Mrs. T's B&B recipes

Mrs. B was interested in the menus and recipes I used for serving breakfast to our recent weekend house guests, so I’ll share some here. Others are in the archives for January 2006, in the post titled “Champions of Breakfast”.

We love having guests and enjoy pampering them as much as possible. I try to serve them a nice breakfast that will stick to their ribs whatever the day’s activities may be. The sort of meal I decide to serve varies with the particular guests and what they have planned for the day.

2 weekends ago, friends from Florida were here for two nights. We took them out for breakfast on the second morning. But the first morning was a Sunday, and I wanted them to have a nice breakfast that would stick with them until after church, when we would take them to a family cookout. I find that with planning ahead, and with setting the time for breakfast at 8 a.m., I can serve a wonderful meal. For this one I planned Raspberry French Toast and Homemade Sausage Patties. I also served coffee and juice -- a choice of orange or passion fruit. I made the French toast the day before and refrigerated it, then baked it Sunday morning. I made the raspberry sauce that morning, too, while the French toast was baking. I mixed up the homemade sausage the day before also and made it into patties, then refrigerated them. On Sunday morning all I had to do was fry them. Here are those recipes:

RASPBERRY FRENCH TOAST

12 slices day-old white bread, crusts removed, cut in 1” cubes
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, cut in 1/2” cubes
1 cup frozen raspberries
12 eggs
2 cups milk
1/3 cup maple syrup or honey
SAUCE:
1 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup water
2 cups frozen raspberries
1 Tablespoon butter

Place half of the bread cubes in a greased 13X9X2" baking dish. Top with all of the cream cheese cubes. Top with raspberries and remaining bread cubes. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add milk and syrup; mix well. Pour over bread mixture. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight. Remove from refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Cover with foil and bake at 350° for 30 minutes; then uncover and bake 25 - 30 minutes more or until golden brown and the center is set.
For sauce:
In a saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch; add water. Bring to a boil over medium heat; boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in raspberries; reduce heat. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in butter until melted. To serve, cut the French toast into squares; serve with raspberry sauce ladled over each portion. Yield: 6 to 8 servings

This is a wonderful breakfast or brunch dish for company! I've never tried cutting the recipe in half, but you could probably do so and bake it in a 9” square dish.

HOMEMADE SAUSAGE PATTIES

1/4 cup water
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. rubbed sage
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
2 lb. ground pork

In a bowl, stir together water and seasonings. Add pork and mix well. Shape meat mixture into eight 4” patties (or a larger amount of smaller ones). In a skillet over medium heat, cook patties for 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in the center.

This is such a yummy recipe for homemade sausage! I often cut the amounts in half to make a smaller batch. This sausage is very lean and not at all greasy.


This past weekend, as I mentioned, we again had guests. This time it was a young couple who are helping to lead a ministry team. The team was en route to Canada and stopped here in New England for a couple of services at our church. Different folks from the church housed the various team members. “Our” couple was just delightful and we enjoyed their time with us so much. I guessed, rightly, that they would not have a lot of time in the mornings for a leisurely meal, but that they would need to get back to their team for the day’s activities. (In fact, the second morning’s breakfast had to be served at 6:30 a.m.!) So for them I decided the menus would be muffins, cereal, fruit, juice and coffee. I further decided to bake two varieties of muffins the first day -- when they could eat at the decadent hour of 9 a.m. (they had driven nonstop to get here) -- and just serve the same two kinds of muffins again the second day. I served French vanilla coffee, two kinds of cereal -- Blueberry Morning® and Maple Pecan Crunch®, passion fruit juice, and the muffins -- Raspberry Streusel Muffins and Almond Joy muffins. A charming old green-and-white soup plate filled with Braeburn apples, bananas, and red grapes served as a combination centerpiece and fruit “basket”. Our guests thoroughly enjoyed their breakfasts each day!

Here are the muffin recipes. I think the almond joy ones may be in my “Champions of Breakfast” post, but will share it here as well to save others the time of looking it up.

ALMOND JOY MUFFINS

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup margarine, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream OR plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Almonds (either chopped, sliced, or whole) and sugar for tops of muffins

Preheat oven to 375º. Grease 12 muffin cups. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, combine margarine, eggs, sour cream (OR yogurt), and extract. Stir in the sifted dry ingredients until just combined well. The batter will be lumpy. Stir in the coconut and chocolate chips. Spoon the batter into the greased muffin cups. Top each with a sprinkle of chopped or sliced almonds (or 3 whole almonds) and a little sugar. Bake in preheated 375º oven for 18 minutes or until muffins test done. Makes 1 dozen muffins.

Almond Joy Muffins are a great favorite in our family. They make a wonderful addition to any special-occasion or holiday breakfast or brunch. I found the recipe in an old newspaper years ago and have tweaked it a bit to suit our tastes.


RASPBERRY STREUSEL MUFFINS

Muffins:
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. canola oil
1 egg
1 c. whole raspberries ( I use frozen ones) divided use
Streusel topping:
1/4 c. chopped pecans
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. flour
2 Tblsp. canola oil

For muffin batter, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, oil and egg. Stir in the flour mixture. Spoon about 1 Tblsp. batter into each of 12 greased (or use the foil liners -- my preference) muffins cups. Sprinkle a few raspberries into each cup, using about half of the 1 c. raspberries. Then spoon the remaining batter into each cup. Top with the remaining raspberries.
For topping, combine the topping ingredients until crumbly. Sprinkle the topping over the muffin batter/berries in cups.
Bake at 375º for 20-25 minutes or until golden. If you did not use the foil liners, let the muffins stand for 5 minutes before carefully removing them from the muffin tins. Yield: 12 muffins.

This wonderful muffin recipe is from an old Country Woman magazine. It takes a bit of work, but the muffins are worth it. I highly recommend the foil liners for muffin tins. They come off so easily -- unlike the paper ones, which may stick.  In fact, nowadays one can even buy parchment muffin-tin liners, which are effortless!

And there are my recent breakfast menus and recipes. Enjoy!