Sunday 30 November 2008

Eat your leftovers.


I hope all the americans out there had a lovely thanksgiving. I'm not american, and I didn't celebrate american thanksgiving, but I do have a lot of fancy dinner parties. I kinda got to thinking about big fancy dinners, and wanted to remind you that almost half of our edible food ends up in the garbage. Please use your leftovers, okay? Being wasteful isn't a sign of celebration, it's a sign of stupidity and entitlement, neither of which is worth celebrating.

Now, on to the food:

The best part about weekends is having time to do stuff like this for breakfast.

Green tea and chestnut swirls: Green tea bread dough (spelt flour, matcha, sugar, salt, yeast, soy milk, little tiny bit of almond extract) with chestnut filling (okara, chestnut flour, maple syrup). I make the buns the night before and let them rise overnight. My kitchen is cold, so I just leave them on the counter, but if you live somewhere warm, or keep your heat on at night (and dammit, you'd better have a good reason for that one), you could let them rise in the fridge. This is a picture of the night before. I fogot to take a photo the next morning. The next morning, I bake them and have hot buns for breakfast. Served with icing (icing sugar, soy milk, almond extract). I like these because it looks like Dr.Suess made my breakfast.

For the leftovers, make bread pudding: cut up the stale bread or buns in chunks and soak overnight in just enough soymilk to cover them, with a tbs or two of flax seeds and some sugar (if you want it). The next morning, add almonds if you want 'em, dump the whole goopy mess into a greased cake pan and bake it up for breakfast. It will take about half an hour at 180C, which is just enough time to have a cup of coffee and/or make out with your weekend guest (brush your teeth first if you go for the second option). Once the pudding is done, sprinkle with matcha and/or sugar. You can do this with any stale bread, and it's especially good with these or old cinnamon buns/raisin bread. You can add chopped up pears and walnuts and a bit of cardamom (to plain white or whole wheat bread), chopped up apples (to cinnamon buns) or slices of bananas (to anything, as far as I'm concerned, but it's strikingly good with any kind of nutty bread), or if you're feeling really decadent, you can add chocolate chips to the puddings before baking them. Go crazy. There are no rules!

4 comments:

medici said...

Breakfast feasts like these make me want to stick my hands deep into my pockets (if available), close my eyes, and inhale happily. Tra la, la la, la la.

quietandsmalladventures said...

oooooohhh!! fantastic!!

sinead said...

Thanks! I have to admit that when I make stuff like this, I make extra on purpose just to have stale bread to make the bread pudding!

Actually, I find leftovers in general to be wonderful, either just for eating, or for transforming into something else yummy. I'm constantly amazed that people actually throw them out!

Anonymous said...

...Dr. Seuss, now there's someone I would have loved to have brunch with.