Sup! Hai! Heeeello! I know I’ve been gone. I have a good excuse. I do. I just can’t tell you about it quite yet. Ahhh! That’s so annoying!

But I’m making it up to you through the way of sharp cheddar, salty ham…incased in carbohydrates.

Think of it like almost like a ham and cheese sandwich but in biscuit form!

I’m thinking that this flaky biscuit is perfect for your weekend. Perfect for right now, even.

I haven’t posted a new biscuit recipe in a looong time (these Brown Butter Biscuits were the last ones!), which is surprising because they’re kind of my favorite thing to bake.

I love everything about biscuits.

And I get kind of nerdy about them sometimes. I’ve been known to stay up reading awesome articles about them, watching videos on biscuit making and wishing one existed with her…

The grating of the butter thing is my favorite. I actually grate the butter onto the flour mixture AND then stick it all in the freezer for 10 minutes. It gets everything super cold and makes it a whole lot easier to incorporate the butter into the flour.

I added the buttermilk and egg, mixed until barely combined and then added the grated cheddar and finely diced ham.

The trick to super flaky biscuits is to not overhandle the dough. I’m talking, dump it onto your counter and just press gently, using your hands, into a flat disc. Cut out the biscuits.

In the oven. And done! Enjoy them with some coffee. Maybe some tea, if that’s your thing. Might I suggest making some scrambled eggs and making a lil’ sandwich?

Monday! You and me have a date with cake. Don’t be late.

Ham and Cheese Buttermilk Biscuit

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1 1/2 stick (6 ounces) of unsalted butter
2 cups ap flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup buttermilk, plus 1 tablespoon, cold and shaken
1 large egg
1/2 cup shredded cheddar
1/4 cup finely diced ham

For Egg Wash:
1 large egg, beaten with a tablespoon of milk or water

1. Preheat oven to 450F.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the grated (or cubed) butter and transfer to the freezer for 10 minutes. When it’s done chilling, break up the butter with your hands until it resembles small peas in the flour.

4. In a measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk and egg.

5. Add the buttermilk mixture all at once to the flour mixture. Mix until barely combined. Add the shredded cheddar and finely diced ham. And lightly knead press into the dough. Sprinkle your kitchen counter with flour and dump the dough onto it. If it’s a bit shaggy, that’s okay. Knead a few times to bring it all together (4 to 5 times). Press or gently roll the dough into a 1-inch thickness. Cut out the biscuits using a 2-3 inch biscuit butter. You should get about 6 biscuits. You can recombine the scraps and get two more biscuits. Transfer them to a lined baking sheet.

6. If you think you’ve been moving a little slow (like I was because I was..ahem..taking pictures), stick them in the freezer for 2-3 minutes. This will get the bits of butter nice and cold again. After the biscuits are cold, brush the tops of with egg wash and bake in oven or 15-20 minutes, or until tall and golden brown. Serve biscuits warm with something awesome like eggs and bacon OR gravy.

Yields 8 biscuits

I arrived in Florida (where my parents live) exactly two days ago, on a red eye flight. I was sitting next to the most adorable baby in a onesie. We said hi, we smiled…we became friends.

And then she totally betrayed me. An hour into the flight, she started bawling her eyes out. And didn’t stop…for the. next. four. hours. Right then and there our friendship ended, obviously. Her poor mother…she was doing everything she could. Nothing worked.

So, instead of sleeping with my eyes closed, I tried to sleep with my eyes open. You know…where you just stare REALLY hard and try to take your brain to a newprettybetter world, like, immediately?

I thought about Christmas morning…oh Christmas morning. Does a cozier more lovely place even exist? I think not…

This year I have nothing to do with Christmas dinner. I bowed out since I cooked all of Thanksgiving dinner.

Instead, I’m on the sidelines mixing cocktails, making playlists, drinking cocktails…

I did, however, agree to get down on Christmas morning.

Last year I made this eggs benedict, PW’s cinnamon rolls and some spice hot chocolate.

In a couple days, I’m gonna make Joy’s pull apart bread (have you made this?!?!), some more spice hot chocolate, an apple cheese danish…and this quiche.

This quiche is so dreamy.

Sure there’s a bit of flour and butter mixing, and water mixing, and rolling out.

