The Best Brioche French Toast

This is an easy recipe for a cold morning! It is our family's traditional Christmas Morning breakfast. And the absolute best thing about it is that you can fix a lot at once and freeze slices in individual sandwich baggies and heat them in the microwave for breakfast all week (you can warm it in a toaster or oven after it thaws if you want it crispier.) Best served warm, fresh, and with butter or cream cheese and syrup.

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
• 2 cups milk
• 1 or more loaves sliced Brioche bread (Trader Joe's has a good one)

In a small casserole dish or flat-bottomed bowl, whisk together eggs and cinnamon with a wire whisk or hand blender until thoroughly mixed. Whisk in milk. Heat a nonstick pan or griddle (or cast-iron with nonstick spray) over medium-low heat. Briefly (as in "oops! I dropped my brioche in egg and milk mixture!") coat both sides of enough slices of the bread to cover the bottom of the pan or griddle without touching, placing each slice on the hot surface as you pull it from the egg mixture. Cook each side for about 3 minutes or until just golden, flipping once.

Note: Cinnamon incorporates best with just the eggs. If you add it after adding the milk, the cinnamon tends to clump. You can substitute pumpkin pie spices for the cinnamon, or powdered cardamom, or allspice. Experiment and have fun!

Frozen Yogurt

I like a good frozen yogurt as much as I do a good ice cream, and luckily I recently found, and slightly modified, a good recipe. You need some kind of ice cream maker to make this, but it generally takes much less time than any ice cream recipe I've made, either in prep time, or freezing.
This is not a low fat recipe. Substituting in low-fat ingredients will cause large ice crystals to form, which are poor for the texture of the frozen yogurt.
Enjoy!

Frozen Vanilla Yogurt

3 Cups Unflavored Whole Milk Yogurt
1 Cup Half and Half
2/3 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract (or put 2 Tablespoons Vanilla Sugar in the measuring cup before measuring out the sugar),

Mix all ingredients together and follow the instructions for your ice cream maker to freeze to a creamy texture.

Perfect Homemade Biscuits

You know how I usually go out and find a recipe and then modify it? Well, this morning I went looking for a new biscuit recipe for breakfast, and found a recipe that already had so many variations that I had trouble finding one of my own to try.
I did, but it was work.
I found This recipe at https://www.momontimeout.com/perfect-biscuits-every-time-recipe/ and it has distinct advantages over either my buttermilk biscuit recipe from the now-defunct Meemo's Kitchen, or even baking mix biscuits. It doesn't take anything I don't usually have in my pantry or refrigerator, it's as fast to make as baking mix biscuits (nearly) and it is easily modified. The stock recipe comes out very soft, and rather flaky. I'll include some suggested changes at the end of the instructions.
Here's the recipe for Perfect Homemade Biscuits!

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (optional)
• 3/4 cup COLD butter
• 1 egg (optional)
• 1 cup whole milk (skim works too)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
• The secret to excellent biscuits is COLD BUTTER. Really cold. Many times the biscuit dough gets worked so much that the butter softens before the biscuits even go in the oven. Try cutting the butter into small pieces and stick back in the fridge pulling out only when ready to incorporate into the dough.
• Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. 
• Use a pastry cutter to cut cold butter into flour mixture. Don't go too crazy here - you want to see small, pea-sized pieces of butter throughout the dough. 
• Add in the milk and egg and mix just until the ingredients are combined. The dough will be sticky but don't keep working it. You should be able to see the butter pieces in the dough.
• Turn the dough out onto a generously floured surface. Sprinkle some flour on to the top of dough so it won't stick to your fingers and knead 10-15 times. If the dough is super sticky just sprinkle on some additional flour.
• Pat the dough out to 3/4 - 1 inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter or glass. I ended up with nine this time but depending on who is snacking on biscuit dough, I can get up to 12 biscuits. [I got 12 on my first batch, 14 on my second, and who snacks on raw biscuit dough?-Edly]
• Place the biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet or parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown on top.
• For extra yumminess, brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter... [Your arteries will slam shut in delight!-Edly]

