Twofer: Easy Cheese Danish and Omelet for Two

It's no secret that my favorite meal of the day is breakfast. Why? Well, it's a meal that's comprised of all my favorite things: fresh, hot baked goods, cheese, bacon, lovely jams, potatoes, butter, coffee beverages and even STEAK sometimes! I didn't even mention asparagus with hollandaise or maple sausage patties until now. If it really wasn't for Joel, I'd probably have pancakes for dinner once a week, foregoing all vegetables and justifying my carb-fest by eating some strawberries, rolling my eyes and saying, "Whatttt? It's fruit."

Sometimes I like to make a "breakfast at dinner" meal. It's easy to throw together and when I make an accompanying salad, I feel oddly French and superior. "Look at moi! I am making zee elegant menu du jour that is tres jolie!" Even though, I'm only making, you know, scrambled eggs.

The mood to make a breakfast dinner struck me the other day and I turned to Ina for suggestions. The omelet for two and easy cheese danish seemed like the perfect, and decadent option.

First up, here's the mise en place for the cheese danish:

I'm going to take a moment here to shout out Trader Joe's puff pastry. It is AWESOME. There are two sheets in the box, and unlike the other brands, you don't need to unfold it, so there aren't any creases. I've found quite a few uses for it so far and always keep it on hand since I can whip up some delicious cheese straws quickly when company comes over. Highly recommended.

So, first we make the filling. Cream the cream cheese and sugar until smooth:


add lemon zest and vanilla.


Mix together until the filling is smooth. I didn't want to take out my hand mixer so I did it by hand. It would be smoother with a mixer, but mine was pretty smooth anyhow.


Spoon the filling on the puff pastry and pinch the opposing corners together. This puff pastry square is slightly smaller than the Pepperidge Farm one, so there was actually way too much filling. Since I didn't want to waste it, I tried to spoon in as much as I could. As you can see, my danishes are bulging dangerously.


The recipe calls for placing the danishes in the refrigerator to firm up a bit. In the meantime, I will start the omelet for two. Here is the mise:

What's that in the middle? Is it... bacon??

Yes it is. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. A moment, please.


My, my. What to do with that bacon fat. Fry some potatoes in it of course!


While the potatoes finish cooking, whisk the eggs and milk together with seasonings. Oh yeah, and put the danish in the oven to bake!


Yay! Potato and bacon bowl. Seriously, I could stop right here and be happy.


Here we go... omelet time. Now, in this recipe you only cook the omelet on the stove until the bottom sets. Then you pop it into the oven to finish.


Here is the omelet straight out of the oven!


Ditto with the danish. As you can see, my danish exploded open due to the amount of filling. Don't worry. Totally worth it.


Easy Cheese Danish


The result: Fantastic of course. How can you really go wrong? the danish was really easy to make and very tasty. The filling wasn't too sweet or too cheesy. It was light and eggy. I would definitely make this again, but I might chop the zest a little finer next time. It wasn't a big deal or anything, but I personally would just like it a little finer. The omelet was delish. It looks like a huge thing, but I actually only used one potato and three strips of bacon with the 5 eggs for two people, so it probably ended up the same size as a restaurant omelet. I can see making lots of variations on this recipe since it came together so quickly. Maybe some sausage and cheese or spinach with the potatoes. It's more a method of cooking instead of the actual ingredients. Joel loved everything, so there's hope yet that the all breakfast all the time diet could work out. ^-^ Overall, this was a very pleasant meal and we had leftover danish for the next morning. Fabulous!

Chicken Piccata

Note from management: We here at The Barefoot Kitchen apologize for the tardy updates. We've experienced some technical difficulties that have now been fixed. You may now return to your regularly scheduled food blog.

I had pictures. I was going to do a lovely Thanksgiving edition with not one, but two dishes. I made a lovely spinach gratin as well as roasted butternut squash for Thanksgiving dinner. The process was lovingly documented. Then, with one slip of the finger, my camera's memory card was erased leaving me quite despondent. I could have cooked during the long holiday weekend. Instead, I chose to sulk and watch Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York back-to-back.

But I was back in the kitchen last night and tried out a recipe I had been meaning to make for a long time: Chicken Piccata.

I love chicken piccata. The sauce has a nice crisp taste and if there is cream in the sauce, it tastes rather luxurious and silky. Considering that the ingredients are inexpensive, you get a lot for your money and can easily entertain with this recipe.

Ina's recipe for chicken piccata particularly appealed to me because it does not include capers. Whatttttt?! I know! Capers are always in piccata! That's just craziness! Well, Ina doesn't put them in her piccata. And since I am not fond of capers, I went with it.

Here are the ingredients - pretty basic stuff. I'll tell you right here that I didn't fully follow the directions. The recipe in the book called for regular chicken breasts that you flatten. I opted for the 30 Minute Meal timesaver and bought thin-sliced chicken cutlets. I know I'm getting less chicken that way, but the time and effort saved is well worth it for me.



Here's a shot of the pristine dredging and breading station before the flour is everywhere, egg is dripping and breadcrumbs are clumpy.



When I took a cooking class a few years ago, the instructor told us that we really only wanted a fine coating of flour. It was very important to get rid of the excess flour, so she recommended "spanking" the flour off. I am not joking. She showed us by lightly spanking the chicken breast she was holding. It works. The excess flour fell off and the chicken had a really delicate dusting. It works better than just shaking the excess flour off. So yes, I spank my meats.

I also wanted to mention that I have quit using regular breadcrumbs for the most part. Ina's recipe calls for regular breadcrumbs, so that is what I used, but in all other instances I now use panko. Now panko is nothing new to me since I am Japanese. However, its suddenly become the darling of Food Network chefs. They all pronounce it
"paan-ko" or "pank-o." Given, it does look like the word "pancake" so I can understand, but it still hurts the ear. Its "pahnko." Anyway, I now use panko in all the places I used to use breadcrumbs - all breaded meats, meatloaf, and gratin tops. I find that it's just lighter and browns better.

Here is the chicken browning in the saute pan. It will finish cooking in the oven. I have to watch this carefully as I'm prone to burning breading.



The finished chicken. The oven has made the breadcrumbs very crunchy. Yay!



Time to make the sauce. This sauce is very quick and easy to make. I think it really only takes about 5 minutes. All the ingredients go into the pan. Ina says to add the juiced lemon rinds to sauce to infuse more lemon taste. I'm a little scared. Ina really likes her citrus. This could be really strong.



I'm just noticing that in my pictures, the lemon rinds look rather ... nipply. Anyway, the sauce reduces and I take it off the heat and add some butter to thicken it. Here is the finished sauce:



Here is the finished product plated. I think it looks rather good! I don't garnish it with lemon slices, but the drizzled sauce over the top and the parsley it quite presentable. Good enough for dinner anyway!



The Review
Excellent! I am so in love with this dish, I really am. I thought adding the lemon rind would make the sauce over powering, but it didn't. It's very good. Adding some half and half or cream would make it sooo good and very wicked delicious. Finishing the chicken in the over was a good choice. It wasn't overcooked and the coating was very crunchy. I still think it would have been better with the panko, but cannot say that the regular breadcrumbs weren't tasty. I served the chicken with some mashed potatoes and a salad. Joel, who is not crazy about lemon-flavored foods, was happy with the recipe and said that he would happily eat it again. Very good recipe and I highly recommend it.