marathon brunch 2: butternut squash baked eggs/french toast with roasted banana ice cream and toasted pumpkin seeds/bagel and lox

If you've been reading along, you'll recall that least year, Laura and hosted a brunch to celebrate the New York City marathon, which conveniently passes right by our apartment. If you've never experienced the marathon, it is hard to imagine how much fun it is to stand out there on the street, cheering and high fiving the runners as they run a seemingly super-human distance. It is also particularly great to be able to pause and reflect on their amazing accomplishments by eating ridiculous amounts of french toast and eggs.

In other words, let me tell you what I made for our second annual marathon brunch.




That's boozy french toast (as discussed in my second blog post ever), with amaretto, eggs, milk (or cream? doesn't matter really), a little sugar and some cinnamon. I let it soak in the egg mixture and then baked it in the oven. I served it with fresh whipped cream, candied pumpkin seeds and roasted banana ice cream. Oh, and a little maple syrup. Just in case there wasn't enough deliciousness piled up on there. The roasted bananas get really lovely and caramelized, and because the fruit is so naturally sweet, you barely need to add any sugar. (My only thought is that this might be even better if there was an egg custard base, because it wasn't quite as creamy as it could have been. But I am afraid of egg custards because the only time I tried to make one it broke so I'll take a slightly crystallized ice cream over prolonged stove-top trauma.)

cheesy baked squash gratin

What you see here is actually the leftovers from a big dish of acorn and butternut squash chunks baked up with some bread and cheese and a little cream-- essentially, another savory bread pudding.

It's original incarnation was as a delicious, if slightly awkward to eat without utensils party food. Laura and I usually put together a pretty well received spread of party snacks, and this was no exception. That being said, I think it was even better the next morning, heated up and served with a fried egg.

ravioli with creamy butternut squash sauce and crispy sage

So remember when I did a whole big post rounding up all sorts of pasta recipes? Well I hope you liked it, because it turns out I forgot about one of them. So, without further ado, I give you ravioli with butternut squash sauce and crispy sage.

check out the rare daytime photo! love that natural light.

I mainly followed a recipe for a butternut squash sauce, but I took the idea for using fresh sage leaves rather than the dried ones from this recipe here. If I made this again, (which I would definitely like to do when I have some more butternut squash), I don't think I'd be able to resist further following the second recipe by throwing in some bacon. In fact, I am pretty shocked that I didn't do that in the first place. I must not have had any in the fridge– stranger things have happened.



I roasted the butternut squash with cloves of garlic and then pureed it all with a little milk, pasta water and romano cheese. This made for a nice thick pasta sauce that went really well with some Borgatti ravioli. The mellow roasted garlic really compliments the sweetness of the squash, and the saltiness of the cheese rounds everything out.



Topping this with fried sage leaves gave the dish some much needed textural and color contrast. Just the way I like it.

butternut squash and apple soup/carmelized onion and blue cheese bruschetta

It's funny. I've been blogging so infrequently these past few months that everything is cycling back around. I've still never written up my Hanukkah latkes or my Christmas prime rib, and Easter and Passover are just around the corner. Similarly, this dinner was something I whipped up when my good friend Faye was in town back in December, and she'll back in New York late next week!

Faye was my roommate in college for two years, but after graduation she pulled a bit of a disappearing act when she joined the peace corp and ran off to Morocco for two and a half years. When she came for a visit in December, it was the first time I'd seen her since May of 2008!

In honor of Faye's return, I hosted a small dinner at my apartment with a couple of our friends. It was a light meal, just a nice butternut squash and apple soup with some crostini with caramelized onions and crumbled blue cheese. We also had some beets tossed in argan oil, which was a special gift Faye brought me from Morocco. I will try and tell you more about argan oil in a later post.

I used this Ina Garten recipe as a jumping off point for my soup, but I ended up adapting it quite a bit. I left out the curry powder and apple juice, subbing in my homemade chicken stock. I also roasted the butternut squash before adding it to the soup, in the hope that made the dish more flavorful.




To start, I cooked the onions in butter until nice and soft, and then added diced squash and apples, chicken stock and water. I let it all cook together for a half an hour or so, and then blended it to make it nice and creamy. This soup was a bit unusual just because it was so sweet, but it was definitely nice tasting.

As that was cooking, I slowly caramelized some onions in butter for my crostini. I toasted up a nice crusty loaf of whole wheat bread and while it was still warm I layered each slice with a large spoonful of onions and some crumbled blue cheese. This was easy and delicious, and went really well with the soup.

All in all, this was an easy and light dinner, but no one went home hungry and everyone was certainly happy to see Faye. However, I do think I'd like to try a more ambitious menu when she's back in town later this month!

marathon brunch

Well it's been over a month since my last entry! And in that time we've celebrated the start to a new year, and this blog's first anniversary! Boy does time fly. I have some hopes for the blog in the New Year, mostly regarding improved photography and a real design and logo, but for now I have a lot of cooking to catch up on.

The first order of business is an epic brunch meal. My friends don't generally congregate before noon, but back in November Laura and I hosted our first brunch. It started at 10 am, and surprisingly enough people were pretty much on time. This wasn't just any old brunch– this brunch was kind of a big deal. You see, even though 5th Avenue is basically a dead end street when you live as far north as I do, there is one day a year where my quiet block becomes part of something big. The first Sunday of November, my block happens to be on the route of the New York City Marathon. The last 5 miles of the race run down 5th Avenue and through Central Park. I live just across the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th St, which marks the runners' triumphant re-entrance to Manhattan after a brief Bronx interlude.