Modifications and notes:

Some of the ingredients are considered optional by the source.  They claim it is safe to leave out the cream of tartar, and that the egg is optional. They also say you can use buttermilk instead of whole milk, but you will have to use more because of how thick it is. UPDATE 12/20/2020: They're right about it taking more buttermilk. Today I made this recipe with the following modifications: 1 cup buttermilk instead of milk (I could have used a bit more.) 1 tablespoon of baking powder and 1 teaspoon baking soda instead of 4 teaspoons baking powder (1 tablespoon is 3 teaspoons, and buttermilk is slightly acidic, which activates the baking soda.) No cream of tartar (I couldn't find any.)

The first time I fixed them today (I made them for breakfast and dinner both) I made them exactly as outlined in the recipe above, only choosing not to brush the biscuits with additional butter after baking (there's so much butter in them already!) The second time I added about 2 tablespoons of plain yogurt to the one cup of skim milk I almost always use in my cooking. They came out a bit moister that way.

Either way, these are best eaten hot and straight from the oven. They are not nearly as good if allowed to cool.
After testing: You can make these biscuits ahead of time and freeze them before baking them, just like Pillsbury frozen biscuits. Place the already formed biscuits into a baking sheet and place it into the freezer for an hour or two, then put the frozen biscuits into a freezer bag and store them for up to several weeks and make them as you want them!

Updated Quiche Recipe

I've been making this recipe since my kids were still little, as you can see from reading my old posts, since after our trip to Disney World in Florida.
I never leave a recipe alone, and I figured it was time to update it. I found that the old recipe made too much for one quiche, not quite enough for two. So this is just a modified version of my old recipe.
Enjoy!

Quiche

2 prepared 9" deep-dish pie crusts or 3 regular 9" pie crusts
6 strips of cooked crispy bacon, coarsely chopped, or 2 cups chopped ham, or 1 cup cooked and thinly sliced bratwurst, or 1 cup cooked and crumbled breakfast sausage, or 1 cup diced cooked chicken or turkey breast, or 1 cup chopped artichoke hearts (or any combination. Just go nuts.)
2/3 cup minced onion
2 tablespoons diced green onions (optional)
3 cups shredded Swiss/mozzarella/Jack cheese (any works)
1/4 Cup shredded parmesan cheese
2 cups milk or half-and-half (anything from skim milk to half-and-half, you can combine milk and sour cream or plain yogurt for additional flavor)
9 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Divide the  meat/artichokes, minced onions, optional green onions, and Swiss cheese amongst the pie crusts. Whisk together the other ingredients and pour into the pie crusts, and top with the parmesan cheese. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 300 degrees and continue baking for another 30 minutes. Allow to cool for ten minutes before cutting into eight slices and enjoy while still warm.

Crunchy Cinnamon Almonds

I took my family to the Dickens Fair at the Cow Palace in Daly City for the first time this year, which I heartily recommend. I called it "The Christmas Renaissance Fair", which it resembles in its cosplay aspects. You can get in some shopping, watch fun stage plays, and eat food you don't find just anywhere, such as meat pies, or bangers and mash.
One thing we all enjoyed were freshly roasted Crunchy Cinnamon Almonds, served hot in a paper cone. If course I wanted to find a recipe for it, and I did at "The Chunky Chef".
Altogether now: and then I modified it...
Here's my version:

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 Cup packed brown sugar
1/2 Cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp powdered ginger
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
1 egg white
3 Cups raw almonds

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil, and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Mix together dry ingredients and set aside. Combine vanilla and egg white, and then whip to a froth using a wire whip or hand mixer. Mix in almonds, thoroughly coating them with the egg mixture, and then add the dry ingredients and stir to coat thoroughly. Turn out the mixture into the cookie sheet and spread out into a single layer. Bake for one hour, stirring them every 15 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before attempting to eat them. Store in an airtight container for up to a month.

