versions you usually find in cafes or restaurants!

This makes 1 serve.

Ingredients:
1 large egg
125 ml milk of choice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, to taste
2 slices of rye bread
100g blueberries / 25g walnuts
125g strawberries, chopped
100% pure maple syrup, to serve
Pinch of lemon zest, to serve

Method:

1. Whisk together the eggs, milk and cinnamon until well combined and pour into a shallow dish.
2. Heat a non-stick fry pan over medium heat and spray lightly with cooking spray.
3. Dip the bread in the egg mixture, turning to coat both sides evenly.
4. Cook the bread slices, for 2-3 minutes on each side until lightly browned. Remove from the pan and place on a serving plate.
5. Serve the French toast topped with the blueberries/walnuts and strawberries and drizzle with maple syrup and lemon zest. Enjoy!

*To toast the walnuts: Heat a large non-stick fry pan over medium-high heat. Add the walnuts to the hot, dry pan and cook for approximately 5 mins until the walnuts start to brown and they smell toasted, stirring frequently.
Remove the walnuts from the fry pan and set aside to cool. Roughly chop the walnuts when cool enough to handle.

Source from Healthy French Toast

Thursday, 5 March 2015

Homemade Freezer Garlic Bread

Ingredients

1 stick (8 Tbsp) salted butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
¼ tsp salt
1 Tbsp dried parsley
1 16-inch loaf French Bread

Instructions

Allow the butter to come to room temperature. Mince the garlic, then combine it in a small bowl with the butter, olive oil, salt, and dried parsley. Mix the ingredients together until they form a fairly smooth paste.
Cut the bread loaf into 16 one-inch slices. Scoop ½ Tbsp of the butter mixture onto each slice, then spread it over the surface with a knife. Arrange the slices on a baking sheet and then place them in the freezer for about 15 minutes to allow the butter to firm up. Once firm, stack the slices two at a time and place in quart sized freezer bags. Store in the freezer up to three months.
To cook the frozen slices of garlic bread, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Once the oven is heated, take as many slices out of the freezer as you'd like, carefully separate the stacked slices, and place them on a baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.*

Notes

*If using a different type of bread, the baking time may change.

Step by Step Photos

Start by letting one stick (8 Tbsp) of butter come to room temperature. Combine it in a bowl with 2 Tbsp olive oil, 4 cloves of garlic (minced), 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 Tbsp dried parsley flakes.

Mix them all up until it forms a fairly smooth paste (a few chunks of butter are a-okay).

Take a 16 inch loaf of French bread and slice it into 16 one-inch pieces. The easiest way to do this is to first slice the loaf in half (2), then slice each half in half (4), then each quarter in half (8), and then each piece in half one last time (16). It’s much easier to eye-ball a “half” than to just start slicing one inch pieces from one end to the other.

started with 8 Tbsp of butter, so I estimated I’d have about 1/2 Tbsp of the butter mixture for each of the 16 slices. Scoop the butter on to the slices, then…

Spread it out smooth with a knife. Place the buttered slices on a baking sheet and pop them into the freezer for about 15 minutes, just to firm up the butter a bit.

Once the garlic butter is a little more firm, you can stack them two by two and place them in a quart sized freezer bag (6 to a bag). Freeze the slices for up to 3 months for best results. To cook the garlic bread, simply preheat the oven to 400 degrees, then take out as many slices as you’d like and place them on a baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown (you don’t have to wait for them to thaw first).

Source from: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2015/03/homemade-freezer-garlic-bread/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BudgetBytes+%28Budget+Bytes%29

Sunday, 15 February 2015

Spinach Feta Grilled Cheese

Ingredients

½ Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
¼ lb. frozen cut spinach
Pinch of salt & pepper
2 ciabatta rolls
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 oz. feta cheese
pinch red pepper flakes (optional)

Instructions

Mince the garlic and add it to a skillet with the olive oil. Cook over medium-low heat for 1-2 minutes, or until it begins to soften. Add the frozen spinach, turn the heat up to medium, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until heated through and most of the excess moisture has evaporated away. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
Cut the rolls in half. Add about ¼ cup of shredded mozzarella and ½ oz. of feta to the bottom half of each roll. Divide the cooked spinach between the two sandwiches, then top with a pinch of red pepper flakes, plus ¼ more shredded mozzarella on each.
Place the top half of the ciabatta roll on the sandwiches and transfer them to a large non-stick skillet. Fill a large pot with a few inches of water to create weight, then place the pot on top of the sandwiches to press them down like a panini press. Turn the heat on to medium-low and cook until the sandwiches are crispy on the bottom. Carefully flip the sandwiches, place the weighted pot back on top, and cook until crispy on the other side and the cheese is melted. Serve warm.

Step by Step Photos

We start by cooking the spinach a little. Add a 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and a minced clove of garlic to a small skillet. Cook the garlic for a minute or two over medium-low heat, or until it begins to soften.

I buy these bags of frozen spinach because it’s really easy to just use some and put the rest back in the freezer for later. I only made two sandwiches, so I used 1/4 of this one pound bag. Just eyeball it. No need to be super accurate.

Add the frozen spinach straight to the skillet, no need to thaw. Cook this over medium heat for a couple of minutes…

Until it’s heated through and most of the extra moisture has evaporated away. Season it lightly with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, you can start building the sandwiches. I used these store bought ciabatta rolls. Despite being far more expensive than what I’d normally pay for bread ($3.99 for a pack of 6), the sandwiches were still insanely inexpensive compared to a deli. The extra rolls can be frozen for later.

I buy these big bags of shredded cheese then divide them up and freeze. It’s much less expensive than buying the 2 cup size bags. I buy an 8 oz. block of feta cheese and usually cut it into four pieces to easily measure out 2 oz. This time, I cut one of the squares in half once more, to make a one ounce square, which I then split between the two sandwiches.

Measure out a half cup of the shredded cheese, then divide it between the two sandwiches. Take a one ounce cube of the feta and crumble it over both sandwiches.

Divide the cooked spinach between the two sandwiches and add a pinch of red pepper flakes. Measure out another 1/2 cup of shredded cheese and add it to the tops of the sandwiches (I felt that one layer of feta was plenty, so I didn’t add more to the top).

Add both sandwiches to the skillet and turn the heat on to medium-low. I find that medium-low works best for grilled cheeses because it heats them slowly so that the inside has time to warm up and melt the cheese before the outside browns too much.

To “press” the sandwiches like a panini, take a big pot and add a few inches of water for weight. Place the pot directly on top of the sandwiches and press down. The weight from the pot full of water will flatten the sandwiches like a panini press and help the heat transfer through faster. Or, you could just use a George Foreman Grill (sandwiches are one of my favorite things to make on my George Foreman!). Cook for 5-7 minutes on each side or until the outside is crispy and the cheese is melted on the inside.