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This is an Ellie Krieger French toast recipe that I have made numerous times. It is a great healthy breakfast that I like to make on the weekends. There is no way it could ever take the place of some buttery crispy pan fried French toast, but it is definitely tasty and still hits the spot for a sweet and satisfying breakfast.

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I was inspired by the ridiculous Ciabatta that Steve, of the well respected food blog: www.breadcetera.com produced in his home kitchen earlier this month. Something about that wide open crumb structure set my bread-loving taste buds aflame with exultation. I recently purchased:

Advanced Bread and Pastry

by Michel Suas and wanted to take a recipe for a taste-drive (tee-hee!). Earlier this week we posted about our house cured and smoked bacon, which got me thinking… Doesn’t City Zen offer a bacon and potato ciabatta-like loaf as a part of their bread selection? Yes, yes they do, and it is awesome. Wait, isn’t this month’s Bread Baking Day “Bread and potatoes?” Yes, yes it is. It appears as though I am destined to make this bread. So here goes nothing… I should note here Sara claims she had and shared the exact same idea with me earlier this month. I have zero recollection of this, but am smart enough to know not to call her a liar.

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This week’s CEIMB is Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta Cheese, and was chosen by Pamela at Cookies with Boys. This was a great choice by Pamela as this is a weeknight favorite in our house.

I have actually seen different interpretations of this dish from other sources, including Everyday Foods, but Ellie’s has remained my favorite.

This dish is basically a quick and light tomato sauce that is topped with shrimp, feta cheese, dill, and parsley. I usually serve this over some orzo, which really soaks up the delicious brothy sauce.

I pretty much follow this recipe as written, and I would highly recommend trying it. It is extremely light, and yet always makes for a satisfying dinner. This is a go to weeknight recipe for me because it is very quick to prepare, especially if you buy already peeled and deveined shrimp. If you do choose this kind of shrimp, beware: these shrimp will go bad EVEN FASTER than their shell-on brethren. I recommend using them the same day they are purchased, or at the longest within 24 hours of purchase. The full recipe can be found at Cookies with Boys or on the Food Network website.

Enjoy

We like bacon around here. In fact, who doesn’t like bacon? Chances are, you have bacon in your fridge right now - store-bought bacon. It’s packaged in clear plastic so that every time you open your fridge you have to look at it and think, “hmm, I could use some bacon crumbles in this salad.” Bacon has a tendency to make everything better, and let’s be honest here, bacon is great stuff. We have, however, a couple of problems with the bacon-like junk available in most grocery stores. First, few foods are more highly processed than mass produced bacon. It is usually prepared in a huge factory that is focused primarily with churning out as much bacon as possible. This means that every shortcut is taken during the processing to produce the most bacon in the shortest amount of time. Truck loads of pork bellies are shipped to a plant, where they are skinned and trimmed to a uniform shape, then “pumped” with a curing solution designed to cure the meat as rapidly as possible. They then go through a “thermal processing” (yes, that’s the technical term) then they are chilled, pressed and sliced. It all sounds very clinical, because it is. The result is a bright pink meat, that is always unpleasantly slimy when you open the package.

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This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie is Caramel Crunch Bars and was chosen by Whitney of What’s left on the table? You can find the recipe posted on her site.

I was a bit ambivalent to this pick at first, but then I read the recipe. Hmmm, chocolate chip cookie like dough, melted chocolate, and toffee. Yes, please. What I was equally pleased to see was how easy and quick this recipe sounded. Sometimes, it is nice to have a TWD that does not consume hours upon hours of my precious weekend.

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I have a soft spot for lemon flavor in cakes and cookies. I love the freshness and the tang you get from the citrus. So when I saw Ina Garten make this cake on Barefoot Contessa it was a must try. I made this cake for the first time a few years ago, but recently found myself thinking of it again when I saw that it was included in my recent purchase Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You’ll Make Over and Over Again by Ina Garten. In the preamble to this recipe, Ina says that this cake was inspired by a yogurt cake recipe she came across from Dorie Greenspan. There is a yogurt cake recipe in Baking which I would assume is at least similar to the one that Ina is referring to.

This cake is wonderful because it is tasty and satisfies my sweet tooth yet it is not full of butter. It has all the flavor with half the guilt (did I really just write that?).

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