Conversions

Folks-
Knowing how to increase or decrease the size of a recipe is important. To do it properly, you kind of have to know how to convert your volumes. Mostly because here in the U.S. we use units that are not related to each other in any logical way.
To help us all out, I'm going to put here some useful conversions, and update it as I remember some, and look up some conversion factors later.
One thing I should note is a convention i use here that my youngest found confusing: if I mean "one and a half" of something, I will write it as "1-1/2". My youngest read that as "one to one half" which is incorrect in several ways (I would go smaller to larger in a situation where there is a range anyway). I write it that way so you don't see "1 1/2" and because of the way your browser renders it, you think to yourself "eleven halves". That would also be incorrect. "1-1/2" is always "one and a half" on this site, just as "1-1/4" is "one and a quarter".

1 tbsp = 3 tsp (1/2 tbsp = 1-1/2 tsp)
1 fluid oz = 2 tbsp
1 cup = 16 tbsp = 8 fluid oz
Therefore, 1/4 cup = 4 tbsp = 2 fluid oz, and 1/8 cup = 1 fluid oz = 2 tbsp
1 pint = 2 cups = 16 fluid oz = 32 tbsp
1 quart = 2 pints = 4 cups = 32 fluid oz = 64 tbsp
1 gallon = 4 quarts

Spanish Rice

Folks-
Obligatory mea-culpa over how long it's been since I posted anything.
Now that I have that out of the way...
I've enjoyed making Spanish Rice as a side dish with my Smoky Southwestern Pot Roast (my first post here!) for several years now. I've found it especially easy to make, and a rather unexpectedly forgiving recipe. You can tell just how versatile it is from the options I give below. The key to making it is the Browning of the rice, and the rice to liquid ratio (follow the instructions for your rice. The below amounts are an average suggested amount.) Feel free to try your own variations! Anything you try here is going to be better than boxed, store-bought rice.
Here's my recipe for Spanish Rice:

2-4 tbsp cooking oil (vegetable, olive, grape seed, or sunflower)
2 cups long grain white rice
3 cups chicken stock OR beef stock OR vegetable stock OR water and bullion cubes to make a stock
1 cup finely chopped onion
1-2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste OR one cup chopped stewed no-salt tomatoes, drained OR one cup chopped fresh tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried oregano OR 1/2 tsp dried Italian spices

Optional (any or all of these):
1/4 tsp paprika or chili powder
1 tbsp chopped green pepper
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 - 1/2 tsp turmeric

Heat the cooking oil in a pot over high heat. Brown the rice just until it is somewhat translucent. Add the onion, garlic, tomato paste or tomatoes, and if you're using it, the green pepper, and continue to cook until the vegetables are tender. Add stock and spices and bring to a rolling boil. Cover and reduce heat to very low, and summer for 20 minutes. Do NOT lift the lid to check on it! Use a glass-top pot if you might want to do this. Turn the heat off and allow the rice to rest covered for five minutes before fluffing with a fork.
You can optionally stir-in a pound of browned and drained hamburger meat, diced and cooked chicken or turkey, shredded pork, or fish to make this a main-course, or serve it as a side-dish with my Smoky Southwestern Pot Roast, or with tacos, encheladas, or other Mexican foods.
Just try it already! It's a breeze! Honest!

Fried Chicken Strips

Folks-
Guess what? It's time for Fried Chicken Recipe III! This one is based on my last one, modified (you knew that was coming!) and tested on my family. This time they may not let me further modify it.
I served it this evening with mashed potatoes, gravy made from the oil from the chicken, fresh biscuits, and steamed asparagus spears. It was possibly the best meal I have ever made featuring chicken!
Here's my recipe:
Edly Fried Chicken Strips

1-Cup All-purpose Flour 
1/2-Cup Italian Bread Crumbs 
1/2-Cup Corn Flour or Masa
1-Tsp Salt
1-1/2-Tsp Italian Seasonings
1-Tsp Celery Salt
1-Tsp Black Pepper
1-Tsp Dried Mustard
4-Tsp Paprika
2-Tsp Garlic Salt
1-Tsp Ground Ginger
3-Tsp White Pepper
1-Tsp Turmeric
1/2-Tsp Chili Powder
1/2-Tsp Garlic Powder
1-Tsp Chicken Bouillon 
1/2-Tsp Baking Soda
2-Eggs
1/2-Cup Buttermilk
2-8 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts (about 2.5 to 3.5 lbs)
Enough cooking oil to fill a large frying pan 1/2" deep