BUT you can do all of that the night before. Yes, that’s right. The pie crust can be made the day before, rolled out, put into its pie crust or tart shell..so it’s all ready for the next day. You can even mix up the filling if you like.

This way all you have to do is wake up, shuffle into the kitchen in your pjs, do a little pre-heat action and stick the thing in the oven.

An hour later, you’ll be met with this beautiful cheese, ham and spinach filled quiche.

I can’t think of a better breakfast to share with a bunch of people on Christmas morning.

I’m wishing you all a beautiful peace-filled Christmas.

Merry merry!

xo

Adrianna

Ham Spinach and Gruyére Quiche

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Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), cold and cubed
1/4 cup cold water

Egg Filling:
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 handfuls of spinach
4 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup cubed ham (sliced to a 1/4-inch thickness)
1/2 cup cubed Gruyére

1. In a medium bowl, mix the flour and salt together. Working quickly, and using your fingers, add the cubed butter to the flour mixture and break up until butter is in pea-size bits. Make a well in the center of the mixture, pour in 1/4 cup cold water, and incorporate it into the mixture it’s moistened and comes together forming a ball. Note: If you find it to be too dry, add a tablespoon at a time until it comes together. Wrap the disc of dough in plastic and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the handfuls of spinach and cook until wilted. Drain in a colander (or on a handful or paper towels) and set aside.

3. Pre-heat oven to 350F. In a medium bowl beat eggs together with cream, milk, salt and pepper.

4. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to a 12-inch circle (or just a bit bigger than your tart shell–mine was 9.5 inches). Fold the dough in half, place in a pie pan, and unfold to fit the pan. Gently press the inside bottom edges of the dough against the sides of the tart pan to eliminate any air bubbles. Roll the rolling pin across the top surface of the tart shell to cut off the crusts’ edges.

5. To the bottom of the tart shell, add the wilted spinach, cubed cheese and ham. Pour 3/4 of the egg mixture over top and transfer to a baking sheet. Place in oven on rack and top off with the remaining egg mixture (this way it won’t spill over!).

6. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour. The top of the quiche will be puffed and golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool slightly until serving. It’s delicious warm or at room temperature.

Recipe adapted from this Jacques Pepin video

This week mini-life lessons were just flying all around me. Wanna hear ‘em?! Of course you.

1. If you go to the movies with a boy and he ends up eating ALL of your Sour Patch Kid–that you specifically wanted to buy yourself so you didn’t have to share–and you find yourself annoyed, he’s not the right dude for you. You should WANT to share your Sour Patch Kids, you know?!

2. I just watched Clueless for the bajillioninth time and just realized it came out in 1995…WHAT?! That’s SO long ago. How is it still so amazing?! How are the clothes still relevant?! How do I STILL know practically every line in that movie?!

3. I call my mom too much. The woman has been out of the country for a week and I’ve reached for my phone to text/call her, like, a million times. It makes me feel like an orphan. So now I just email incessantly. And I’ve tried to call my dad to talk…but he just presses ignore, I think.

4. Don’t get addicted to those San Pellegrino Aranciata orange soda things. I’ve bought two six-packs in the past two days and now I’m kinda poor. Don’t go poor because soda. That’s just silly. Everyone knows if you’re gonna go poor because of anything it should be because of shoes.

5. Sweet potatoes aren’t yams. But yams are sweet potatoes. WHAT?! Good gracious, USDA, do you understand how confusing you’re making me/the entire country?

C’est la whatevsies!! I say we give them a new name.

Sweet potato is kinda boring and obvi, no?

Clementine potato? Tangerine potato? Creamsicle potato? OMG! I have it:

Aranciata Potato.

It’s like if my San Pellegrino orange drink obsession and a sweet potato did it in the back of a car. And had a child. It would totally be a Aranciata Potato.

Now that we’ve settled on the future of sweet potatoes/yams, let’s talk this hash.

This magic starts with lardons. Basically lardons are slab bacon cut up into 1/4″ cubes. They’re kind of like bacon bits. But bigger. Kind of. Not really. Why is life so confusing!?

No but really, lardons are just slab bacon cut into thick bits. That’s all.

It’s starts with them getting crispy and well cooked.

I then cooked the sweet potato and onion and added a few spices. That cooked up in about 20 minutes. I added the red pepper and garlic and lardons back, poached a few eggs…and BOOM! delicious breakfast.

