So here is what we snacked on Christmas morning while opening presents. This is also a great way to use up the odd piece of puff pastry you may have in your freezer after the holidays. Or, just go buy some puff pastry for the sole purpose of making these. That would certainly work too!

The original recipe is based on one by Ina Garten but I cut the butter way down. Seriously, I think the original recipe’s rolls would have been swimming in butter. I adjusted it to only 4 tablespoons total (about half of what was originally called for).

I also omitted the raisins and added the pecans to the filling, as many reviews mentioned that the pecans burned while on the bottom of the muffin tin.

Note: I put these together the night before up to getting them in the muffin cups. Then I wrapped them up tightly with plastic wrap and kept in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning I baked them. Worked really well!

Puff Pastry Cinnamon Rolls
Recipe adapted from the Barefoot Contessa
3 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp brown sugar, packed
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, defrosted

For the filling:
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans (mine were lightly salted and toasted)
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/4 tsp anise seeds

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Locate a jumbo 6 cup muffin tin. Combine the 3 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. Divide this mixture between the bottom of the six muffin cups.

In a bowl, mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans, orange zest and anise seeds.

Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold your sheet of puff pastry. Brush the whole sheet with the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle the sheet with the brown sugar/pecan mixture.

Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down.

Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces. Place each piece, spiral side up, in a muffin cup.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden on top and firm to the touch. Be careful - they’re hot!

Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns (you may have to do this one at a time, not just by flipping the muffin tin over) onto onto a plate. Use a spoon to spread any brown sugar/butter that stays in the cup, on top of the roll.

These are delightful eaten warm, but still delicious eaten at room temperature!

So here’s a Barefoot Contessa recipe I came across about a month or so ago, when I found the Lentil and Sausage Soup recipe. I am always looking for a new idea for granola makin’, so I decided to give it a shot. I did read through the reviews on the Food Network site and a lot of people said the bars (for these were originally Granola Bars) would not stay together and made good granola. There you go — granola.

Since I didn’t necessarily want these to stay in bar form (I wanted the crumbles!), I omitted the butter. A little healthier too. However, there is a lot of honey in this recipe, but it’s not like you are going to sit and eat all of this in one sitting. Unless you are jwa, and then who knows? It could happen…

I added dried lavender because why not? And also, I like the combination of lavender and honey.

Fruit & Nut Granola with Lavendar
Adapted from a recipe by Ina Garten
2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup assorted nuts — I use chopped whole almonds and pecans
1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
2/3 cup honey
2 tbsp light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp dried lavender
1 cup assorted dried fruit (I use cherries, blueberries & cranberries)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or spray an 15 by 10-inch baking dish (or somewhere around that size — like a pyrex lasagna pan) and line it with parchment paper.

Toss the oatmeal, nuts, pepitas, and coconut together in a bowl and then pour out onto a sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Watch these…they could get darker than you want. Check after about 8 minutes to make sure nothing is burning.

Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F.

Add the honey, brown sugar, vanilla, lavender and salt to the bowl with the warm oats and wheat germ mixture. Add the dried fruit and stir well.

Pour Spread the mixture out into the prepared pan. Wet your fingers, if needed and lightly press the mixture evenly into the pan.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown.

Cool for about 30 minutes and then break apart into nuggets of granola.

Store in an airtight container until you eat it all — maybe 4-7 days.

The other day, I found myself with a container of ricotta that needed to be used. The weather wasn’t really cooperating for something with pasta, so I set out to find a recipe for something a little different. I came across this one and thought, “Oh! I can use my oven on a 95F degree day!” and decided to make some muffins. Because I have no sense.

Anyway, I got these baked before it got too terribly hot out and was rewarded with delightful, melt-in-your-mouth, lemony, blueberry, almond-y muffins. Now, I normally make pretty healthy muffins but these are not those kind of muffins. These are ricotta cheese + butter kind of muffins. Sometimes, you just need to shrug and grab that stick of butter.

I used a jumbo six muffin cup pan. The recipe should also make 12 regular-sized muffins. In fact, with my bigger muffins, I had a little leftover muffin batter that I baked in a smaller dish. Oh and the almonds and sugar on the top is delicious, don’t skip that part if you can help it.

Lemon Ricotta Blueberry & Almond Muffins
Adapted from the recipe, Nonna’s Lemon Ricotta Biscuits, by Giada De Laurentiis
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 large egg
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup blueberries (I was a little under, between 3/4 and 1 cup)
1/3 cup almonds, either sliced or whole almonds that you have crushed up a bit
1 tbsp raw sugar for dusting the tops of the muffins (you can also use regular sugar)

Spray 6 large muffin cups or 12 regular-sized muffin cups with butter/flour spray. You can also line the cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl to blend.

Using an electric mixer, beat 1 cup sugar, butter, and lemon zest in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the ricotta.

Beat in the egg, lemon juice, and almond extract. Add the dry ingredients and blueberries. Stir just until blended. The batter will be very thick, almost like a scone dough.

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups.

Sprinkle the almonds and then the raw sugar over the muffins. If you have any extra muffin batter, put in in a small, buttered & floured, oven-safe dish and bake that along with the muffin pan.

Bake until the muffins just become pale golden on top, about 20-25 minutes.

If you are using the 6 jumbo muffin cup size, it will be closer to 25 minutes. Cool slightly in the muffin pan.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

This was truly an experiment and it was a good one. I generally have mediocre success with poaching eggs and I have never made hollandaise before. But here, everything seemed to turn out pretty well. I think this was mainly due to my sitting down and planning out how to make all this so everything was done around the same time. I did some stuff early (the bell peppers and the Canadian bacon) and made sure I mise en placed!!! it all. Ha!