Put all dry ingredients into a gallon sized Ziploc or similar bag and shake it to mix them together. Wash chicken breasts and cut into strips about  2 CM wide (1/2 inch). Beat eggs and mix with the buttermilk. Throw chicken strips, a few at a time, into the Ziploc bag and toss them in the powder to coat them.  Dip the chicken strips into the egg and buttermilk mixture, and throw them back into the Ziploc bag a few at a time and shake it to coat them. Place them on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet and place in the refrigerator to cool for 1 to 2 hours (No joke. Don't skip this step or the coating won't stick.)
Remove the chicken from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before frying. Heat about 1/2 inch (1-2cm) of cooking oil in a large skillet over medium heat to 350-380 degrees (use a thermometer). Put several strips into the oil. Fry until medium brown, about 4-5 minutes on the first side, flip and cook another 3-4 minutes. Remove from the oil and drain on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet (not on a plate with paper towels!) This keeps the chicken coating crispy. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

Chicken or Turkey Alfredo Lasagna

After Thanksgiving this year, I wanted something different to do with all of the leftover turkey. After a suggestion from a coworker, I looked up a Chicken Alfredo Lasagna recipe, and found a simple one on the Pilsbury website.
Repeat after me: “I modified it...” tested it on my family, and this is the result. It works just fine with either turkey or chicken, and in fact, might be the recipe most forgiving of changes or substitutions that I have on this site.

Chicken or Turkey Alfredo Lasagna

1 container (16 oz) ricotta cheese or small curd cottage cheese

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan, Romano and Asiago cheese blend (3 oz)

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt with parsley

1 cup chopped or thinly sliced onion

1/2 package (4 oz) sliced fresh baby portabella mushrooms or 1/2 7oz can mushroom stems and parts, drained

3 cups shredded deli rotisserie chicken (from 2-lb chicken) or Turkey breast meat, cooked and shredded

1/2 cups roasted red bell peppers (from a 12-oz jar), drained, cut into 1/2-inch strips

2-1/2 jars (15 oz each) four-cheese Alfredo pasta sauce

9 sheets rectangular instant lasagna noodles (7 1/8 x 3 1/2 inches)

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (8 oz)

• Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9- inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. In medium bowl, mix ricotta or cottage cheese, cheese blend and garlic salt; set aside. 

• In a large bowl, combine Alfredo Sauce, chicken, onions, muchrooms, and roasted peppers. Spoon about 2 1/3 cups chicken mixture in baking dish. Layer with 3 noodles, half of cottage cheese or Ricotta mixture and 1/2 cup of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers. Top with remaining 3 noodles, 2 1/3 cups chicken mixture and 1 cup mozzarella cheese. 

• Bake uncovered 50 minutes or until golden brown around edges. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Modified From: https://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/chicken-alfredo-lasagna/41f5c4fc-9779-4c36-a1f9-d01406c6183e

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Folks-
This is a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe with just a couple of subtle changes. Melting the butter, instead of using softened butter, is my dad's contribution. I also often use vanilla sugar thrown into the measuring cup before measuring out the white sugar. Tip: I use a 2-cup measuring cup most of the time. First I pack-in the brown sugar, then I finish by adding white sugar until it reaches the 1-1/2 Cup level. That gives you the most accurate measure of sugar for your cookies!

Ingredients
1 Cup (2 sticks) melted butter
3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
3/4 Cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 large eggs
2-1/4 Cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 Cups chocolate chips
Optional: 1 Cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Beat together butter, sugars, and vanilla extract until creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Add all other ingredients except chocolate chips and nuts and mix well. Mix in chocolate chips
From into 1-2 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 9-12 minutes. Allow to cool for 2 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Note: It's easy to use a mellon-baller to form these. They can be frozen for up to six months, and baked straight from the freezer.