I had never really given the marathon a second thought until last year, when I went and cheered along 1st ave with my good friend Mary, who was making a rare visit to the city from Long Island. We had tons of fun watching the race, so when I realized that I now lived on the route, Laura and I decided to celebrate the athleticism and dedications of all those runners by inviting my friends over for a super gluttonous and boozy brunch. Awesome!

Laura and I woke up bright and early to shop and cook. Even Nathan rolled out of bed in time to help out– without any poking or prodding on my part, which was pretty amazing. As a result, I was actually mostly done with the preparations by the time everyone else arrived, which was quite a relief. We put together quite a spread with a minimal amount of work!

The Menu:
Baked Eggs with Butternut Squash, Bacon and Collard Greens
Baked French Toast, (discussed in my second blog post ever!)
Deviled Eggs (by Nathan)
Apple Tart Tatin (by Laura)
Sweet Potato Pumpkin Ice Cream
Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls (by the Pillsbury Dough Boy)
With:
Spinach Quiche (by Grace)
Cream Cheese Cinnamon Pumpkin Dip with Gingersnaps (by Jess)
Irish Soda Bread (by Hannah)
Bagels and Cream Cheese (from Paul and his roommate)
Mimosas (from Marc)

If I've forgotten anything, I apologize. I really should blog these things sooner. But anyway, it was a lot of fun. The marathon is awesome. You really wouldn't think that it'd be particularly cool, watching people run, but the runners really seem to appreciate the cheers, and as the race goes on there are people of all shapes and sizes. It's really an exciting atmosphere!

Of course, we had to eat all that food, so we ended up watching most of the race on tv, and running down to the street briefly to watch the leaders come by. After gorging ourselves for several hours, we went back downstairs to cheer on a steady stream of runners. At this point, there were all sorts of national flags and costumes, so it was easy to call out to specific runners, hopefully giving them a little extra boost of confidence.

And as for the food, it was all pretty fabulous. We started off with some quick cinnamon rolls courtesy of Pillsbury, and Nathan's deviled eggs. He blended the yolks with mayo, mustard, a little vinegar and paprika. I think he would have eaten all of them himself, but he managed to exercise some manly restraint. I had a couple and they were just delicious.


deviled eggs

Meanwhile, I woke up really early to start on a baked eggs dish. It's not really brunch if there's no eggs, but I didn't feel like I could handle omelets or fried eggs for a large group. Baked eggs are great because you don't have to flip them individually or stir them around or anything. You can just bake a whole mess of them until the whites set, which takes about 15 minutes. I'd wanted to use my little ramekins, but I more guests than dishes, so I decided to use my pyrex baking dish. Not as cute, but more practical.

I've seen a ton of different recipes for baked eggs, incorporating all sorts of different ingredients, all of which sounded delicious, but I didn't make any of them. My food co-op had saddled me with butternut squash and collard greens, so I came up with my own variation that combined those ingredients with bacon, onions and mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Nathan doesn't like butternut squash, so I made a separate portion for him which substituted chopped tomatoes. Both versions were delicious.


baked eggs with butternut squash, bacon, collard greens and two types of cheese

The night before I cut my squash in half and roasted it in the oven until it was cooked through. The next morning, I peeled and cubed the squash. Then I chopped up some bacon and crisped it up on the griddle. Once that was nice and brown, I set it aside and threw some diced onion onto the pan. I let that soften for a couple of minutes, and then added a huge bunch of finely chopped collard greens. Spinach, chard or kale would work well also. Once that was all wilted, I mixed the bacon, collards, onions and squash together in my large Pyrex dish. I also added some small cubes of mozzarella and cheddar cheese and went to town with the pepper mill.

At this point, you are ready to add your eggs. Everything should be spread evenly in your pan, so you can use a spoon to create small divots to crack the eggs into. I think I may have poured a little milk or cream into the pan to make sure the greens wouldn't dry out in the oven, but that's optional. Bake at 350˚ for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the whites have set. I erred on the side of caution, and wound up with yolks that were beginning to solidify, so if you like yours runny, 15 minutes is probably better.

The great thing about this dish is that it can be prepared ahead of time. Your guests get all the eggy goodness they associate with brunch, but you're not slaving over the stove, flipping omelets. The oven does all the work for you!

The meal's real showstopper was an awesome tart tatin, made mostly by Laura. I oversaw the end of the process, which involves caramelizing the apples with deeply browned butter and sugar in a cast iron skillet, and then baking it with a pie crust on top. It takes a while to peel the apples and to make it all caramelly enough, but other than that it's pretty easy. It's gooey and sweet, and a great dessert that was gobbled up even after we'd consumed piles of eggs and bread and quiche. Yum.


apple tart tatin

I served the tart with some sweet potato pumpkin gingersnap ice cream. I adapted the recipe from The Perfect Scoop, and it was quite good. I've talked quite enough in this entry, so I'll just leave you with the recipe. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Pumpkin Ice Cream with Gingersnaps
adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 large sweet potato
1¼ cup pureed pumpkin
1 cup plus 2 tbsp whole milk
⅔ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp vanilla bean rum
pinch of salt
1 cup of crumbled gingersnaps

Use a fork to poke holes around the sweet potato, then wrap in aluminum foil and baked in the oven at 400˚ for 45 minutes or until soft. Let cool to room temperature.

Pour the milk into a blender and add the brown sugar, sweet potato, cinnamon, rum and salt. Puree until very smooth, at least 30 seconds. If desired, press the mixture through a mesh strainer, using a flexible rubber spatula.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. During the last few minutes of churning, add the crushed gingersnaps.