Bagels and Bacon and Eggs..Oh My!

Yesterday I tried a new recipe for an egg strata from Rachael Ray. The recipe that I made was in the June 2016 issue of her Rachael Ray Every Day magazine that was given to me by a friend. This recipe caught my eye because of the way it was combining some fairly regular ingredients in a new and interesting way.

This strata recipe combined chunks of onion bagel, onions, eggs, swiss cheese, and pancetta into one single casserole. As I was putting the dish together it reminded me of some kind of combination between a egg bake and a french toast. By far my favorite part of prepping the dish was cooking down the onions. The onions were cooked down in butter and the pan drippings from the pancetta, and any time you get to cook in bacon/pancetta fat it's a fabulous thing. If it weren't so expensive and unhealthy I would eat bacon with every meal.

Onions cooking in butter and bacon fat

Once the dish was all put together, it sat for 10 minutes, and then baked for about 40 minutes. The directions say to bake for about 45 minutes, and since our oven tends to run hot I checked after 40 minutes and everything looked perfect. 

Finished onion bagel strata

I did make some changes to the recipe for my household: I didn't want to spend tons of money on pancetta, so I used some thick cut bacon instead, and everything turned out just fine. Similarly, I didn't want to spring for the expensive gruyere, so I used a nice swiss. It ended up being a little sweet, and really full of great onion flavor. Ultimately, the dish came out probably much similar to how it would without the substitutions, and I doubt that unless you were trying to make a REALLY good impression you wouldn't care on a day-to-day basis.

If you would like to try your hand at making Rachael Ray's Onion bagel strata, you can find the recipe on her website HERE. Happy cooking!

Simple scones

If you are like me, when you hear the word "scone" you picture some kind of difficult to make tea treat from some stuffy English drawing room that looks like it came right from the set of Downton Abbey, right?

Well you and I couldn't be further from the truth. Scones are a versatile and tasty treat, and they are good for breakfast or for an anytime treat. I was daunted by scones, until I found this recipe from Rachael Ray in a magazine. Her Raspberry Almond Scones are simple to make and are easy to customize. My wife asked me to make a batch of these as a grab-and-go breakfast for her, and she loves them. They are soft, fluffy, and oh so flavorful!

I did find that they spread a bit more than I initially expected which also led to them cooking faster than I had expected also, so keep an eye on these as you bake them. I will try to work on the method and recipe, and will share any tweaks I come up with or additional flavor combinations that turn out to be tasty.

Tea anyone?