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FIRST, HAPPY EASTER! Phyllis is hoping for an audition with the good folks Cadbury despite the fact that, yes, the eggs have gotten smaller.
After a few drinks last evening with Kevin, Elissa, Jenny, Phil, and Mint at Paloma, it was suggested that a brunch be held this afternoon. This, remarkably, came to pass (not all of our ideas shaped while drinking are so fortunate.) Elissa and Kevin arrived with two bottle each of orange juice and "inexpensive" champagne, while Jenny brought sweet raisin bread rolls, an orange, half-and-half, powdered sugar, and a sizable about of doubt in the resources of my kitchen.
Jenny did also offer my slightly wounded ego a delicious recipe for French toast, to which we added only flour:
6 large eggs
6 tbsp flour
1 & 1/2 cup half-and-half or milk
1 tsp grated orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey
(plus 4 tsp sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
challah bread
butter
powdered sugar (for garnish)
berries (for garnish)
This is French toast, so mix up everything save for the bread, butter and powdered sugar (if you don't want the extra 4 tsp of sugar, omit it.) Jenny was afraid her only slicing the rolls in half was too thick, but everything turned out fine. We fried the dipped bread over medium heat in a pan with butter until the slices were browned and then stuck them in the oven to keep warm. These slices were huge enough that one was more than plenty for each of us.
This recipe is sweeter and soaks up more than my recipe proposed in the French Toast Bites post, but the orange zest is a very happy addition. In the future, I would add more vanilla soy milk to my original recipe, substitute honey for some sugar, and add the orange zest suggested here. But only add the orange zest if you have berries or fruit as topping, otherwise the orange can be a bit much.
The Breakfast of Slow-Moving Champions
Well, I'll tell you. I can't remember where I stumbled across the ingredient list for this French toast batter but it seems to get a pretty good review, and the idea to make these bite-sized breakfast staples arose from the simple fact that a) I had a leftover Italian roll and b) Mint likes finger food. And so it was. Or, so they were. Whichever.
I suppose that leftover rolls of any type would stand in just fine. You could even slice up regular bread into cafeteria-favorite "sticks" if you like. I think what makes the Italian roll such a good choice is the thick crusty crust dotted with sesame seeds, which gives the resulting French toast some firmness around the edges while the sesame seeds provide a unique flavor.
For the batter:
1 egg
1/4 c. soy/almond milk
1 tbsp. flour
t tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp sugar
splash of vanilla extract
Now, I don't measure this out. Ever. I'm guessing this is what it break down into. As you can see, it's all in proportion to the number of eggs you're using. I used five (5) eggs for two large rolls, and so I threw in five (5) big spoons full of flour and five (5) smaller spoons full of sugar; the "1/4 cup" of milk is approximate since I pour it right from the bottle into the eggs and stop when I think enough has been added and I figure I used about a cup of milk; and the cinnamon and vanilla get shaken/poured direct to bowl, so, your guess is as good as mine. I know, that's maddening. Just try it on one slice and see how delicious it turns out. If you want more delicious, add stuff.
Fact: millions of immigrants ate pancakes at Ellis Island
I would, however, offer this: mix by hand. I sometimes use an electric mixer but it seems to do the mixing job too well. In a way, you want the flavors to clump together a bit and then pop out and surprise you in the finished product. And this way you're saving electricity. Al Gore would be proud of you.
These keep as well and freeze as well as any other French toast you'll find, but you get the added bonus of picking these fellas up with your fingers and dipping them in some maple syrup sans fork, sans pretense. Seeing as how he's packed on a few extra pounds these days, that's also something Al Gore would get behind.
D&R Depot
63 Lake Street (Rt. 19)LeRoy, NY 14482
(585) 768-6270
www.dandrdepot.com
THE D&R DEPOT is quite possibly the reason I wanted to drive through upstate New York en route to Ohio.
In fact, my mother and I likely hatched our crackpot scheme of meeting in Syracuse and crashing in Batavia before heading to Youngstown for this purpose alone. Or, at least, I did.
Once upon a time, two friends and I set out to produce our first ever documentary on the history of Jell-O. This delivered us to LeRoy, NY, just over an hour west of Rochester, where the dessert was born, and where we spent many of our weekends working on the project. When we got hungry, we asked around for a good place to find lunch. The answers, if I remember correctly, were unanimous.
The D&R menu is made up of American favorites. You really can't go wrong. I believe I lived several months of my life eating their mac n' cheese every weekend. I turned out fine. Being too early in the morning for mac n' cheese (though I debated ordering some to take with us), my mom and I settled on breakfast. We had two kinds of French toast: one crispy, battered with corn flakes, and the other sweet, with coconut stuck to all sides. Both amazing.
Paying homage to dessert
On ice, forty feet out in Lake Erie, a.k.a. "a terrible idea"
MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: Any time I have to drive across I-90. And even a few times I might make up the reason to do so.
Veselka
144 Second Avenue
(at 9th Street)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 228-9682
Alto Cinco
526 Wescott Street
Syracuse, NY 13210
(315) 472-3633
www.alto-cinco.com
THIS CRAZY IDEA was dreamed up two days ago. For whatever reason, I decided that it would be a good idea, since I was trying to figure out how to get back to Ohio anyway, to just meet my mother in Syracuse. Since Georgetown was playing at the Carrier Dome tonight, we could both drive out for the game and head back for Ohio together the next day. Pure brilliance.
Sort of. After four years spent there, you'd think I would remember the one thing everyone knows about Syracuse: snow. Lots of it. The drive might have been the five hours I expected had I remembered to expect a blizzard upon arriving upstate.
But this is getting ahead of the story. It starts in the East Village earlier this morning at one of my all-time favorite spots in the City--Veselka. Mint, who was working in Manhattan today, wanted to take me out for my actual birthday. A reasonable request. One I am not likely to turn down.
Veselka is Ukrainian food. That's a lot like Polish food, which is mostly similar to Russian food, which is very much like Czech food. You get the idea. But I like to think of all as Ukrainian food. I don't know why, but I have a soft spot for the Ukrainians. It might be because their shining political star Yulia Timoshenko is both presidential material and a total babe, but mostly its a mystery.
Part of Veselka's charm is the simple fact that it is open 24-hours a day. It serves a rather traditional American diner menu in addition to its stunningly awesome traditional Ukrainian menu. We can delve into the finer points of this another time, but for this morning it will suffice to say that the challah bread French toast and potato pancakes were awesome. Thank you, Mint.
After this, I packed up and climbed into my rental car (no thanks to Hertz for screwing up my reservation, but many thanks to National for bailing me out) and headed west out I-80, north up I-81, and promptly hit a wall of snow somewhere about Scranton. I made it in time for the second half of the game, and my ma made it in time for the final three minutes. Syracuse won, the court was stormed, all was right with the world.
Alto Cinco was always a favorite of mine back in the day, though it's been several years now since I've been back. Thankfully, everything was as I remembered it. My mother enjoyed a big bowl of veggie chili, while I would not have had anything but the Chile Relleno Burrito ($6.75)--an entire cheese-stuffed chile wrapped up in a mammoth tortilla with rice, beans and red salsa. Absolutely a must-have if you're in Syracuse.
From there, we hit the road with two cups of extremely spicy Mexican hot chocolate. Necessary for the snow, the cold, and not least of all a two-hour drive east.
MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: On both counts, yes. And you should too. Also, check out Alto Cinco's website before you go, or call ahead. Hours for dining and delivery can be tricky.