I took my eggs out of the fridge about an hour before using, so they would be room temperature-ish. This may have helped. I also just accepted the fact that my whites might get a little messy. They did. There was still a little yelling. But, mimosas helped take the edge off all the poaching egg related stress (PERS).

The blender hollandaise sauce might be cheating a little but …who cares? I was super pleased with the results. Light and lemony, it was delicious! I made 2/3’s of the original recipe, as there were only two of us. And although I didn’t use it all, I thought that would be easier than only using one egg yolk plus less butter and taking the chance that there wouldn’t be enough of it in the blender to emulsify correctly.

Dilemma: I have about two tablespoons of hollandaise left in the fridge. I am tempted to make a veggie sausage patty-zuccchini muffin sandwich tomorrow am, and dip it in the leftover hollandaise sauce. Hmmm….

Eggs Benedict
2 English muffins, split & toasted
1 tsp olive oil
4 slices Canadian bacon
1 red bell pepper, cored and cut into strips
4 eggs
1 tbsp cider vinegar
salt & pepper
1 tsp fresh tarragon, chopped

Blender Lemony Hollandaise
Recipe adapted from Tyler Florence
2 egg yolks
1/3 lemon, zested
1/3 lemon, juiced
3/4 tsp dry mustard
2 tbsp water
Pinch cayenne pepper
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 stick unsalted butter, melted (yeah, 1 stick, that’s what I typed…)

Preheat the skillet over medium heat and add the oil. Next add the bell pepper strips and a little salt & pepper.

Saute for 5-6 minutes until soft and a little golden in places. Remove from the pan and cover with foil.

Return the same skillet to medium heat and add the Canadian bacon slices. Give them abut 1 minute per side until you have some color. Remove from pan and cover with foil. If you are making breakfast potatoes, add more oil to the same pan, return to heat and cook the potatoes in this same pan. This is what I did, mmmm… Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, if you are doing other things (potatoes) get them within a few minutes of being done.

Then, fill a nonstick skillet up with about 3 inches of water. Add some salt and the vinegar. Crack you four eggs into ramekins. Bring your pan of water to a simmer. When bubbles are starting to appear (but it’s not boiling), pour the eggs in, turn off the heat, and cover it up with a lid. Set a timer for about 3.5 minutes

Hollandaise: Put the egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, mustard, cayenne, water, salt and pepper into a blender.

Blend together and then slowly start pouring in the hot, melted butter with the blender running. Stop the blender when all the butter has been incorporated.

Taste and adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Thin the hollandaise with a little warm water, if it is too thick.

Putting it Together

Put two halves of an English muffin on a plate and top with the Canadian bacon slices. Then divide the bell pepper slices between the muffins. (If you need to rewarm the peppers and bacon, just put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

Use a slotted spoon to remove your eggs and place an egg on each muffin slice. Top with some hollandaise and chopped tarragon.

* There weren’t a lot of pictures of the actual egg poaching and hollandaise blending because it’s hard to do all that and take pictures too!

First off, I love cheese so I knew I would love these scones (and I did). Dorie Greenspan knows how to bake, that’s for sure.

But, I kind of messed up and had less cheddar than I thought I did. A travesty! I rummaged around the fridge and came up with some Robusto cheese (kind of a cross between gouda and parmesan). I used about half cheddar and half robusto.

Was that it? Well, no. I couldn’t find any dried apple pieces at the store by me and so it was between dried mango pieces an apple chips. Yeah, apple chips — the kind that come in a bag like potato chips. What the hell, full steam ahead, I used those for the apple (although, I am intrigued by the thought of mango).

My substitutions aside, these were great. I can only imagine how good they are with the correct ingredients! The one other thing I did differently, is I brushed a little milk on the top of each and on half, I grated extra robusto. On the other half, I sprinkled a little raw sugar (I love sparkly scone tops). The verdict: I liked them with both sugar and cheese! So did jwa. They are all gone. The end.

I got 9 scones. Expect anywhere from 8-12 scones depending on how big you cut them.

Cheddar Apple Scones
From Baking From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan
1 large egg
1/2 cup cold buttermilk
1/4 cup cold apple cider or unsweetened apple juice
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup finely diced dried apples
Optional: 1 tbsp milk, a little extra grated cheese and/or a little raw sugar

So sad, only about a 1/3 cup of cheddar…

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Next, stir the egg, buttermilk and apple cider together.

Whisk the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour.

Quickly, working with your fingertips or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You’ll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between - and that’s just right.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until the dough, which will be very wet and sticky, comes together. If there are still some dry ingredients in the bottom of the bowl, stir them in, but try not to overdo the mixing. Stir in the grated cheese and dried apple.

Still in the bowl, gently knead the dough by hand, or turn it with a rubber spatula 8 to 10 times. Then, because the dough is very sticky, the easiest thing to do is to turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface, pat it into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick and, using a dough scraper or a chef’s knife, cut it into 12 roughly equal pieces. You can just spoon out 12 equal mounds onto the baking sheet.

Place the scones on the baking sheet. (At this point, the scones can be frozen on the backing sheet, then wrapped airtight. Don’t defrost before baking - just add about 2 minutes to the baking time.) If you are adhering stuff to the top, brush each scone with a little of the milk and add the cheese and/or sugar.

Bake the scones for 20 to 22 minutes, or until their tops are golden and yoru kitchen smells delicious.

Transfer them to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before serving, or wait for the scones to cool to room temperature.

We had these with a Sunday breakfast that also included some potato, red bell pepper and zucchini hash with poached eggs.

I kind of just made that up or I’d list the recipe. Add the diced potatoes, garlic and onions to a pan with olive oil, then after a few minutes add the bell pepper and zucchini. Salt and pepper. When it’s all looking kinda golden and good, it’s done. Poach eggs. East scones. Mmm!!