Pro tips:

If you wanna make it veggie, leave out the bacon.

If you wanna make it vegan, leave out the bacon AND egg.

If you dig spicy, add a dash of cayenne or hot sauce. I bet it’d be major.

Anyway you choose to spin it, it’s super easy and amazing.

And P.S. That whole Sour Patch kids didn’t happen to me. It happened to my best lady friend. I would never eat Sour Patch Kids. Those things create too much saliva and I start gleeking involuntarily. #disgusting

Sweet Potato and Lardon Hash

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1/2 pound slab bacon, sliced into 1/4-inch sticks
Olive oil
1 sweet potato, cubed
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 eggs, poached

In a cast iron skillet (or any skillet), over medium-high heat, add the lardons and cook for 4-5 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked. Using a slotted spoon, remove the lardons and transfer to a paper towel to drain. Set aside.

Add a tablespoon of olive oil and when hot, add the sweet potato and yellow onion. Add the cumin, paprika, to the sweet potato mixture and mix. Stirring regularly, cook for about 15-20 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are cooked. Be sure to give the largest cubes of sweet potato a taste to make sure they’re thoroughly cooked.

Add the red bell pepper to the skillet and cook for 2-3 minutes. Next, mix in the minced garlic and cook until it becomes fragrant. Taste for salt and pepper and add what you think it necessary.

Place over low heat to keep warm while you poach the eggs. Add the lardons back to the hash and toss. Top with 3 poached eggs and serve.

Serves 2

I secretly LOVE Valentine’s Day.  I mean, how can I not? I LOVE love!  Here’s a small little list of what I’m loving right now:

I love my family dog, Chuck, mainly because he has weird habits like biting his nails and smelling his ear wax. He’s weird. Like me.  Also, his paws smell like chips, particularly Fritos.

I love my family because all of them, in their own way, have taught me how to be a human being.

I love my friends because they can make me laugh ’til I cry.

I love small stuff like sleeping in without having an alarm set, my tempur-pedic pillow, french pressed coffee…and…umm…this blog. I really do love this thing.

I love this sandwich with french pressed coffee.  I also love this sandwich with a glass of wine. That’s particularly why I love this sandwich, because it can go either way: breakfast or dinner.

Please make this for Valentine’s Day, or any day really, but especially tomorrow. Skip the terrible prix fixe menu, stay home, save some money and make this! Skip the expensive roses and instead get a small bouquet of ranunculus. Let’s go against the grain, people! Skip the lame teddy bears from the drug store and make somebody this sandwich…they can hug it, and this thing’ll hug back, I swear–it’s that good.

Croque Madame

Recipe by Gourmet

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5 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups whole milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

3 1/2 ounces coarsely grated Gruyère cheese (1 1/3 cups)

8 slices firm white sandwich bread

4 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1/2 pound thinly sliced cooked ham (preferably Black Forest)

4 large eggs

Make sauce:
Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a 1- to 1 1/2-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then whisk in flour and cook roux, whisking, 3 minutes. Whisk in milk and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, 5 minutes. Whisk in salt, pepper, nutmeg, and 1/3 cup cheese until cheese is melted. Remove from heat and cover surface directly with a sheet of wax paper.

Make sandwiches:
Spread 1 1/2 tablespoons sauce evenly over each of 4 slices of bread, then sprinkle evenly with remaining cheese (1/4 cup per slice). Spread mustard evenly on remaining 4 bread slices and top with ham, dividing it evenly, then invert onto cheese-topped bread to form sandwiches.

Lightly oil a 15- by 10-inch shallow baking pan.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately low heat, then cook sandwiches, turning over once, until golden, 3 to 4 minutes total. Remove from heat and transfer sandwiches to baking pan, then wipe out skillet with paper towels.

Preheat broiler.

Top each sandwich with 1/3 cup sauce, spreading evenly. Broil sandwiches 4 to 5 inches from heat until sauce is bubbling and golden in spots, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn off broiler and transfer pan to lower third of oven to keep sandwiches warm.

Heat remaining tablespoon butter in nonstick skillet over moderate heat until foam subsides, then crack eggs into skillet and season with salt and pepper. Fry eggs, covered, until whites are just set and yolks are still runny, about 3 minutes. Top each sandwich with a fried egg and serve immediately.